Fans are re-sharing Steve Albini’s proposal for producing Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’: “If a record takes more than a week to make, somebody’s fucking up”

nme.com:

Steve Albini‘s proposal for producing Nirvana‘s landmark album ‘In Utero‘ following the news of his death.It was reported via Pitchfork today (May 8) that Albini died of a heart attack in his recording studio, Electronic Audio.

His death was confirmed by the studio’s staff members.Albini wrote a four-page proposal to the grunge trio when he agreed to work on ‘In Utero’ with them in which he explained his philosophies around recording music.

Most notably, he declared that “if a record takes more than a week to make, somebody’s fucking up”.“I think the very best thing you could do at this point is exactly what you are talking about doing: bang a record out in a couple of days, with high quality but minimal ‘production’ and no interference from the front office bulletheads,” he wrote. “If that is indeed what you want to do, I would love to be involved.“If, instead, you might find yourselves in the position of being temporarily indulged by the record company, only to have them yank the chain at some point (hassling you to rework songs/sequences/production, calling-in hired guns to ‘sweeten’ your record, turning the whole thing over to some remix jockey, whatever…) then you’re in for a bummer and I want no part of it.”He continued: “I’m only interested in working on records that legitimately reflect the band’s own perception of their music and existence.

If you will commit yourselves to that as a tenet of the recording methodology, then I will bust my ass for you. I’ll work circles around you.