Who do you wish had made music with Steve Albini recording/engineering?

Either for the amazing stories or for the amazing music that would have emerged. Anachronistic timelines, like answering Elvis in '55, are fine for this thought experiment.

My first thought was Minutemen.

Somebody on a Neil Young thread once mused that he should have followed up Le noise with Al Beanie.

yeah Minutemen, and Gang Of Four

I know he worked with High On Fire, I would have loved to have heard what he'd have done with Sleep.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

This probably won't mean anything to people outside the Twin Cities, but there was an incredible live band from the area called the Blind Shake, and they made like six studio LPs, none of which came remotely close to capturing the intensity of their live sound. I always wished they would do something with Albini to see if he could capture it.

yeah neil/crazy horse/albini probably should have happened.

otherwise, i always wondered what the pj harvey albums would have sounded like if she had stuck with him. nothing else about her trajectory would be different, just is this desire? "recorded" by steve albini.

I'm not sure if a teengenerate record by albini would be a colossal mistake, revelatory clarity, or exactly the same as every other teengenerate record given albini's non-interference policy.

at the same time, I can't tell the difference production-wise between any of the high on fire albums.

I wish he'd worked with Motörhead. It probably would have been a disaster, though, as Lemmy liked to write in the studio.

JRN - agreed on Blind Shake, one of the greatest live bands I've ever seen in my life but the records made them seem kind of like a garage rock band

I know he worked with High On Fire, I would have loved to have heard what he'd have done with Sleep.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, May 9, 2024 1:00 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

not even dealing in specifics but between High on Fire, Neurosis, and SUNN, I wish he would have worked with more metal bands, he was such a good metal producer

ums, that was almost exactly what I was going to add, just more metal bands in general could have been cool, feel like a lot of low-end heavy doom and stoner bands could have sounded great coming out of Electrical.

Did Albini record any synth heavy groups? Would love to hear analog synths and other electronics run thru his studio process.

Dream Production: Maybe Throbbing Gristle when they were back together in the early 00’s?

A band I was in did some sessions with Steve but there is one session in particular that we didn't and I've still mad about, so that one

I wish he'd done a Last Exit record, a Cecil Taylor record, AC/DC, ZZ Top, etc, etc

AC/DC is a great one. I think I read an interview where he said he would've liked to work with them. That would've been awesome (potentially)

I’d been relistening to the Low albums Albini worked on prior to his passing and was dreaming of a world where he’d taken a stab at their BJ Burton albums but also with Zak Sally back in the fold.

Did he ever work with Lou Reed?

No recordings of Glenn Branca symphonies ever came close to the full effect of seeing it in the flesh, if anyone could have captured the overtone blast it was probably Alby Knee. But they're both gone now so we'll never know.

fleetwood mac

I know it wasn’t his wheelhouse but would love to see how sessions with Gary Numan or Depeche Mode would turn out.

given how she walks the territory between Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet and Nina Nastasia, and is giant of guitar and quiet of voice, I wish Shana Cleveland had done something

Thin White Rope comes to mind immediately - good albums, tremendous live shows. Otherwise, I would have loved to hear how he would have handled any of the NZ underground: Dead C, King Loser, The Clean, Bailter Space

If he had recorded 'Melt' by Straitjacket Fits that would have been great, and possibly closer to the Peel Sessions versions of the tracks, whoever recorded and mixed that album should be kicked in the ass.

haha extremely otm

Jordan once suggested Albini's approach could work great with New Orleans brass bands, which makes a ton of sense.

it appears we can blame some guy named Gavin McKillop for ruining the Straitjacket Fits album

I'm not sure I'd want to change anything about the Clean but Dead C and Bailter Space yeah definitely

xpostz shana+la luz definitely an inspired choice!

David Sylvian would be interesting. Feel like he'd dig the timbre/textures of a killer Albini recording.

drive like jehu/hot snakes

Please Please Me era Beatles.

Liars

The first two Pretenders albums.

an '88 albini engineered nomeansno record with shoehorned/foisted tape edits & "skinng" guitar would've been fun

Hüsker Dü...?

I thought about Husker Du. Maybe not all of Husker Du, but I can imagine New Day Rising gaining something, or maybe it would be a completely different thing.

At least their drums wouldn't have sounded like a typewriter slathered in reverb.

Dick Dale

new day rising is the peak of 80s alt rock producution and albini would have fucked it up entirely. spot should have done all their albums in fact. if you don't like the popcorn drums and protogaze guitar noise you should listen to shellac instead

i've been thinking about this a lot the past few days and i've been trying to think of a band who never really made a definitive statement of purpose. a band that had the capabilities (and hype) to reach another level, just needed to bridge the scenes.

and the one that i keep coming back to is mos def's black jack johnson. working in record stores when the new danger came out, it's hard to convey the amount of hype behind the band. they're still well-respected and remembered but they never made a complete record. i really do think the no-nonsense albini approach would have served them best.

and that would have been good pr gold for albini's staunchness re:Black music.

