This episode of Music In Time honors the legacy of the late Steve Albini--not by recounting the best albums he engineered or the music he wrote and played (there are many such great tributes), but by revisiting his essay "The Problem With Music," published in The Baffler in December 1993. Pairing Albini's trenchant critique of the music industry's exploitation of bands with a playlist of music released in the months surrounding the essay's publication, host Evan McCormick explores what the essay reveals about an inflection point for alternative music. From snakelike A&R scouts to hapless "producers," the allure of major label fame to Reality Bites, the episode charts how the ideas in Albini's essay shaped the way listeners understood--and continue to understand--sonic authenticity.

Playlist:

Pearl Jam - Animal

St Johnny - I Give Up

Mazzy Star - Blue Light

Uncle Tupelo - Give Back The Key To My Heart

The Lemonheads - Into Your Arms

Teenage Fanclub - Hang On

Posies - Going Going Gone

Gin Blossom - Idiot Summer

Everclear - Your Genius Hands

Meat Puppets - Backwater

Music does not just exist. It exists in specific times and places, and in the sonic world of each individual listener who engages with it. That’s the basic idea behind "Music in Time," which explores the social and political context in which songs and albums emerge, are listened to, and reflected on over the years. Each broadcast focuses on a single album, detailing the social and political circumstances surrounding its release and moments in time that made certain music resonate anew. How is music shaped by these historical moments, and, in turn, how does it shape the histories that we remember?

By day, Evan McCormick is a historian at Columbia University, where he is part of the Obama Presidency Oral History project, interviewing a range of people — from cabinet members to ordinary folks — about their memories of the Obama years. By night, McCormick is a music lover and singer-songwriter, recording under the stage name Egan Caufield. For most of his life these two worlds remained separate, but after relocating to Catskill, in 2020, he chose to bring history and music together over the airwaves, and "Music in Time" was born.