Steve Albini, in an interview with… GQ.
UPDATE: My friend Paul and a bunch of my Facebook friends were annoyed by this quote. I wanted to say a little more about why I posted it — and why I posted it on a Tumblr that is usually at least a little bit related to my trade.
The GQ interview I pulled this from was a web feature — a Q&A with recording engineer and Shellac front-fellow Steve Albini that was mostly about his area of expertise: The music business.
At the end of the interview, the interviewer asked Albini a throw away question. It was the kind of crap I can only imagine some editor told the interviewer to be sure to ask every interviewee. The question: “How would you describe your fashion?”
To Albini’s credit, he neither answered the question, nor blew it off. He gave a thoughtful answer — with his trademark wit, outrage, and references to pornography.
He wasn’t attacking people who dress to fit their own definition of looking good. Hell, his drummer wears beautiful sparkly blouses when he performs and runs a salon.
He was hoping out loud for the destruction of the fashion industry GQ serves. And he was hoping out loud for the death of GQ itself — and all of this on a GQ interview.
It was a rare moment of a sort of meta-candor and a rare instance of a throwaway question to fit some hollow online editorial vision actually amounting to something.
It’s remarkable in the most literal sense.
Having duly remarked, I take my leave.
Notes
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publicinsightjeff posted this
