Steve Albini Quotes

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.

I think the people who are saying jazz has to sound a particular way, or, 'What you're doing isn't jazz,' are just scared because they can't do it. A lot of them just aren't talented enough to do anything new, honestly.

Maybe the biggest thing that I've learned musically is that anything is possible. Things can work when maybe they don't seem like they can.

What I look for in musicians is a sense of infinity.

With a computer, there are too many choices, and I always liked working within limits. You know, if you look at Mozart, who had this strict classical framework - an allegro, an andante, a scherzo and a finale - you see that within that formula, he got results he might never have gotten if he had all the options in the world.

Thomas Dolby is part mad scientist, part nature boy, and entirely moved by the power of music.

Rock is about finding who you are. You don't necessarily have to play your instrument very well at all. You can just barely get by and you can be in a rock band.

Hip hop is doing the new rock thing; there are no rules. They can do anything, really. And that's inspiring.

In Atlanta, there's no limitation to where you can take your music. You can be as creative as you want to be.

You have got to make new music, that is the way that I look at it anyway.

Any good music must be an innovation.

When you tune your guitar in a different way, it lends itself to a new way of looking at your songwriting.

What is nice about country music today is that most artists are not trying to do something everybody else is doing. They really are trying to develop their own uniqueness.

I feel like music is just a platform and foundation just to be able to explore and see what's outside of it.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn't have to define you. It doesn't have to limit you.

Many times in music, if you are given limitations, it expands the creativity.

It's like jazz: You learn the rules to break them - as long as you can break them in a meaningful way.

Especially with Fantomas, i'm just trying to stretch out what the band can do. Figuring out, really, on the job or on recordings, what I can or can't get away with.

I'm suspicious of the idea of categories in music and this idea of things being in boxes. To me, that seems unnatural. I write the music that somebody with my biography would write, and the thing that's always driven me is an enthusiasm for the material. I sort of follow the notes to where they want to go.

The beautiful thing about working with new instruments is that you sort of approach it with a fresh perspective.

You have got to stress the freedom of music to really branch out and be universal.

In music, I wanted to make sure I was innovating.

To me, rock and roll is not a perfect science.

It's all about the balance. For musicians, me personally, you just can't keep doing covers or mash-ups. It would get old pretty fast.

For anybody to say well this is not Hip Hop and that's not Hip Hop, that is not the way the formula was laid down. It was for the people who were going to continue take anything musically and string it along.