CHICAGO — Steve Albini, a Chicago-based rock producer and audio engineer who recorded albums with Nirvana, the Pixies and other punk and alternative rock groups and later became an outspoken critic of the music industry, died Tuesday. He was 61.
Albini died at his home in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported. The cause of death was a heart attack, according to Taylor Hales of Electrical Audio, the Chicago studio that Albini founded in 1997, according to the newspaper.
Albini was the frontman of the bands Big Black during the 1980s and Shellac since 1992, The New York Times reported.
He was an engineer for rock ‘n’ roll classics, including Nirvana’s “It Utero” album and Mclusky’s “Mclusky Do Dallas,” but was a sharp critic of the music industry, believing that executives took advantage of artists, according to The Washington Post.
That came to the forefront in Albini’s 1993 essay, “The Problem With Music,” where Albini described how naive bands were lured into major deals with record labels that left many artists either broke or in debt, the Tribune reported.
His criticism was not limited to record executives. Albini was also known to ridicule bands he produced after the fact, according to the newspaper.
“Never have I seen four cows more anxious to be led around by their nose rings,” he wrote after recording “Surfer Rosa,” the 1988 album by the Pixies.
Albini hated the term “producer” and insisted that his credits read “Recorded by Steve Albini,” Variety reported. He also refused to accept royalties from recordings he worked on.
”Paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible,” Albini wrote in a letter to Nirvana before working on “In Utero,” USA Today reported. He asked “to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you tell me what it’s worth.”
About the same time Albini worked with Nirvana, he recorded PJ Harvey’s second album, “Rid of Me,” the entertainment music site reported.
Albini also worked with the Breeders, Slint, Helmet, the Jesus Lizard, Jon Spencer and the Dirty Three. Albini also did work with former Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant on their 1998 album “Walking Into Clarksdale,” according to Variety.
A native of Pasadena, California, Albini moved with his family to Montana as a teenager, USA Today reported. He earned a journalism at Northwestern University and began his recording career in 1981.
He was also a high-stakes poker player and won a gold bracelet and $105,000 at the World Series of Poker in 2018, according to the newspaper.