Steve Albini kept things honest. “Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context,” begins his seminal 1993 essay, “The Problem with Music.” “I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit.” Albini went on to describe how this trench is the gauntlet that new bands must endure, in competition with one another, to gain a recording contract that is held by a music industry exec at the other end. Providing a litany of insider detail, including a sample budget and balance sheet that underscore the corporate exploitation involved, Albini concludes, “Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.”

Albini, who died last week from a heart attack at age sixty-one, knew the music business from all sides — as a musician, as a sometime music critic, briefly as a label manager, and, above all, as a highly regarded recording engineer. He worked on numerous canonical albums that defined an entire era of music, including releases by the Pixies, Slint, PJ Harvey, the Jesus Lizard, the Breeders, and, most famously, Nirvana. Equally important, he led several influential bands, namely Big Black and Shellac. In short, Albini experienced firsthand the recording industry’s opportunities and its systemic inequalities. He engaged its entire edifice, from playing music to recording music to writing and pontificating about music. Few can claim the same credentials. They fundamentally informed his artist-centered approach.