I'm not sure a lot people know that Albini ended up washing his hands of his work with Nirvana. After the recordings were wrapped and the mixes were done, Kurt was really unhappy with some of the sounds. If memory serves it was the vocals and the bass. They ended up doing some overdubs and sharpening things up in the low end in mastering. The very thing Albini specifically said he didn't want them to do. I personally think the results speak for themselves. In Utero is a FANTASTIC rock record. I can't help but wonder what the original would have sounded like though...
In addition to bootlegs of the rough mixes you can also check out the official 20th anniversary vinyl reissue, remixed by Albini from the original masters. https://www.nirvana.com/album/in-utero-2013-mix-2lp/
Oh that's cool! I remember hearing about this mix at the time and wondering how it would sound. I much prefer it, way more in keeping with the indie 'live' vibe of the rest of the album and it feels darker/more menacing because of the greater contrast between the verses and chorus.
I actually always felt the original track stood out (in a bad way) on the album and it's interesting to hear how much of that was introduced by the remix.
The recording style Albini uses here was also in evidence with another classic rock album he references here, PJ Harvey's 'Rid of Me'.
Some people (eg. Elvis Costello) hate this 'naturalistic' style, but I think the overproduced style that dominates radio often strips tracks of their personality.
My take is that as a singer songwriter he can't stand the fact that Albini makes the drums and guitars as prominent as the vocals, and gives the vocals so much room ambience. I think it works fantastically on a rock album that's supposed to be dark and brooding anyway.
If you want to get into it, start by putting the released version on repeat and listen to it a few times in a row. To start, focus on Kurt Cobain’s voice, specifically where it ‘sits’ in the mix. Then, switch to Steve Albini’s version.
When I hear Steve Albini’s version, Kurt Cobain’s voice is less pronounced. What do you think??
If that helps, I can point out more differences. Or, maybe you can point out some you hear?
To me the differences matter much less than the fact that after about a minute and a half you've basically heard the whole song, and then I just get bored.
if you like a less polished sound, you should tuck into the Nirvana demos [1]. Back in the day it was really difficult to acquire these things (mainly trading or buying CDRs later on).
Nirvana is an excellent rabbit hole band, though. There are plenty of b-sides, bootlegs, demos, technically unreleased tracks, compilations, etc etc. They've released box sets that have pretty much everything besides the live bootlegs.
I'm not sure I prefer Albini's mix, I'm still missing the released (commercial) mix. Somehow I find albini's version too toyed with (some instruments pops out at times). And the demo you linked is closer to the final version in that regard, sounds more like Nirvana to me. Thanks for the link, I had no idea these were online.
In a totally other genre, Michael Jackson Thriller vocal studo outtakes are breathtaking.
>Somehow I find albini's version too toyed with (some instruments pops out at times)
I'm a professional record producer and songwriter. Here are my thoughts:
Very likely it's the other way around. Albini is notoriously hard-headed about refusing to use compression on tracks and mixes. He's gone on record about how compressors ruin the tone, expressivity, and micro-dynamics of recorded sounds.
Regardless of whether you agree with that, and he does have a point, compression performs one job admirably: it prevents dynamic sounds from unexpectedly popping out of a determined dynamic range.
This is a disagreement lots of people have had with Albini's method, and he's also a little prickly about these things. He has an artistic vision of "properly" recording bands and mixing them in a way that doesn't adulterate or modify their live sound. In other words, he tries to get the final sound just through exacting microphone placement while recording, and applies the absolute minimum of post-processing.
However, the consensus in commercial record production at this point is that signal processing such as compression, distortion, and equalization, even in dramatic quantity, can create a more compelling audio result. Albini certainly views this as leading to a decline in fidelity (in the etymological sense of truth), and possibly as leading to a decline in artistic integrity (heavily debated).
A couple final ideas:
- In a recorded-music world, what constitutes an "authentic" or "true" sound?
- Should a studio operator (recording/mixing) aim to respect the real-world sound of the artist, or the intentions of the artist? How do you identify the intentions of an artist?
