Steve Albini has an outsized voice in the music industry of my generation; he engineered some of the seminal albums of the 80’s and 90’s. He was/is also a notorious curmudgeon, with an almost pathological need to offend and anger anyone and everyone. He’s slowly changed a lot of his attitudes about music, people, and his place in the discourse, and most importantly, has owned up to his responsibility in all of it.

As the years wore on, his perspective started to shift. “I can’t defend any of it,” he told me. “It was all coming from a privileged position of someone who would never have to suffer any of the hatred that’s embodied in any of that language.”

It’s fascinating to read about someone who unabashedly, unashamedly owns up to his faults without the aid (or hindrance) of an army of PR flacks and crisis managers.