music

I have mixed feelings about him. I grew up listening to his music and it has been a major influence on me, was amused by him being a loudmouth asshole twerp or his petty beefs with other bamds over the years, and admired his work ethic. According to people who knew him he was a pretty generous person to anyone wanting advice or help with any aspect of the music industry. He understood that the mainstream music industry was a poisonous ripoff and warned everyone he could away from getting involved with it.

His early music is full of dark topics and it seemed clear to me, and from reading interviews, that the intent was to shock and confront people with the darker nature of humanity, with satire and irony. Similar in the vein to something like Hunter S. Thompson. Transgressive, irreverant and confrontational, but the intent was not to promote bigotry, violence, or sex crimes. Anyone familiar with the evolution of 4-chan can see how that approach can turn out. He pretty much owned up to it in recent years with basically "This is what my intent was. I was a privileged white male asshole in a sea of them and was in the wrong. I regret it. I don't expect forgiveness for any of it, and deserve whatever bad feelings people have towards me" Which is better than most, I guess?

I first saw the pedo shit being posted as a response to him calling out Dave Chappelle for being a transphobic asshole, so I assumed it was some obscure shock writing from his younger days taken out of context to sound as bad as possible. Considering who were attacking him for it, I was inclined to be charitable about it.

But I don't know what the fuck was up with him and his long time friendship with Peter Sotos, or the the tour diary where he finds child porn in the porn shops in holland. Even under the most charitable interperetation it is legitimately gross and fucked up. Albini only ever touches the topic of pedophilia in one of his songs, and it's based on an incident that turned out to be fake, and is meant to be disturbing. I've listened to almost everything he's put out, and it's not a running theme in any of his music or writing. So, it's just kind of a moment. He's owned up to most of his bullshit, but not that specifically, because it's not really defensible.

Also, he was a -stan.