Kurt's vocals on the verses are panned left as if he's standing there. They're double-tracked on the album mix, which was a technique John Lennon used that Kurt admired. The reverb really sounds like a room. Guitars are definitely overdubbed on the final mix with the distortion cranked up, rather than sounding like one gentler guitar. I would say the bass seems not quiet but like it's "hiding" behind the guitars - it's not cutting through the mix the way it does on the album version. Seems to be a different guitar take for the solo - there's a pretty noticeable wah-wah effect on the guitar solo in Albini's mix.
Overall Albini's mix sounds much more live, which is exactly what he had in mind before he recorded with the band. The final mix is compressed, balanced, radio-friendly: it sounds more like it could fit on Nevermind than some of the other songs on In Utero.
Other than Tool where Maynard removes himself from center of attention, I've never seen a live rock band where the singer was off to the left. Typically, lead guitarist on the left, singer in the middle, bass is on the right, and drummer in the middle back stage of the singer. If the idea was to make it as close to live as possible, why the decision to put Kurt over there?
I'm not sure about the decision to put Kurt over there but I assume it's no coincidence that Albini's own band Shellac (who are amazing) literally puts the drummer front and center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i79f87C0M1c
Left Kurt is the most noticeably odd thing with headphones, it just feels too much like he’s right off to my side. It’s just not the sound of the band in my head. The bass is noticeably different too, but doesn’t feel as wrong against my head cannon of their sound.
In my head Kurt has a sound and presence that doesn’t necessarily match the whole body of their work, but makes sense to me when I think about their songs.
Its tough to listen to a different mix when we've been enjoying the original for over 25 years. This video [1] compares them, but I'm with you with it sounding off. In Heart Shaped Box, the effect around 2m53s[2] is too jarring compared to the final mix we got.
I might be wrong, but I've always felt like Albini's aim to sound like you're in the room with the band, where the drums boom and the vocals are quieter.
I think that stands out from his letter as well. Albini sounds really into the live experience of music, and wants to replicate that as faithfully as possible.
As a total aside: Albini's attitude and writing is a breath of fresh air in today's world polluted by corporate backstabbery and doublespeak. Albini is a professional. He says what he thinks, wants do his work and make his money, and doesn't try and lay claim to the entire future legacy of the band because he's good at slinging electrons around a board.
Been a while since I've done anything related to audio engineering so my terminology might not be correct, but I've always heard this described as presence. Stems from old guitar amps that had presence knobs that would dump highs to ground to give a darker, slightly muffled sound.
Like you said, it's the difference between it sounding like you're in a small room with a band or in a large venue where some of the clarity is lost.
I agree with this, but I like the Albini version. My first listen to this track (in a long time since hearing the other version) the vocal is centered with good imaging, and is much less boomy than the original CD version.
Very much like it's a person in a room, instead of processed.
It is far less "in your face", and arguably, teenagers then might not have thought it cool. Like a band from the 70's or 80's.
Will have to listen through good headphones tomorrow. My initial impression is also that I like Albini's version more, but I understand why the song became famous from the final mix.
Albini's does lack that separation that differentiated the remixed songs from contemporary and then recent punk and "always-on" grudge imho.
I listened to Smells Like Teen Spirit at a listening station at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 20 years ago and the in-your-faceness blew me away. It was like hearing it for the first time again. I get why that record changed the game.
Not surprising considering Nevermind is one of the best sounding albums of all time. I personally give Butch Vig a large part of the. refit for getting the best out of the band and really making an incredible album. Hard to believe it's the same band as Bleach.
As the mixer of "Nevermind", Andy Wallace deserves a lot of credit for the finished sound. Both Vig and the band weren't crazy about Vig's initial mixes. Between Nevermind and producing/engineering/mixing Jeff Buckley's "Grace", Andy Wallace did as much to define of '90s rock as anyone else, and has done phenomenal work before and since.
I never pass up an opportunity to point out that his version of Hallelujah from that album is THE canonical version.
I'm sure it was covered by others before that, but his was the first version I ever heard and of the million versions I've heard since there's not a single one that comes anywhere close. And the way it and the next song go together are the definition of a centerpiece.
