The band's lyrics flouted commonly held taboos and dealt frankly—and often explicitly—with politically and culturally loaded topics including murder, rape, child sexual abuse, arson, racism, and misogyny.

[2][4] Moving to Evanston, Illinois the following year to pursue a journalism degree and fine art minor at Northwestern, Albini immersed himself in the fledgling Chicago punk scene and became a devoted fan of the band Naked Raygun.

[1][2] He also DJ'd for the campus radio station, from which he was repeatedly fired for playing loud and abrasive music during the morning time slot as well as not completing the required logs.

[9] Albini passed Lungs on to John Babbin of the small local label Ruthless Records, who released 1,500 copies of the EP in December 1982 with random objects such as dollar bills, used condoms, photographs of Bruce Lee, and bloody pieces of paper thrown into the inserts.

[2][10] In early 1983 Albini met Naked Raygun singer Jeff Pezzati through mutual friends and convinced him to play bass guitar with Big Black.

"[12] Albini "sorta conned" small local label Fever Records into financing the next Big Black EP, bringing in drummer Pat Byrne of Urge Overkill to play on the sessions as accompaniment to the drum machine, which they dubbed "Roland" for album credits.

[17] They began venturing outside of Illinois to play shows in Madison, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Muncie, transporting themselves and their equipment in a cramped car and sleeping on people's floors.

[17] Big Black simultaneously found themselves gaining popularity in their hometown, but felt embittered that the same locals who had snubbed them just months before were suddenly interested now that they had built a reputation outside the city, and the band actually refused to play in Chicago for some time.

[17] Compounding the problem were the band's aggressive, noise-driven sound and Albini's confrontational lyrics, which tested the tolerance of his white liberal audience by mercilessly satirizing racism, sexism, chauvinism, and stereotypes of homosexuality, sometimes using pejoratives like "darkie" and "fag" to drive home the point; this led some listeners to consider him a bigot.

[22] Durango later remarked that "We came from a punk perspective—we did not want to get sucked into a corporate culture where basically you're signing a contract because you don't trust the other person to live up to their word.

[24] They embarked on a 1984 national tour of the United States in preparation for their forthcoming Homestead EP, utilizing the close-knit network of independent rock bands to learn of cities and venues to play.

[26] Albini claimed to be aiming for a "big, massive, slick rock sound" with Racer-X, which was less frantic than Bulldozer, but ultimately felt that the EP was "too samey and monolithic.

"[27] The band had already begun writing new songs by the time Racer-X was released, stating in the last sentence of the EP's liner notes that "The next one's gonna make you shit your pants.

Azerrad remarks on its "powerful rhythm ripped straight from Gang of Four and guitars that sound like shattering glass", while Kellman calls it "undeniably Big Black's brightest/bleakest moment, an epically roaming track that features an instantly memorable guitar intro, completely incapable of being accurately described by vocal imitation or physical gesture [...] It's Big Black's 'Light My Fire,' literally.

[32] The compilation album The Hammer Party, combining Lungs and Bulldozer, was also released through Homestead Records in 1986, but later that year Big Black had a falling out with the label and its distributor, Dutch East India Trading.

[2][38] Despite enjoying increased press, radio airplay, record sales, and concert fees, the band did not regret their decision and eschewed the idea of commercial success.

"[41] In the United States the band played in San Francisco, Providence, Boston, New York City, and Newport, Kentucky, concluding with their final performance on August 9, 1987, at the Georgetown Steam Plant in Seattle.

[2][41] Mark Deming of Allmusic calls it "a scabrous masterpiece", while his colleague Andy Kellman states that "each [song] is incisive enough to render a razor as effective as a butter knife.

"[2][43] Critic Robert Christgau commented that "Anybody who thinks rock and roll is alive and well in the infinite variety of its garage-boy permutations had better figure out how these Hitler Youth rejects could crush the competition and quit simultaneously.

[2][3][47] Albini's recording style is characterized by the use of vintage microphones placed strategically around the performance room, keeping vocals very low in the mix, and using few special effects.

[26][50] In 2004 he participated in a musical project called Miasma of Funk, releasing the album Groove on the Mania!, and in 2006 published the book Blurry and Disconnected: Tales of Sink-or-Swim Nihilism.

[33] On September 9, 2006, Albini and Durango reunited with original bassist Jeff Pezzati for a Big Black reunion performance at Touch and Go's 25th Anniversary festival.

[14] "The effect was a monolithic pummeling, an attack", says Michael Azerrad, "their groove, normally the most human aspect of a rock band, became its most inhuman; it only made them sound more insidious, its relentlessness downright tyrannical.

[28] Mark Deming of AllMusic remarks that "The group's guitars alternately sliced like a machete and ground like a dentist's drill, creating a groundbreaking and monolithic dissonance in the process.

Anybody who thinks we overstepped the playground perimeter of lyrical decency (or that the public has any right to demand "social responsibility" from a goddamn punk rock band) is a pure mental dolt, and should step forward and put his tongue up my ass.

"[73] However, he did enjoy testing the tolerance of the white liberal hipsters in his audience and provoking reactions out of listeners, stating that one of the band's goals was "to have pointedly offensive records".

"[59][77] While playing, the band members would slam their hands against their steel guitar strings so hard that they would draw blood, often needing to put adhesive bandages on their fingers.

[78] Describing the intensity of a January 1987 Big Black performance in Forced Exposure, Lydia Lunch remarked that "I was pulverized into near oblivion as wall after wall of frustration, heartache, hatred, death, disease, dis-use, disgust, mistrust, and maelstrom stormed the stage waging war with military precision insistently invading every open orifice with the strength of ten thousand bulls".

[40] Musically, Big Black's insistent drum machine rhythms, abrasive textures, and obsessively repeated riffs provided a major part of the blueprint for so-called industrial rock.

"[2] Albini summed up several of the band's core ideals in his notes to the Pigpile album: Organizationally, we were committed to a few basic principles: Treat everyone with as much respect as he deserves (and no more), Avoid people who appeal to our vanity or ambition (they always have an angle), Operate as much as possible apart from the "music scene" (which was never our stomping ground), and Take no shit from anyone in the process.