Issue #74: Nirvana – In Utero

Released:  September 13th, 1993

Recorded:  February 12th – 26th, 1993

Genre:  Grunge, Alternative

Record Label:  DGC

Duration:  48:49

Producer:  Steve Albini

Personnel

Track Listing

Singles

Why In Utero is One of My Favorites

So the world pretty much agrees that Nevermind changed everything, forever, right?  So how do you follow up an album like that?  Pearl Jam had their answer with the eclectic Vs., Weezer did their thing with the brilliantly pessimistic Pinkerton, and Green Day retained their pop sensibility yet wrote some of the darkest personal lyrics to ever appear on a pop punk record with Insomniac.  Nirvana decided to go for an all out sonic assault and released In Utero, a raw and abrasive record full of screeches and hums and buzzes that force the listener to dig through it to find the underlying song.

Now I like Nirvana, and I like In Utero.  Depending on what day it is, I may like In Utero better than Nevermind.  The latter is certainly more approachable and consistent, but I often feel that the former is far more interesting, both musically and lyrically…if only I can take that time to cut through all that goddamned noise.  What I have hard time reconciling is my need to call Cobain on his bullshit while also acquiescing to the man and the band’s legacy that is untouchable and irreproachable.  I’m very sorry for what happened to the man and those around him, and I don’t think that anyone should have to suffer like that, but just because I think he was totally full of shit by the days of In Utero doesn’t mean I have any less respect for him, or the band, or their respective situations.

I would really like to know how people would react had this suicide thing not happened.  The suicide may shine a different light on the music, but it doesn’t fundamentally change what the music is or where it came from.  If Kurt was so uncomfortable with his fame, why didn’t he take he take his cut and fall off the grid?  If he wanted everyone to stop taking the band so seriously, why did he continue to take it so seriously?  If he wanted a record that sounded “raw” and “unpolished,” then why was so much feedback and static purposefully injected back into the recording?  Why the need for endless guitar overdubs?  You might hear a few pops and clicks or a buzz or two during a live performance, but you don’t hear endless waves of static and random screeching.

This isn’t Reznor’s controlled noise and technical studio wizardry, it’s noise for the sake of noise.  I would be much more interested in hearing songs like “Scentless Apprentice” without all that shit bouncing around.  (More on this in the following issue.)  I personally have a hard time understanding his mission statement when going in to make In Utero – what does having a less polished sound have to do with making the record sound like it was recorded on broken equipment?  The bottom line, for me, is that the man was a walking contradiction at this point in his life, and when both critics and fans look back on what he said, they tend to cherry pick what best fits their romantic notion of what Nirvana has come to represent instead of what they were.  They bend and twist the music to fit their favorite quotes instead of letting the music speak for itself.

I think that a lot of fans (and critics) have ignored just how drug addled Cobain was in those last months.  No one takes the time to think that maybe he didn’t have a clue what he was rambling on about, and that just maybe he wasn’t a prophet, and that perhaps he was simply an intelligent and articulate junkie.  And I don’t blame him.  It’s a nasty situation.  What sickens me is how people hang onto every single world and how they put Kurt on a pedestal, as if he was a martyr for grunge.  Everyone will nod their heads in solemn approval if I bring up how his life was ruined by drugs, yet the fact that he was probably high as a kite for most of his career tends to be completely glossed over, as if all that heroin had absolutely no bearing on all the weird shit that came out of his mouth.

The fans have canonized the man as a saint and regarded any and all criticisms of the man or the music blasphemous.  I actually thought this would get better over time, especially as an entirely new generation grew up, but it’s gotten worse, because now this totally unrealistic vision of Nirvana has been passed down to a new generation of teenagers who are even more removed from the actual music.

Ok, let me get back to the music.  Overall, In Utero is a pretty interesting record to listen to.  Nevermind is the obvious choice when it comes to Nirvana, and it is certainly easier to pop in and listen to, but it has a very same-y feeling.  It’s hard for me to think about Nevermind in a certain way because it’s one of those albums I’ve listened to over and over again, and that I probably know too well inside and out to really objectively assess.  I got into In Utero a little later, a couple of years after nu-metal was beginning to fully eclipse grunge as the musical drug of choice among angry teenagers, and I actually found myself pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t “Nevermind II.”

As I mentioned some time ago, there is a lot of (what I feel to be unnecessary) noise laced throughout the album, but there are some great songs underneath.  Much of the record sounds like a sadder, more dissonant form of punk, which I suppose was (part of) what Cobain was going for here.  I may be in the minority here, though I’d venture to say that Nirvana was beginning to channel the essence of The Melvins on this album, almost producing a faster style of sludge rock/metal if that makes sense.  The guitar overdubs do become a little too domineering for their own good at times and there’s a noticeable lack of catchy hooks and dreamy lead guitar bits such as those found on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Lithium.”  It’s sort of there, but heavily obscured.  Cobain’s lyrics are as vague as ever, though I guess this record was more about being an artist rather than speaking to teenagers.

In short, In Utero becomes the closest thing we have to an experimental album from Nirvana, and I don’t have much problem outright declaring it an experimental album myself.  It has a “cool sound” to it, but at the same time it struggles with its identity as well.  The latter half gets a little draggy despite the short songs; I’ve tried to pinpoint the problem and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because there’s too much “noisy shit” crammed together.  Cobain has really done something different with his vocals as well – only occasionally does he attempt to sing, and much of the album is him screaming, an all out war on music soaked with the pain that he always did a great job of conveying.