It's one of the great albums and I can't believe how much we lost because he decided to go swimming at night in a river. I also can't believe the same dude mixed Nevermind. Cheers.
Butch Vig had such a large influence in my life as a teenager. For those that never paid attention to the liner notes/credits on their music, Butch was a producer on so so many bands.
Plus, he's in Garbage, a great band in its own right, with an amazing sound. Vig defines the post-grunge sound that took over rock in the 90s: powerful choruses, vocals up front, tight production. Very different from the garage sound of proper grunge.
I think Bleach was amazing. I remember exactly where I was when I heard it first, Newbury Comics in Harvard Square in 1989, and I had to ask the staff what was playing in the store PA because it was so visceral. What was the recording budget, $600 or something?
Funny that... "I do not like remixing other engineer's recordings, and I do not like recording things for somebody else to remix. I have never been satisfied with either version of that methodology. Remixing is for talentless pussies who don't know how to tune a drum or point a microphone."
Albini, like many greats of rock & roll, should always be taken with a massive grain of salt when he speaks. In the end they'll always go where the money is.
They remixed the singles, really making them more “radio friendly”. Compressed, polished, and out of whack with the un-remixed “lesser” tracks.
The punk folks around Nirvana were surprised with how pliable they were with Geffen. Albini was pissed and wanted his name off of it.
He wasn’t easy to work with. Abrasive, rude, rigidly principled. He’s mellowed out with age, but really hasn’t touched much major label stuff since the 90s, if any.
If you listen to the original mixes on the reissue you hear how much more consistent it feels as an album. And I won’t lie. I have a bias. I love the quality of Albini’s work. Crisp and raw and uses the whole spectrum. And those drums…
Jesus Lizard, early Pixies, this album, PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me are more well known work he’s done that is great. Bush was awful. His band Shellac w/ the mentioned Bob Weston is f’n incredible.
These days, he works a super reasonable flat rate and will record anyone. Had friends who recorded at his Chicago studio. Brilliant guy.
Mh. As a teenager at the time, I always thought Nevermind was the real deal. Then the whole media phenomenon took over, so In Utero could have been shite and still sell bazillions - it was promoted massively. That's not to say it was shite, but IMHO it wasn't as perfect as Nevermind.
I think I read somewhere that P.J. Harvey wasn't happy with the way "Rid of Me" came out - but I thought it was incredible and nothing afterwards really compares.
I think the confusion stems from the existence of “4-Track Demos”, but in practice Albini really liked the original demos and encouraged Harvey to turn them into an album.
My only real complaint about the production on “Rid of Me” is the obnoxious volume shifts on the title track and “Highway 61 Revisited” which seem to neither reflect what the live performances sounded like nor accommodate home listening.
Oh man, I just find the title track absolutely thrilling, my whole body is tense building up to the chorus, partly because it's so extreme. And it doesn't seem unrepresentative of what she was _trying_ to achieve - I don't know many other performers who use breaths and whispers as artfully as she does. I think it's just hard to achieve such extremes as part of a wider live set.
Yeah, on stage you're fighting with adrenaline, shitty monitoring, screaming audiences and it's usually a pale imitation of what happens during jamming/rehearsing where you actually develop the songs.
I think that's subjective. It probably doesn't sound like a live performance would, but it does probably reflect fairly well what you'd hear if you were in the room with them rehearsing.
Listening to the album again now it's such a relief to hear a recording with such dynamic range, not the appallingly over-compressed loudness wars derived style we're subjected to now.
Oh, in general the production is fabulous, and you’re absolute right that over-compression has ruined more than decade’s worth of albums, but I’d rather listen to a random live cut of Rid of Me. Such a great song.
Yuri-G is perfect on 4-track demos, otherwise I like the Rid of Me versions.
I agree that the volume on Highway 61 Revisited is an imperfection, but it's still one of my favorite tracks. I have no reverence for Bob Dylan and no interest in listening to him sing his lyrics.
I don't like In Untero compared to Nevermind, it feels a smidge too overproduced and less raw. I really wonder what it would have sounded like were it to have been the same producer.
