Steve Albini hated dance music, and “hated” was the word he used. He “100 percent hated” it, the who made it, and the who would willingly listen to and perhaps even enjoy it.
Albini, who passed away of a heart attack at his Electrical Audio recording studio on May 7 2024, had subjected his life and some of his statements to a withering self-critique in the last few years. The headline of one article it, “The evolution of Steve Albini: ‘If the dumbest person is on your side, you’re on the wrong side’ sums up his live-tweeted reckoning rather well. I haven’t kept up to date with anything on that platform in months but I don’t think he ever took back what he said house music as music for morons.
This broke into the mainstream a few years ago when the artist Powell was clearing a sample of a recording of Steve Albini introducing a song at a gig for his ’80s band Big Black. Powell received a reply directly from Albini which rattled out of his inbox and onto a billboard which cheekily reproduced Albini’s critique of house music, the that made it, the that listened to it, the places they went, the clothes they wore and presumably their parents, all ancestors and any descendants they may have. He hated:
