To remember Steve Albini, who died yesterday at the age of 61, Rolling Stone magazine has selected “17 essential albums” made by the great American artist, with his direct participation as a musician or as a producer. “Steve Albini – writes the US newspaper – has left his mark on music in more ways than one can count. He made disruptive indie rock with Big Black and Shellac, was an outspoken opponent of the record business's oppression of artists, and expressed these sentiments in essays such as 1993's influential 'The Problem With Music' and others, which narrated the dark side of the sector”. As a producer – or engineer, as he preferred to be called – Albini – Rolling Stone still recalls – he was active when indie rock began to take shape in the 1980s. Then, “music transformed into the great alt-rock of the nineties, with the major labels realizing that there was a lot of money to be made, Albini really stepped up” and “with every artist or band he worked, he made sure that the genre he championed never lost its corrosive character and that musicians played as true to themselves as possible, ignoring commercial aspects as much as possible.”
Here is his musical legacy in the 17 albums selected by Rolling Stone, to which we ideally add the Dirty Three masterpiece “Ocean Songs” (here is the complete report with comments for each album):
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
