The reason this has become news again is that Albini recently, speaking with Quartz in an article which riffed on his 1995 article “ The Problem With Music“, has added more thoughts to a parallel subject, that of streaming music, in which he described the ability to “share music, globally, for free” as “the single best thing that has happened in my lifetime in music, after punk rock”. He concluded by saying “Thank you internets” which chimes with Dave Allen (Gang of Four) opinion on the subject: “Don’t blame the internet”.īut please read Albini’s full treatise if you haven’t already. “Free distribution of music has created a huge growth in the audience for live music performance, where most bands spend most of their time and energy anyway.” “There won’t ever be a mass-market record industry again, and that’s fine with me because that industry didn’t operate for the benefit of the musicians or the audience, the only classes of people I care about.” “I reject the term “piracy.” It’s people listening to music and sharing it with other people, and it’s good for musicians because it widens the audience for music.” Steve Albini famously “came out” a couple of years ago as being pro-piracy in this “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit in which he was posed the question “What is your opinion about music Piracy? Does it hurt you economically?” His reply was quite long and the full draft of it can be found on the link above (and should be required reading for all fans of music) but essentially though, by way of a recap, what he said can be summed up with his three quotes: Not surprisingly it turns out he’s in favour of it. In a recent interview Steve Albini has added to his thoughts on music piracy from a few years ago by telling us what he thinks about music streaming.

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