This is pretty long-winded for something with nothing much to say. Albini may have become more of a mainstream liberal but he was still defending his friendship and involvement with Peter Sotos until the end. I don’t personally see that stuff as having much value - Albini clearly got more out of art that was purely intended to fuck with people’s perceptions of morality that I do. But his evolution on his own behavior doesn’t bother me, maybe he was trying to avoid cancellation but he seemed to think a lot about those issues, pretty sincerely. I think it makes sense that someone in the insular world of 1980s punk/underground music, making music for a very specific audience, would figure, “it’s ok to poke at these sexist/racist/whatever concepts, my audience gets it, everyone knows i’m a decent guy,” and wouldn’t think much about the members of minority groups who simply weren’t in his orbit and would find his style offensive. You can’t assume that anyone understands irony or satire these days, it’s just a fact of life given the internet and social media. If he was acting like a 1980’s edgelord in 2022 that would be insufferable, I think it’s good that he had some perspective.

Oh no, he supported Covid lockdowns! Christ, I know it fucked with the music economy, it also killed an awful lot of people! If only Steve Albini had become a cool iconoclast like Van Morrison or Eric Clapton, he could have had his own column in Quillette!