Am I being harsh?  Maybe, but it’s only because I’ve gotten to know it so well that I’m picking at one thing and the another.  Had Nirvana figured out what they wanted to do with this post-punk quasi-sludge sound on a following album, I have no doubt that In Utero would be remembered as “nice try, buddy” and that the followup would’ve been a much more cohesive realization of whatever the hell it was they were going for.  But we don’t have a followup to In Utero, and as a grunge/alt album it leaves something to be desired, but for those of us who feel in love with the corrosive and ablative sounds of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, there’s a whole new angle to be appreciated…

“Scentless Apprentice” is one of my favorites on the album, even with its noise.  Cobain’s vocals take on a broken, distorted effect and there’s an amazing guitar riff hiding out in the background.  Believe it or not, it actually reminds me of Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, or maybe something akin to an unpolished demo from the era.  This is all very ironic; supposedly, the story in “Scentless Apprentice” is taken from the novel Perfume, about a murderer who attempts to capture the scent of virgins for his amazing perfume.  (It’s a twisted by awesome story, and I can see why it fascinated musicians at the time.)  In 1995, Manson released an EP called Smells Like Children, which was allegedly a phrase that Manson had coined after reading the very same book!  (This is the whole reason I know of, bought, and read the book in the first place.)  Even weirder, I’ve also read that the Perfume reference for Manson’s work is a fabrication, and that he was actually intending it as a play on none other than “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”  It’s a fun story to think about, even though Nirvana had come and gone by the time Manson gained any mainstream headway.

“Rape Me” opens with guitar that bears a distinct resemblance to “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” though it takes a more solemn turn and soon turns into one of the album’s more aggressive yet markedly less noisy songs.  “Dumb” tends to follow “On a Plain” on a rhythmic level.  It’s one of my favorites due to its simplistic approach and Cobain’s sad, maybe a little drugged up delivery that really represents Nirvana’s vibe.

“Very Ape” is the punkiest cut from In Utero, and one of the most focused efforts on the record as far as I’m concerned.  It’s loud and noisy, but not chaotic, and not random.  “Heart-Shaped Box” is the obvious choice for a single with its strangely catchy but somehow “off” lead guitar, and the chorus is straight from Nevermind, maybe a tad slower.  To me, it sounds like an attempt to push the complexity of grunge a little further, and I would’ve been interested in to hear the guys pursue this style further.  “Serve the Servants” is another song that seems to be headed in this direction.

Songs like “Milk It” and “tourette’s” have some pretty good crunchy guitar riffs going on, I only wish they came to more of a musical peak or focal point of the song.  Despite my soft spots for “Scentless Apprentice” and “Serve the Servants,” they also lack the release of tension into something memorable and powerful.

By far my favorite track on In Utero and my favorite Nirvana song ever is “All Apologies.”  (“Lounge Act” is a close second, er well, maybe it is; wait for the next issue!)  Like “Heart-Shaped Box,” it demonstrates a more musically satisfying sound and progressive approach to the stylings of grunge.  The lead guitar passage is one of the greatest things to come out of the grunge scene and even though shit like “aqua sea-foam shame” makes absolutely no sense to me, the track is sublime.  It’s catchy, but it’s also sad, and yet it’s also restrained, which is something Kurt had a problem with.  The primal appeal of his vocal delivery is undoubtedly a lot of what led to the band’s success despite their mediocre skills as musicians, so I don’t want to say that it’s completely unwarranted, but I also feel that the best artists know when to pull back some, and when to focus whatever emotions they may be feeling into the music itself rather than the wild ravings of a man unhinged.  Anyway, “All Apologies” is perhaps the most well composed song that Nirvana ever released, and even though it may not showcase Cobain’s despair in the way that “Milk It” or the end of “Rape Me” does, it’s a brilliant coalescence of all the things that were great about Nirvana.

Looking back, it’s possible that I haven’t painted as flattering of a picture of In Utero as I had in mind.  But just like the fans and critics who have let the man get in the way of the music, I have let these reactions get in the way as well, and once connected, it’s impossible to separate the two.  Well, maybe not impossible, but it is difficult not to let the band’s turbulent history factor in to one’s opinion of the music.  In Utero is a good but flawed album.  The high points are great and the low points aren’t really that bad, and I suppose I remember it fondly for all the ways that it set out to break free from the simple but highly effective mold of Nevermind.  There was a floundering idea here that was beginning to blossom whether the band intended or even realized it or not and with less stress and less drugs, I think they could’ve turned this sound into something all their own, possibly even putting grunge behind them and being remembered for something else entirely.

In the end, I believe that a singular vision would’ve turned this album into something well beyond what Nevermind gave us (even if it were to never achieve the same popularity), but I guess the band just wasn’t there yet, and unfortunately, they’d never get there.  Few bands are able to follow up a classic with a classic…Manson couldn’t, Korn didn’t, the Pumpkins wouldn’t…and you can add Nirvana to the list as well.  However, it is at least an interesting experiment that seemed well on its way to something new and exciting.

Written by The Cubist

Other albums from Nirvana in this series:

• 1991 – Nevermind – Issue #4
• 1994 – Unplugged – Issue #75

Back to The Cubist’s 90’s Albums

Written by The Cubist

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I collect as much video gaming paraphernalia as I can get my hands on, especially when it comes to hardware. With over 40 systems including oldies like the ColecoVision and Intellivision, obscurities like the CD-i and 3DO, and the latest and greatest including the Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, 3DS, and PS Vita, I get easily overwhelmed. Most of the time you can find me firmly nestled sometime between 1985 and 1995 when it comes to my games of choice, but I’m also having a great time seeing what the 8th generation has to offer.

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