Huh. It's funny as I always had the opposite thought. To me Nevermind sounds too polished and clean. When In Utero came out I remember being excited that it brought out a more raw sound that I felt they had lost. Different strokes and all that.
This is a great letter. My favorite piece of writing from Albini is "The Problem with Music" [https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music] in which he explains how record companies were screwing artists in vivid detail, numbers included. The first two paragraphs alone are worth reading.
That's interesting. "Producers who aren’t also engineers, and as such, don’t have the slightest fucking idea what they’re doing in a studio, besides talking all the time. Historically, the progression of effort required to become a producer went like this: Go to college, get an EE degree. Get a job as an assistant at a studio. Eventually become a second engineer. Learn the job and become an engineer. Do that for a few years, then you can try your hand at producing. Now, all that’s required to be a full-fledged “producer” is the gall it takes to claim to be one."
Why does a record producer or recording engineer need an EE degree? They might need to repair a console, I guess, but they aren't going to design one from scratch.
I assume this was before the career path was formalized enough to have its own recognition in school. You would take an EE degree and specialize in the things that are relevant to recording. Similar to how Computer Science was originally taught to and by people doing math degrees (or sometimes also EE).
You needed engineers to maintain, calibrate, tune, and operate the equipment which was retro ee components, instruments that are used for decades. But as thingbs got more reliable, solid state, software emulation, hard drives instead of magnetic tape, you don’t need that ee knowledge to get a song made.
Yeah, he goes on to partially answer the question with respect to the engineers' role, but I still don't see what any of that has to do with production.
That might have been true in the bygone era of "bands", rock music and guitar-heavy genres that Albini seemed immersed in, but in contemporary pop a producer (or team of producers) is literally all there is, plus maybe singers/songwriters.
And even if you look closer at rock, the most groundbreaking and successful acts have always been at the forefront of innovation in the sound / production department (from the Beatles to U2 or Radiohead)
This is still one of my favorite pieces of writing about the music industry, and still illuminating about how it evolved since. Even so, I think Albini’s best contribution is his own music. He was and probably still is a good curmudgeon, but he stands out to me for just harrumphing it and making music that he wanted to make.
Other than a few technical details, most of it seems to me like DIY punk cliches and goes on much too long. But I guess they know the business better than I do, hired Albini, and made a hit record, if that's what they wanted.
I though the sound on In Utero was too glossy. Listen to live Nirvana, including their official live album. Nothing in a studio, by anyone, can compare and with the live material available it has no reason to exist.
The thing about cliches is that they only become that via repetition.
For example at one point it wasn’t a cliche to talk about Lord of the Rings characters over alternating bouts of English folk music and heavy rock. And then it was. But in the middle there was the part where people waited in line outside the record store and rushed home to get it on the turntable and had their minds blown.
As someone who was around and actually working as a record producer in the same era this letter was written I feel confident saying that the ethos described here was in fact out of step with the mainstream approach to making rock and roll records. Doing things the way he’s describing was in fact an “alternative” approach to coin a phrase.
That it was rapidly becoming the mainstream at the time and eventually a cliche is also true. But I think it’s fun to evaluate things in the relevant context, or you’ll skip right from considering things obscure to overdone and miss the exhilarating part where something genuinely valuable and novel is gaining mass acceptance for the first time.
> Doing things the way he’s describing was in fact an “alternative” approach to coin a phrase.
Grohl had been in a Dischord band and Kurt/Dave on Subpop with Kurt being great friends with Buzz Osborne (among so so so many other things in Seattle scene). I’m sure Steve knew that too. Different pedigrees, sure, but explaining an alternative approach would be speaking to the choir - so it was never a letter to Nirvana, more like a letter to Geffen.
As you knew the industry, I will take your word for it. Thank you for sharing some actual knowledge with us! I'd be interested in more if you are willing and have the time.
Was Albini really an "engineer extraordinaire", like the introduction says? Why does live almost always sound better to me than studio, lacking the energy and creativity that make rock'n'roll great. Is it just me? For the most part, I stopped buying studio albums. Why wouldn't they just record Nirvana (or Bruce Springsteen or whoever) playing their new songs live?
