Who's Simon Defending Now?: Big Black

A brick of fireworks explodes onstage.

A scrawny, bespectacled nerd walks on stage, with two lumbering goons in tow. They wear their guitars with strange straps around their hips, instead of the standard shoulder ones.

There is no drummer.

The nerd walks toward the microphone.

“1… 2… 1, 2, FUCK YOU!”

The next three minutes are the worst three minutes of your life. You’re plunged into a lacerating flood of guitar distortion and slamming bass. There may be no drummer, but there’s a brutal drumbeat coming from somewhere, hammering itself into your head with inhuman precision. The musicians are staggering around the stage, spitting, screaming, bleeding. Is this Hell, you ask?

No, this is Big Black. And they probably hate you.

In terms of music that challenges you, there simply are no other bands that can touch Big Black. Driven by Steve Albini, a crazed, bitter lunatic hailing from the vast nothingness of Missoula, Montana, they tore rock audiences apart for five brief years in the 80s. With guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Dave Riley providing the necessary muscle (not to mention “Roland”, the drum machine which was always treated as a full band member), they openly provoked audiences who had grown accustomed to the formulaic nature of American punk bands. 80s underground rock in America meant the rigid viewpoints of hardcore punk or the loose jangle of R.E.M. and college rock. Big Black didn’t try for either.

To call Big Black “abrasive” or “offensive” doesn’t even begin to do them justice. The Sex Pistols were “abrasive,” but they still played recognizable chords and blues progressions. Modern rap can be “offensive,” but today’s rappers don’t talk about child molestation and slaughterhouses. Such things are impossibly bad taste, right? If they are, it didn’t keep Big Black from singing about them. Against a backdrop of intolerable noise, there were no subjects off-limits for Big Black.

The sound of Big Black is certainly recognizable. Using aluminum guitars and playing with copper guitar picks that were clipped in half, the guitar sound is best described as “ungodly metallic screeching.” Instead of riffs, Albini and Durango created sounds resembling sheet metal being ripped apart. However, the cacophony was carefully controlled. Especially since their drummer was, in fact, a machine, the precision in Big Black’s music is amazing. Unlike the flabby distortion of heavy metal, Big Black’s sound is pure punk, honed down to its leanest, sharpest edge. This is efficient, carefully executed music intended to grab you and never let you go.

The lyrics are certainly attention-grabbing as well. Particularly on their debut album, 1986’s Atomizer, their songs dealt with every taboo topic they could think of. Songs about police corruption and post-traumatic stress disorder target large social problems, while others are told from the perspective of alcoholics or a wife-beating husband. Most of Albini’s lyrics are in this first-person perspective, which is where most of their offensiveness comes from. We’re not supposed to relate with these types of misanthropic characters, but Albini’s songs force us into their shoes through the lyrics. Perhaps most shocking of all is “Jordan, Minnesota”, which is based on a true account of a city-wide child molestation ring. A song told from the perspective of an abused child would be controversial enough, but Albini takes the role of the molester. By the time he starts moaning and screaming, saying “come here and do as you’re told,” you understand just how horrific and tasteless this story is.

But it’s also true and this is where Big Black gets complicated. It’s easy to dismiss them as a bunch of horrible, offensive sociopaths, but, by doing so, you’re only looking at the surface of the music. Beneath the wall of noise and button-pushing words are some of the most pointed satires and black comedy in history. Big Black confront issues like child molestation head on, whereas most other bands won’t even go near such subjects. In the world of Big Black, to avoid something is to act like it doesn’t exist. The problems Albini writes about are all real. A song like “Bazooka Joe”, featuring a PTSD Vietnam vet, deals with a real problem in 1980s America. Big Black don’t dress these issues up at all, which is why they offend so many people, but if you take a moment to look at Albini’s word choice and phrasing, it’s clear that their songs aren’t meant to be taken literally. In the middle of “Bad Penny”, the song pauses so Albini can deliver this monologue:

I think I fucked your girlfriend once
Maybe twice, I don’t remember
Then I fucked all your friends’ girlfriends
Now they hate you

Maybe I’m just as twisted and warped as Albini, but I can’t help but laugh when I hear that. Big Black’s music and lyrics are so extreme that they simply can’t be taken at face-value. The point is that they offend. You’re supposed to have a strong reaction. Besides, above all, their songs are theatric. Albini writes character sketches, putting himself (and the listener) into the shoes of the most undesirable elements of humanity, in order to shine the light on subjects people would rather just ignore. There’s no excuse for that kind of ignorance, however, and Big Black ensure that nobody gets away with it.