YMMV / Big Black

• Awesome Music: Quite a bit of their discography, but special mention to "Kerosene" off of Atomizer and "Bad Penny" from Songs About Fucking.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The quote "The future belongs to the analog loyalists. Fuck digital." on the back cover of Songs About Fucking. Steve Albini installed a Pro Tools rig in his recording studio which, even though he never uses it and it's only there for the artists' use, makes this quote amusing looking back.
  • The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape contains liner notes that predicted that, in 1992, compact discs will be considered obsolete in favor for analogue, just like how 8-track tapes were considered "state of the art" back in 1971. In 1992, compact discs took over 58 percent in music sales, and vinyl shrunk from 18 percent in 1987 to a mere 0.8 percent in 1992. However, Albini would have the last laugh, as vinyl finally outsold compact discs in 2020, over 30 years after discs beat vinyl sales in 1987.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Many of their songs. It becomes worse when you learn that many of these were based on actual events.
  • The cover of the limited edition version of the Headache EP.
  • Steve Albini's pantomime during concert performances of "Jordan, Minnesota."
    • Bandmate Santiago Durango: "We would get to a point in the song where we'd hit this really creepy noise, prolonged so it would just hang in the air, discordant so you would get a creepy feeling. And Steve would start pretending that he was one of the kids being raped, but I mean really intensely. And just impeccable timing. It was actually very disturbing to watch... It would really get people unsettled."
    • "Jordan, Minnesota" was one of their Ripped from the Headlines songs, but the real story eventually turned out to be disturbing for different reasons: the song depicts a small town full of child molesters, which isn't far from what initial reports of the investigation said. While some real child molestation was uncovered, a lot of the initial claims were found to be the result of highly suggestible children telling investigators what they thought they wanted to hear. If mistakes weren't realized a lot of innocent people could have been falsely accused.
    • And with all of that, the song itself perfectly encapsulates the trauma and horror of sexual abuse. And while most find Steve's scream of "SUCK DADDY" to be terrifying, most find this line to be worse:
    This will stay with you until you die.
• Tearjerker: "L Dopa" is a song about a teenage girl who contracts Encephalitis Lethargica (AKA Sleeping Sickness) and spends her entire adult life in a coma. Upon being woken up in her early 60's, she demands to be euthanized, but is refused this by the medical establishment. Also Nightmare Fuel.

---