Because just recording a band and expecting the result to sound like it sounded to the people in the room doesn't work for a heap of reasons.
(I have been making my living as an audio engineer)
One of those is, that live doesn't actually sound good, it is just a good experience — the people, the light, the atmosphere, you went there and payed potentially a ton of money for it, you are a little drunk, it is loud, everybody who is there is in a good mood, it happens live in front of your eyes... In short: It sounds better than it actually sounds for psychological reasons.
While this is not necessarily true for all genres of music equally, audio engineers still have to pull a ton of strings and jump through a bunch of hoops to recreate the energy people felt who were in the room. And sometimes it easier to do so in the studio where the band just plays for the recording and you don't have to compromise between coices that are good for a stage and choices that are good for a recording.
> that live doesn't actually sound good, it is just a good experience — the people, the light, the atmosphere, you went there and payed potentially a ton of money for it, you are a little drunk, it is loud, everybody who is there is in a good mood, it happens live in front of your eyes... In short: It sounds better than it actually sounds for psychological reasons.
Certainly I've had this experience! But there are so many great live bootleg recordings, don't they seem like evidence that live music can sound fantastic (in the sense of music, not recording quality)? Listen to the Nirvana clips upthread.
But thinking about it, I've forgotten that many, many bands are worse live than in a studio, and far more are no better live. The Rolling Stones stand out to me as a band known for legendary live concerts but who, if you hear the music only, play poorly. I love live music so I realize I have a very strong selection bias toward people who are fantastic live performers. Not everyone, or maybe nobody, is Nirvana.
>Admit it - you were sleeping. Was it for years? Now you're awake again.
Good lord. I love Nirvana but the differences between all these mixes are minor and barely noticeable unless you're swapping back and forth. Kurt would hate this shit.
The differences aren't minor at all to me! They are everything - almost everything that makes Nirvana special, distinct, is at its peak, beyond any other musicians (that I've heard), beyond human capacity it seems, in the live performance and is only an idea in the studio music - which aren't worth listening to, IMHO, and I almost never have since I discovered Nirvana. All the signals were there of a great live band - the cultish following, the reputation, the emotional energy in the music.
I originally wrote something in the rude, direct, challenging nature of that subculture, but in this one I'll just say: Let it in, past your defenses, and it will activate nerves and neurons and biochemicals you forgot were in living.
People still actually believed the cliches. A few boomers had not fully sold out yet, and there was a renaissance of actual punk-rock as reaction to the glossy yuppie '80s pop sound.
I'm not criticizing the values, which I think we definitely could learn from - imagine an artist today putting art and integrity over money! - but the way they are expressed.
Cliches signal to me that the speaker doesn't mean seriously what they are saying - they haven't thought enough to construct their own language (and at more than a superficial level, it's unlikely the cliche represents anyone's serious, nuanced point-of-view); they only have a vague notion and copy and paste a phrase that matches somewhat.
When Nirvana was at the height of their popularity, imagine all the people approaching them, saying what they thought Nirvana wanted to hear. That is how Albini's letter reads to me: A lot of cliche demonstrating that Albini didn't really think these things. But obviously Nirvana knew their values, their business, and the situation far better than I do now, and they hired Albini. Also, someone else in this thread was a record producer at the time and sees the letter as significant, and we should probably listen to them too.
I agree and would go further to say the correlation with outright falsehood is probably higher, i.e. a cliché might represent someone's effort to contradict the truth about themselves.
That's because the sound on In Utero wasn't really Albini's.
He has a distinctive sound; there's a long list of artists who've had him do 1-2 records. Listen to Surfer Rosa and then Trompe Le Monde, or Pod and then Last Splash, or Rid Of Me and then the 4 Track Demos, where you get some of the same songs, even.
Interesting! I know those albums and the era better than any (teenage years), so it's fascinating hearing behind the scenes.
I think a lot of what made that era productive was a peaking of tension between slick commercial music and grittier, "underground" sounds and themes. Ozzy & Black Sabbath went from shocking to mainstream. Punk became a main street cafe aesthetic.
In the 90s, after the grunge explosion, "underground" was ironically mainstream and that contradiction resulted in some terrific albums.
