Steve Albini, “The Model,” and the lingering power of mistakes
thefader.comWhen I was 15, my first boyfriend gave me a burned CD with the words “cool music” written in Sharpie across the bottom. It contained over a dozen songs, the kind you’d expect to receive from a brooding indie rock-minded teenager with a gutterpunk streak; the track I’d play on loop was a cover of Kraftwerk’s “The Model.” Steve Albini’s punk band Big Black had transformed it into something unapologetically intense and so unafraid of its imperfect emotion that it was willing to be mistaken for an exorcism.
Despite being a cover, no one could ever mistake it for the tidy, mechanized original; it was a song that stood on its own. The absolute contempt in Albini’s voice was coiled just like the spiky knot of rage in my chest which grew larger each time I was hurt and told to temper my “bad attitude” for the sake of other people.
Across a career as an artist, producer, and recording engineer that changed the shape of modern rock music, Albini turned messy anger like mine into high art.
He rejected perfection and taught a generation of musicians and fans how to scream back at the assholes who preached otherwise..
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