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Earlier in his career, Albini was noted for his abrasive and sometimes offensive music and writing. The Guardian writer Jeremy Gordon wrote that Albini had "stood out for acting like the biggest jerk in a milieu that was not exactly inhospitable to jerks ... What might it mean if the most principled practitioner of the venerated punk ethos was a thoughtless provocateur at best, a hypocritical bigot at worst?" In the 1980s, Albini's bluntness was regarded in the alternative music scene as a sign of authenticity. The influential critic Robert Christgau gave Big Black's first LP a positive review but described them as "hateful little twerps".

Writing for local zines in the 1980s, Albini wrote fiercely critical reviews of other local bands and feuded with local acts and venues. In 1994, after albums by Urge Overkill, the Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair brought new attention to the Chicago music scene, Albini wrote a letter to the Chicago Reader music critic Bill Wyman titled "Three Pandering Sluts and Their Music-Press Stooge". In the letter, Albini described Phair as "a fucking chore to listen to", the Smashing Pumpkins as "ultimately insignificant" and Urger Overkill as "weiners in suits playing frat party rock". In the independent music magazine Forced Exposure, Albini criticized bands he had worked with; of the Pixies, he wrote "never have I seen four cows more anxious to be led around by their nose rings", and of Poster Children he wrote "they had a really fruity drummer for a while, but I think he died of the syph". He described the songwriter Courtney Love in print as a "psycho hose-beast". Albini's friend Kim Deal, who worked with Albini when recording with the Pixies and the Breeders, said she was shocked by Albini's past statements.

The name of Albini's band Rapeman was derived from the Japanese manga series The Rapeman, whose combination of rape fantasies and superheroes Albini found "simultaneously utterly repellent and fascinating". In the 1980s, Albini also played in the band Run Nigger Run, the name taken from the tagline of a 1970s blaxploitation film, whose song titles included "Pray I Don’t Kill You Faggot". During performances of the Big Black song "Jordan, Minnesota", about a child sex ring, Albini would sometimes pretend to be a child being raped.

In his final years, Albini expressed regret about his behavior. In 2021, he wrote in a widely shared thread on Twitter that he was "overdue for a conversation about my role in inspiring 'edgelord' shit". He wrote: "a lot of things I said and did from an ignorant position of comfort and privilege are clearly awful and I regret them".

Albini said he made offensive art in response to an urge in his peers soften their art to make it palatable. He would deliberately do the opposite of bands he perceived were attempting to find commercial success. Instead, he wanted to create art "for its own sake" that was "unconcerned with conventions or acceptance". He cited the writing of his friend Peter Sotos, who wrote about subjects such as murder and abuse, as an example of art that was "shocking to your core in the way that the horrors of the reality of those things should be", rather than using shocking themes as a vehicle for profit. Albini said he later became less interested in trying to create "extreme" art, and was embarrassed by his earlier position.

Albini said he had falsely assumed that many social problems, such as misogyny and homophobia, were already solved, especially as the underground musical communities he moved in were "broadly inclusive". He did not take the threat of fascism and authoritarianism seriously in his younger years, treating them as a joke, and regretted that he did not foresee their coming resurgence. He described discovering people in alternative music who were using abusive language with sincerity as "one of many wake-up moments".

Albini said that many straight white men assumed that they were not contributing to social problems as long as they were not actively oppressing others. He came to realize that he was "responsible for accepting my role in the patriarchy, and in white supremacy, and in the subjugation and abuse of minorities of all kinds".

"It's just been a long and gradual process of me appreciating, on a day-to-day basis, all of the little things that aren't problems for me that are problems for other people. The broader my circle of friends become, and the more I choose to listen rather than talk, the more I learn about how good I've had it every day of my fucking life." He said that Shellac had deliberately enlisted musicians of different backgrounds on their tours.

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.” For years, Albini had always believed himself to have airtight artistic and political motivations behind his offensive music and public statements. But as he observed others in the scene who seemed to luxuriate in being crass and offensive, who seemed to really believe the stuff they were saying, he began to reconsider. “That was the beginning of a sort of awakening in me,” he said. “When you realise that the dumbest person in the argument is on your side, that means you’re on the wrong side.”

“Life is hard on everybody and there’s no excuse for making it harder. I’ve got the easiest job on earth, I’m a straight white dude, fuck me if I can’t make space for everybody else.”

"However you define 'woke', anti-woke means being a cunt who wants to indulge bigots."

The Chicago Reader music critic Bill Wyman wrote that Albini's fanzine contributions "display a remarkably clear expository style and a vituperative flair that I wish more mainstream writers possessed".

"He's never written a hit single or performed on a late-night television show or sung a melody that could be described as catchy ... But his significance vastly outweighs his fame."

"Albini – and I can’t say this without it sounding a little silly because of the way the music industry has conspired for decades to sand off the edges of any once-transgressive cultural movement, but more on that later – is a genuine punk rocker. Not because he plays music with distorted guitars or exudes contempt for pretentious establishment figures – though he has done plenty of that – but because throughout his career he, perhaps more than anyone else, has attempted to embody the righteous ideological tenets that once made punk rock feel like a true alternative to the tired mainstream."

Arun Starkey of Far Out wrote that Ablini was "a purist at heart who spread his version of the punk spirit until the very end, the way he made listeners think about production, commercialism and the very motivation behind their favourite artists was unparalleled".