Nirvana and Kurt certainly traded in this tension.
My favourite example is rage against the machine. Extremely dissident sound and vibe. I think they recorded very raw.
But, they still achieved pop music ideals. Ratm songs are catchy and iconic in exactly the same way a Michael Jackson song is. You start tapping your pencil to it from the first note.
If you're not familiar with Albini, he's worked lots of great bands. Pixies of course, The Jesus Lizard, Mclusky, his own band Shellac to name a few. Nirvana was good, but they've come to overshadow the really great music scene they emerged from.
It's too bad his work with Fugazi didn't work out. Apparently the band and Albini decided they both didn't like and they re-recorded it at another studio.
Don't forget Big Black. I can't find the words to describe what listening to that was like in the 80s as a young computer hacker. To me, it's like shoving a couple William Gibson novels into my eardrums. It is harsh, loud, sterile, ethereal, haunting, electric and beautiful.
There's a 90s MTV interview with Alibini and the rest of Shellac on YouTube (back when there was still music on MTV), and he jokingly complained how their concerts never attracted hot chicks but just computer programmers and the like :-)
He also did Jason Molina's Magnolia Electric Co., an amazingly recorded and engineered record that I think accomplishes his idea of "capturing the band's music and existence" as he describes in the letter.
The Albini mix of (parts of) In on the Kill Taker are on Youtube, but I must admit I found listening to the mix very tiring. The final album is splendid though.
Is it? He didn't produce Come On Pilgrim, which has the same "pre-Dolittle" sound. I don't know that the "in the room with the band playing live" effect jumps out at me about Surfer Rosa --- also my favorite Pixies album.
Pod or Rid of Me would be my Albini production picks, if only for how different they each are to their immediate successor albums. If I can't pick an actual Albini album, that is (my pick would be At Action Park).
I agree with you, but I'm also a die hard fan of Pixies. First time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit my first impression was "wow... that sounds like Nirvana trying to sound like Pixies", which later on Kurt Kobain also said[0].
Albini sounds really full of himself. I bet he was the sort of person who doesn't shut up. What Americans call a blowhard. In Utero seemed to lack the rhythm and energy and melodies of Nevermind and Bleach.
Brilliant business lessons in here for independent consultants: how to set a floor for value pricing, and how to clearly scope the work, how to act like a person.
Hahaha, I came to say the same thing. It's an obscure line ("I'll wrap your head in with a ratchet!") but anybody who ever heard it will instantly recall this Frank Rizzo classic. I wonder if the Nirvana guys got a chuckle or just read it quizzically.
What I find interesting is the sweating over the details in a recording studio, and then people go to see the band lives and you lose a large chunk of what they've been haggling over due to irreproducibility.
Albini is and interesting guy, very eloquent, but also inconsequential and illogical in a lot of regards (for example his reasoning for still using analogue tape, that it would be most likely to survive a nuclear war and still be able to be used with the equipment that is left afterwards).
Albini loves to paint himself as different. A lot of it is, maybe unintentionally, geared towards making his side of the job simpler, while also feeding the ego of his clients, making all the creativity about them, which bands of course love. Credits where credits are due, that's pretty smart.
> Most contemporary engineers and producers see a record as a “project,” and the band as only one element of the project. [...] My approach is exactly the opposite. I consider the band the most important thing"
There is nothing oppositional about this statement. A record is by all worldly definitions a project and most producers would still agree that the band is the most important element of that project.
> I do not want and will not take a royalty on any record I record. No points. Period. I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible.
Royalties for producers are like buying stock in a band. The producers gives money (offered as production time), and gets shares in return. Just like stock, it makes projects possible that otherwise wouldn't be. That's a good thing. It's also immensely smart for the band, because obviously not everyone is as great a guy as Albini is, and having your producer have financial motivation to make sure the record succeeds (which you don't have to have when being paid flat) is a sensible thing to want for a working band in their producers.
FWIW, the way that Albini describes his work I completely agree with his no-royalties stance, but only in regards to himself: If your thing is making a big show out of how you are not getting involved in things, you best stay a hired hand. Turns out tho, a lot of bands actually want a producer that helps decide. It's kinda what you go into the studio for now. Everyone chump can mic up an amp well enough.
