Nirvana Pays Tribute to Late ‘In Utero’ Engineer Steve Albini
Nirvana took to social media to share a unique tribute to late engineer Steve Albini, who died yesterday (May 8) at age 61. Albini, of course, famously worked on the band’s final studio album, 1993’s In Utero.
Nirvana’s tribute was simple, yet poignant. On X, the band’s surviving members shared the letter Albini wrote to the band, laying out how he would tackle working on In Utero. The four-page letter is a perfect representation of who Albini truly was as a musician and engineer.
Albini writes on the first page, “I think the very best thing you could do at this point is exactly what you are talking about doing: Bang a record out in a couple of days, with high quality by minimal ‘production’ and no interference from the front office bulletheads. If that is indeed what you want to do, I would love to be involved.”
Albini lays out his “recording methodology and philosophy” in four points. In his first point, he notably writes, “I prefer to work on records that aspire to greater things, like originality, personality and enthusiasm. If every element of the music and dynamics of a band is controlled by click tracks, computers, automated mixes, gates, samplers and sequencers, then the record may not be incompetent, but it certainly won’t be exceptional. It will also bear very little relationship to the live band, which is what all this hooey is supposed to be about.”
The Impact of In Utero
In Utero features the classic tracks “Heart-Shaped Box” and “All Apologies.” It’s well known that Albini was offered a cut of the royalties from In Utero, but he refused to accept them, even though he had the potential to earn about $500,000.
He addressed that in the above letter by writing, “I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it’s worth. The record company will expect me to ask for a point or a point and a half. If we assume three million sales, that works out to 400,000 dollars or so. There’s no f—ing was I would ever take that much money. I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”
Instead, he opted to take a flat fee of $100,000 up front, because he didn’t believe in taking royalties away from an artist.
Albini told Mojo about his flat fee, “That seemed to satisfy everybody. I think at that point there were still people who were sort of justifying their jobs by being suspicious of me.”
As far as pressure goes in making the album that followed the smash hit Nevermind, Albini said he and Nirvana really weren’t phased. He told Louder Sound, “The pressure was all on the industry people, the people who were terrified of losing their status, influence, and income if the record wasn’t a success. The band knew they had a good record in them, I knew they were doing a great job in the studio.”
Released on September 21, 1993, In Utero debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart and sold 180,000 copies in its first week, despite some major retailers refusing to sell it due to its artwork. The album has since gone on to sell five million copies in the United States and 15 million copies worldwide.