The Problem With Music

In 1993, our late, lamented hero Steve Albini wrote this gross and profane takedown of the music industry, and we've been thinking about it ever since. We try to follow the evolution of Albini's attitude about how music is distributed while also checking in on David Byrne, Marxist theory, and Tik Tok. Sources https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music https://qz.com/202194/steve-albini-the-problem-with-music-has-been-solved-by-the-internet https://boingboing.net/2024/05/10/read-steve-albinis-famous-essay-on-the-music-industrys-problems.html https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/the-new-problem-with-music-steve-albini-revisits-one-of-his-favourite-themes-1.2013006 https://stereogum.com/1678835/steve-albini-thinks-the-internet-solved-the-problem-with-music/news https://reason.com/2014/04/30/legendary-punk-producer-steve-albini-say/ https://www.ajournalofmusicalthings.com/revisiting-steve-albinis-problem-music-essay-problem-solved-internet/ https://rocknerd.co.uk/2015/01/11/steve-albini-how-the-internet-solved-the-problem-with-music/ https://www.spinmagazine.com/2014/04/steve-albini-internet-problem-with-music-streaming-debate/ https://www.simplemusiccontracts.com/the-problem-with-music https://louderthanwar.com/steve-albini-streaming/ 2014 Face the Music Video: https://youtu.be/Lz_CPzuwSk4?si=PDHcZV4kKZErnI7R 2014 Face the Music transcript: https://genius.com/Steve-albini-keynote-address-at-melbourne-australias-face-the-music-conference-2014-annotated https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/16/why-david-byrne-wrong-spotify-thom-yorke https://freepresshouston.com/the-steve-albini-interview/