> I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it's worth. [...] Whatever. I trust you guys to be fair to me and I know you must be familiar with what a regular industry goon would want.
Well, Albini, that is exactly not how a plumber gets paid. As a plumber you will be able and expected to to produce a detailed offer and not make their clients guess a number.
Pay-what-you-want is a cop-out for people in power, just like job descriptions without salary (ranges) are a copout. Yeah, you have an idea of what you want. Stop making it awkward for the other party. Speak the fuck up.
> I, however, already have more work than I can handle
Nobody in this industry does it without an ego and a varying measure of arrogance (since nobody in music can give you any answers but as a maker you have to believe you do know better). That ego is dependent on people wanting to work with you, and that is dependent on the people you worked with. Past clients predict future clients. Nobody wants to work with shit clients in the future but that is what will happen when the stream of good clients ebbs. Best case Albini was being dishonest to himself. But probably just boasting.
Pretty sure the "matter of opinion" bit is implied in a comment like that. If you need it clarified, no, I have neither empirically demonstrated nor formally proven that Nevermind is a better Nirvana album than In Utero. I merely know it to be the case. :)
Which is to say, it sounds better. And it should: Nevermind was a much more deliberate, planned, and practiced album. The band was at each others throats by the time In Utero wound up, and it shows. In Utero is dark and brooding, which is why people say they prefer it, but it's also grating and one-note. With apologies to James Spader, it's noise rock for people who don't like noise rock, and indie pop for people who don't like indie pop.
Nevermind is also clearly the more influential of the two albums. Zillions of bands have tried to make albums that sound like Nevermind. In Utero? Maybe Neutral Milk Hotel? And they did it better!
I remember something Jim DeRogatis said about Big Black on Sound Opinions back when it was on WKQX, something about how Albini was an interesting artist with lots to say but that his albums were really unpleasant to listen to. That's In Utero for me. As an edgy teen? Loved it. Today? I can barely get through it. 7.4/10.0.
Part of it is that as a 90s kid who owned a couple of Big Black albums, I listened to a lot of albums just because Albini recorded them; In Utero is not the most interesting affect he had on a band.
"Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle" is, however, the best Nirvana song.
I think what I like about In Utero (a record I didn’t particularly care for way back when) is that it literally sounds to me like the colors of the album cover.
Heart Shaped Box is probably my favorite Nirvana song by a wide margin.
I feel like this is Hard Days Night vs The White Album (aka The Beatles)
Which is more influential? Which is better? Which is more real?
Edit:
Which one is more like “Bleach” … which one caused Metallica to try downtuning their guitars?
The money thing is simple here: A mixing engineer who gets royalties will no longer be able to 100% go for the bands vision, but rather for what they think the market likes. So it is a perverse incentive.
If you are after maximizing the amount of money you earn rather than focus the creation of good work and/or art audio engineering might not be the right field for you anyways. Firstly because there is not a lot of money in it, secondly because there is not a lot of money in it for people who always priorize money over art.
He is producing a mass market product not art for arts sake. In this case how much money the product makes directly and indirectly (future sells of other stuff in the brand) is the measure of it's artistic value.
I've gotten into a few arguments with friends over the years about this way of thinking. I've always felt the same way. I tend to undercharge my labor and sell things for cheaper than they should be according to people closest to me. I pay my subcontractors more than they should be apparently.
I understand capturing as much value as possible, but that's not in the cards for me. I feel as long as I make enough money to be happy, that's ok. Everyone tells me I'm dumb so I'm probably hurting myself, but I really appreciate Albini's insistence not to take so much money.
He's not doing it for free. He has a flat rate to do a certain job. I'm guessing his fee wasn't exactly low for a week of work either (50-100k+?). It removes ambiguity and sounds like a method that kept him quite busy at the time.
I'm watching the Kanye doc on Netflix right now and there is a discussion where someone wanted him to give them beats for points. He responded hell no wanted his fee (30-50k) instead. Not every person he worked with was JayZ, so getting paid well up front was a way to remove risk.