Stereolab circa 1991-93

the clean or king loser done by albini woulda stunk appallingly imo

dead c ok tho he can polish that turd

The Rolling Stones

prince

wynton marsalis

lol okay i'll stop

I think it would have been pretty cool if he had done an album with/for Sun City Girls

Unless Albini stops Bob Mould from running his MXR Distortion plus straight into the board, those Husker Du records would be the same, except even more (and probably even harsher).

The treble-heavy hissy top end of those albums was a Mould and Hart thing, not a Spot thing.

otm

I think there’s also the expectation that punk/underground/metal bands go into the studio wanting to capture an honest snapshot of their live sound, and with Albini’s rep it makes sense that he’s one of the go-to guys on that.

When that doesn’t happen, there’s often the consensus that as the recording doesn’t reflect that, that it was a failure rather than the reality at times, which is the band actually wanted a weird sounding record. Which can be jarring if you’re a “live band” who seemingly lives on the road

Angel Olsen in the Burn Your Fire For No Witness/My Woman era

/\very inspired thought.

Generally when engaging in this kind of fantasy stuff, I’m more inclined to think about how many artists would’ve benefitted from a Martin Hannett or Joe Meek production, had they lived— I feel like Albini covered a lot of ground where those other two had much more they could’ve done

That said I think Albini would’ve made a brilliant engineer for Television, that’s an album I wish existed

oh yeahhhh this ^^^ 100%

Trail of Dead

They'd clash for several reasons (incongruent levels of appreciation for keyboards, background vocals, soul, etc.), but the first 30 seconds of "Bank On Your Love" from that classic avatar of '80s drum-tastic production - Daryl Hall & John Oates' "Big Bam Boom" - provides a clue to what it would sound like with Seven-Card Stevie behind the boards

Generally I wish Albini had recorded more New Wave music, which I might assume he’d have no personal taste for, but would be interesting to hear his work on— Clues era Robert Palmer, The Flying Lizards, an actual B-52s album, or Pylon for that matter… surprised in retrospect he never recorded Flying Luttenbachers (unless he did and I didn’t know it)

Haha. Albini definitely did not record a Flying Luttenbachers record. Albini was relatively affordable to hire, but not exactly cheap. A lot of Chicago jazz/free jazz was recorded at Electrical, but it was mostly with Greg Norman engineering.

maybe too obvious of an answer (especially coming from me), but a good viable option to shade in television/new wave colors in albini's sphere would have been the sst band slovenly.

The Backyardigans

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would have been interesting.

Wasn't he a massive Bill Withers fan?

lol stop

but FR fr? i'd be willing to wager sa+bw woulda been highly good

heheh... King Crimson

Later Sonic Youth

agreed - post O'Rourke era would have been great.

Probably more to have had happened than to listen to it, but it would have been awesome if dolly parton had taken up albini's offer last year or so.

I always had a fantasy of doing a New Orleans brass band record there, live in the room. There's an old Rebirth record with a similarly super aggressive snare sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4nXvgN033k

Any post-1992 Jesus And Mary Chain album

talk talk

MBV

tom zé

the mighty lightning bolt

^^^

Since we're allowing pure fantasy, Robert Johnson and Elvis's 1994 stripped down "American Recordings" inspired album that launched his big later career comeback.

Less fancifully, it would have been something to hear him recording Janet Weiss-era Sleater-Kinney.

Hella

Maybe Makaya McCraven and other International Anthem musicians?

yes, good call

Baroness

yes! I like that band but their production sounds like shit

Trail of Dead

― Allen (etaeoe), Sunday, 12 May 2024 14:37 (five days ago) link

> We originally planned to record Source Tags at Albini’s studio in Chicago, but it was booked up. It was Steve who recommended we record at Prairie Sun instead, which we did... Many years later at an All Tomorrow’s Party festival, Steve hosted a poker game, and had to politely ask Jason Reece to behave himself.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C6t4DKXpVkU/?hl=en

All the live to 2-track Frank Black/Black Francis stuff, especially the stuff where the recordings sound like complete ass (they vary somewhat in quality)

I wish Metallica had worked with Albini on Death Magnetic instead of Rick Rubin.

Jawbox

yeah especially as that one would seem like something that could have very likely happened

Steve though he was going to but...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV9T0ks2ohg

Novelty produced by Ian Burgess, so they were clearly going for a Chicago sound as well.

Killing Joke

talk talk

― he/him hoo-hah (map), Friday, 17 May 2024 01:10

Good choice, though suspect what would result wouldn’t be too different to the Mark Hollis solo album.

Has Dinosaur Jr been mentioned?

Am I really the first to say Phil Collins' drum sound?

the minutemen