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Steve Albini

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Music Producer

The Resume

    (July 22, 1961- )
    Born in Pasadena, California
    Guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, and music journalist
    Member of the bands Big Black (1981-87), Rapeman (1987-88), Flour (1988), and Shellac (1992- )
    Co-managed Ruthless Records
    Founder, owner, and principal engineer of Electric Audio Studio
    Produced or engineered over two thousand albums, including ‘Surfer Rosa’ by the Pixies (1988), ‘Pod’ by the Breeders (1990), ‘Rid of Me’ by P.J. Harvey (1993) and ‘In Utero’ by Nirvana (1993)

Why he might be annoying:

    He dislikes being called a music producer, preferring the term ‘recording engineer.’
    He frequently disses the artists he produces, including Urge Overkill (‘frauds’), the Pixies (‘blandly entertaining college rock’) and Nirvana (‘R.E.M with a fuzzbox’).
    Before starting Electric Audio, he had a home studio that grew until it occupied almost all the rooms, except the bedroom and the bathrooms.
    He said, ‘Pop music is for children and idiots.’
    He is a fan of cat videos on YouTube.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He has a ‘slightly deformed’ right leg as the result of a car accident from when he was 18.
    He won a gold bracelet in $1500 seven-card stud at the World Series of Poker (2018).
    ’Louder’ called him ‘alt-rock’s unsung hero.’
    Unlike most big-name producers, he does not take royalties from the sales of the albums he works on.
    He has pointed out that the members of a band selling 250.000 copies of a major-label debut album could end up with only a third of the money that they would have earned working at a 7-11 due to label expenses deducted from their royalties.
    He sang, ‘We don’t hate vegetarians, we just think they’re funny.’

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 5 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying