Steve Albini dance music rant gets used as ad

Steve Albini. Picture: Mix with the Master

The incident came around after electronic music artist Powell contacted Mr Albini for permission to use a recording of his voice taken from a Big Black gig.

Powell wrote about how he loved the producer’s work and told him about the plans for the clip, but Mr Albini was less than flattered.

In his response, he said: “I am absolutely the wrong audience for this kind of music. I’ve always detested mechanised dance music, its stupid simplicity, the clubs where it was played, the people who went to those clubs, the drugs they took, the s**t they liked to talk about, the clothes they wore, the battles they fought amongst each other … basically all of it, 100 per cent hated every scrap.”

He continued: “The electronic music I liked was radical and different, s**t like the White Noise, Xenakis, Suicide, Kraftwerk, and the earliest stuff form Cabaret Voltaire, SPK and DAF. When that scene and those people got co-opted by dance/club music I felt like we’d lost a war. I detest club culture as deeply as I detest anything on earth. So I am against what you’re into, and an enemy of where you come from.”

Surprisingly, Mr Albini consented to Powell using the audio, saying: “I haven’t bothered listening to the links, mainly because I’m in a hotel with cr*ppy internet at the moment but also because it probably wouldn’t be to my taste and that wouldn’t help either of us. In other words, you’re welcome to do whatever you like with whatever of mine you’ve gotten your hands on. Don’t care. Enjoy yourself.”

When Powell said he’d like to print the correspondence for a billboard advert, Albini replied: “Still don’t care.”