#40 Nirvana – In Utero
When a band arrives on a scene like Nirvana did with “Nevermind”, the question about their legacy should ride on the follow-up record. In the case of Nirvana, they pushed forward with a record that was not necessarily going to be family friendly when their second single off the album was ‘Rape Me,’ which had both cemented itself obviously as an “Anti-Rape” song but also as a song that is directed at the media for whom the media had had been following closely since the release of ‘Nevermind.’ It was a song that MTV did not want the band playing on the MTV music awards either for fear that Tabitha Soren might have jumped onstage and started singing “Rape Me”…
Of course, this was the early 90’s when Grunge was in and albums like this would probably sell quite well at the record store anyhow but Nirvana is not settling for the easy ride into glitz and glamour but the rough road and this record did have some drama behind it. When the infamous Steve Albini was chosen by the band as producer there was some dissention among the record company that the album was not commercial enough and thus a couple of the tracks were sent to the infamous Scott Litt who changed the dimensions of the album from being a little less noise and a little more pop.
I am not necessarily in the same camp when it comes to Steve Albini’s likes and dislikes and while I know that he has quite a few strong opinions about the final results, I do think in terms of popular music, that the album did push certain boundaries. The album feels like Cobain’s suicide note. “In Utero”, would suggest being in the fetal position and feeling a bit vulnerable and the impression that you get after listening to it is almost defensive.
If anything ‘In Utero’ is still an edgier album as a follow-up to ‘Nevermind’. ‘Serve the Servants’ and ‘Milk It’ being more in the category of something that Jesus Lizard might release and the subject matter, while seeming fairly childlike, does portray more adult themes. The energy on song like “Milk It” feels more like energy being forced in a different direction with random comments made along the way.
Then there is the cynical nature of ‘Heart-Shaped Box” which ‘claims’ to be a love song, or maybe about Courtney Love, but I have always felt it to be a combination of that relationship as well as some of the burdens. It also represents some of the media issues that Cobain was going through at the time.
For a band that could have sold out any theater in a moment, Nirvana became the biggest band overnight and their follow-up pushed the boundaries that I think would have allowed them greater leeway in the future. Unfortunately, that future never happened.