From The Breeders to Nirvana: The 10 best albums produced by Steve Albini
Most producers tend to have distinct fingerprints on every record they worked on. You aren’t going to mistake Jeff Lynne for sounding like anyone else behind the vocal booth, and Mutt Lange has done a fine job at making artists sound as close to perfection as possible whenever he steps behind the board. The best thing you can do is to let artists by themselves, and the late Steve Albini made a living out of celebrating the discrepancies.
That was always a facet of Albini’s work, both with his various bands and in his producing role. A skilled musician, Albini subscribed to the notion of letting one’s feel for the music override any kind of unwarranted technical prowess. Albini believed that real music was made in the heart and soul, and for the most part, you could leave the mind out of it.
Because the last thing that you would call most of Albini’s productions is layered. There may be the occasional lift in the track, but the lion’s share of every one of his mixes is about being as unrefined as possible, usually leaving in every piece of the band’s performance and even amplifying some of the negative aspects of it.
Although those blemishes would have been considered audio artefacts in the mix, they give every one of his albums a distinct character, either sounding deliberately unsophisticated or an absolute mess, depending on what the artist was going for. When combing through his catalogue of chaos, those few diamonds stick out and shine brighter than some producer’s entire discography.
While Albini often had his finger on the pulse of everything in indie rock, there are always those occasional songs that stick out as something special that could have only come from capturing a specific moment. It might be the easiest thing to listen to half the time, but music like this isn’t supposed to be nice. It’s supposed to shake you up, and Albini has done his fair share of shaking.
10 best albums produced by Steve Albini:
10. Atomiser – Big Black
Albini was always a punk at heart. From the first time he got involved with music, he was keen on making the kind of music that could scare someone half to death or annoy them to the point of never wanting to turn on that music again. It certainly wasn’t for everyone, but when Albini first got started with Big Black, Atomiser was one of his first opportunities to work behind the board.
Although Albini took a back seat throughout most of the production, his determination to make the filthiest music possible isn’t lost on anyone. The songs might sound like absolute mayhem half the time, but the lyrics are much more poignant than most would have given them credit for, eventually inspiring people like Dave Grohl when he first started hearing them in Chicago. Atomiser may have been described as “lease-breaking” music by many, but Albini’s dissonant noise was his first step toward becoming a musical giant. It would lay the foundations of an impressive career.
9. Viva Last Blues – Palace Music
If you really think about it, folk seems to be the last place for a guy who once fronted Big Black. He may have had his mellow moments, sure, but the man responsible for some of the most abrasive punk rock of the 1980s suddenly embracing acoustic guitars is like watching Angus Young develop a taste for mariachi-style guitar playing. There’s a definite divide between the genres, but Viva Last Blues makes that divide seem like nothing at all.
What Albini might not have experienced with raw rock and roll, he made up for by knowing the sound of someone’s heart. Throughout the album, Will Oldham opens himself up to his audience, and Albini knew that his job was about capturing that emotion on tape rather than trying to take the opportunity to grandstand. There may be a few distinct touches in the production here and there, but when looking at how much Oldham put into every song, this feels like the album that should be listed as ‘recorded by Steve Albini’ rather than produced by him.
8. Comfort – Failure
Failure seems to be unfairly written out of the story of alternative rock half the time. While some connoisseurs might know tracks like ‘Stuck On You’ from the late 1990s boom of alt-rock, their style always toed the line between listening to the heaviest band you’ve ever heard combined with the melodic hooks of a 1960s-style rock and roll band. Fantastic Planet may have been a few years ahead, but Albini helped the band get in touch with their feral side when they first walked into the studio.
Despite being one of the heavier bands to come out of the late 1990s, Comfort borders on metal in places for how cutthroat it can get, as Albini pushes everything as far as he can. Even though some of the guitars sound fuzzy as hell, it’s less about pushing the volume and more about adding texture, making the song sound like it’s settling into a hypnotic groove rather than hitting you with flashy solos. Failure would get a lot prettier from here, but what they made in their prime could never have been without Albini laying down the ropes first. It was through his sturdy production techniques that the group was allowed to gild their output with a few more grams of gold.
7. Journal for Plague Lovers – Manic Street Preachers
By the time the Manic Street Preachers reached the 2000s, they had already done enough soul-searching for any band to have to endure. Although the band may have started out in the glam tradition with Richey Edwards, their pivot towards straight-ahead rock following their songwriter’s disappearance felt like starting at ground zero again. They had already been working out the bugs for years, so now that they were back on track, why not strip everything down again?
Compared to the other pointed entries in the band’s catalogue, Albini helped turn this album into their unique take on art rock, putting together their usual cynical lyrics with tracks that seem to switch between different styles depending on what the lyrics call for. It’s not exactly the easiest Manic Street Preachers album to start out with, but once you’ve sunk your teeth into their classic work, this is what it sounds like when they are finally stripped down to their raw essence. It’s not the first record one thinks of when thinking about Albini’s body of work, but it lands with a hefty aplomb.
