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/