6. Pod – The Breeders
From the minute that he worked with Nirvana, it seemed like everyone wanted a piece of Steve Albini. Despite being one of the last people that music executives would describe as ‘commercial’, the alternative rock scene saw dollar signs when looking at his rap sheet with other famous names. While Albini eventually worked his magic for post-grunge acts like Bush, his heart was always in making the real alternative stars like The Breeders.
Formed from the ashes of Pixies, The Breeders’ Pod feels like the lost Kim Deal solo album we never got. Although most of the album was formed out of songs that Deal had written on her own, this feels like a different animal with Albini behind the board again, stripping away the polished production of the last few records in favour of something that sounds like the band making sonic architecture on the spot.
Considering this was released in 1990, it feels like Kurt Cobain could have taken his entire ethos for In Utero directly from this album, making Albini the only choice for the record.
5. Ys. – Joanna Newsom
It’s not exactly fair to judge Albini as this angry producer who only makes the most abrasive music possible. Albini may have a penchant for getting the most unhinged performances he can out of anyone he works with, but there’s much more to authentic recording than just capturing the raw material. It’s about setting up a scene, and Joanna Newsom’s Ys is one of the prettiest records he has ever made.
Then again, there isn’t much that Albini could possibly improve regarding Newsom’s voice, taking the same kind of earthy production of his previous effort and pairing it with one of the best voices in indie music. Whereas other aspects of Albini’s work have felt like expressionist paintings set to music, Newsomeis looking to paint intricate masterpieces, never being satisfied until the entire track feels like it’s breathing on its own. It might not be as produced as other folk albums, but songs don’t always need a sonic sheen to shine this bright.
4. Walking Into Clarksdale – Page and Plant
The ending of Led Zeppelin felt like the wind had been knocked out of the entire music industry. They seemed like titans among men, and John Bonham’s death reducing them to just ordinary musicians without a band was impossible to conceive of. There was a slim chance the band would ever get back together again, but Albini got the next best thing when Jimmy Page and Robert Plant decided to reminisce.
While Walking Into Clarksdale is anything but a traditional rock and roll record, Albini’s signature touch to production helped get the most out of the two rock titans, with Plant turning in some of his best vocal performances. Rather than try to make the masterpieces that Page could do on guitar, a lot of the album feels like you’re given a look into a jam session in the middle of the studio, featuring the band improvising stuff on the fly, depending on where the music’s taking them. It’s no Zeppelin, something which would have ultimately disappointed the punk Albini, but there are some faint wisps of the band they could have become had ‘Bonzo’ not passed away.
3. Rid of Me – PJ Harvey
As the 1990s began, the riot-grrl movement was just underway. Whereas the first punk movement may have been about liberation from rock and roll traditions, this was the moment where everyone from Bikini Kill was setting their sights on becoming the female counterparts to the first wave, making songs that were intended to be a middle finger back at the patriarchy. Whereas many people wanted to be the female John Lydon, PJ Harvey used Albini to turn her into the punk rock Bob Dylan.
While Albini’s production style didn’t leave that much room for people to hear the lyrics, you’re hanging on every word Harvey says whenever she steps up to the microphone. Whether that’s covering Dylan, talking about her place in the world or dumping out the occasional love song, this is probably one of the best examples of Albini working with an eclectic range of styles.
He may have been the thorn in the side of professional recording sometimes, but no amount of studio trickery can replace performances like this. It was Albini’s nature that gave his artists the courage to stand up and be unafraid of what they let loose in the studio. This was his most sincere skill.
2. Surfer Rosa – Pixies
Every producer has to get their start somewhere. No one is going to rise right out of the gate and convince themselves that their first gig is going to be working with Brian Wilson or Paul McCartney. That was never Albini’s style, anyway, but his first go-around with Pixies had a certain lightning-in-a-bottle energy that was impossible to duplicate on the band’s later records.
Since production veteran Gil Norton would become famous for making the future Pixies albums, hearing Albini’s laid-back production on Surfer Rosa is actually a breath of fresh air. Considering how perfect some of their later material sounds, tracks like ‘Where Is My Mind’ and ‘Gigantic’ feel like Albini captured a specific moment in time, taking the basis of what the band had done already and making it shine just a little bit more.
Considering how much banter they left in the final mix, the whole thing feels like the greatest alternative band of all time that just happen to be performing down the street. It is the epitome of what made Albini such a vital cog in some of the greats’ finest work.
1. In Utero – Nirvana
By the end of 1992, Kurt Cobain wanted anything but clean production for the next Nirvana record. Nevermind may have given them fame and fortune, but no one wanted the band to go from indie darlings to one of the biggest bands in the world overnight. It was time for a change, and Cobain figured that the best way to make the anti-commercial record was to get Albini for In Utero.
Compared to Butch Vig’s slick sounds on the last record, Albini leaves every blemish in In Utero, capturing the sound of the band playing as raucous as they can. In this case, that’s not really a bad thing, especially considering the band wanted to make the louder, raw counterpart to Nevermind, which gave ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ and ‘Pennyroyal Tea’ a real kick in the ass.
Even though it can be pretty when it wants to be, Cobain’s unintentional epitaph for his career captures both the raw beauty and the rock and roll juggernaut that Nirvana had always been. It goes down as Albini’s most celebrated work, distilling his warts and all ethos for making music.