in utero poll

"Pennyroyal Tea" today, but I love the thud of "Frances Farmer..."

love "Serve The Servents" as an opener, don't feel like it gets enough respect

This reminds me of my last visit to NY, I decided what I needed was "In Utero" the Wal-Mart version, which has "Waif me" and no "Gallons of Alcohol" etc.

And also, what I didn't know at the time, it has the 'radio remix' of PennyRoyal Tea.

Nice.

Oh, would vote "All Apologies" but it sort of reminds me that I liked this album much more than "Nevermind" when it came out, and now everyone thinks the same.

So, hmm... Track one. Just for the CRASSSHHHHH opening chord, and the song itself.

(xpost - this thread had no answers when I started)

impulse vote for scentless apprentice but could have easily voted for milk it, very ape, dumb, or radio friendly unit shifter instead

HSB over Apologies and Pennyroyal

(maybe cuz 2d and 3rd are better on Unplugged)

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. This album more or less sux.

another vote for Serve The Servants. The first side is mostly boring - I never liked Pennyroyal or Rape Me or any of that junk. I think Tourettes was the first track I heard that I consciously knew was by Nirvana.

In Utero is just as good as Nevermind, in it's own special way

better than, i think

milk it

but i like the opener a lot too

i voted very ape

milk it. w/ heart shaped box, radio friendly unit shifter, very ape, frances farmer right behind it

"Pennyroyal Tea", wow, that song hits hard still with the howl in the chorus.

it's weird how "Dumb" has gradually become such an overplayed radio staple over the years that i can't stand to hear it now

maybe it's because i don't listen to rock radio, but i'd rather hear dumb than all apologies or pennyroyal tea or the other quiet songs on this album

I really like Heart Shaped Box and was surprised on the recent Vig vs Albini production thread at implications it was some terrible badly produced sell-out that nobody with ears could be happy with, or something. Is this just some save-an-Albini stanning or is it not cool to like the big lead single or do people really not like this song?

(PS I like Albini's work in general but I guess not so much on In Utero if the track I most dig the sound of was totally redone from his version)

dope record

i was very disappointed to not find this on my ipod this morning

i think 'heart-shaped box' is great, one of my favorite nirvana singles. but i like the other stuff on this album a lot more

i was very disappointed to not find this on my ipod this morning

Ha me too. Gotta dig through and find the cd.
Voted All Apologies. No apologies.

I have never listened to this album

maybe this poll is a reason to?

I voted for "Milk It," it was my favorite as a youth and it is still great now. Only songs that disapointed were "Serve the Servants" and "Frances Farmer."

this is tough...strictly peaking, my favourite song on here is All Apologies, but i'm not voting for it, bcz i only have one vote...think i'm voting Tourette's, but could vote for any of these songs...one of my favourite albums ever...

strictly speaking

Frances Farmer has always been my choice on this album. Dylan played it on his radio show on madness recently, and told her story, which you kind of have to infer from the lyrics.

Frances Farmer

"Scentless Apprentice",easy
but jesus liazrd is better than this record

Serve the Servants

frances farmer!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Tough poll. I think Rape Me might be the most intense, compelling Nirvana song, so I guess that's my choice. Dumb and Pennyroyal Tea are very close, tho.

Went with Apologies in the end. It is the obvious choice, and just too damn good for whatever challops I thought I could rationalize.

very ape.

pennyroyal tea.

great album. i'm seriously tired of "rape me", "dumb", "heart shaped box", "pennyroyal tea", and "all apologies" though, as great as some of those songs 'em are. narrowed it down to "serve the servants" and "milk it", chose the latter.

The opening line is such a great, all knowing kiss off from a guy that was labelled the 'voice of his generation'
' and was following up such a siesmic album in Nevermind. So that song then.

Scentless Apprentice is a killer, killer beat. I loved that one and Milk It. The popular tunes are good too, but I thought Nirvana was pretty good when they got spazzy.

Serve the Servants.

Generally acknowledged as the best Nirvana album now, isn't it?

I don't know about that, but it at least has been pulled outside of the shadow of Nevermind and assessed based on its own merits at this point. Personally, I'd go with Unplugged.

Had "Verse Chorus Verse" been on this...

yeah, "Verse Chorus Verse" is probably my fav Nirvana song.

"Frances Farmer." I started a mix CD with it a few years ago, and half the people I gave it to were like "oh man, where'd you find that Nirvana song?!" Right in the middle of the damn album!

I never enjoy pulling this out (especially this one). And indeed hearing it again just now was not pleasant.

I guess I'll go with "Rape Me" because it's the only one that seems to radiate outward from Kurt scraping his soul towards something more transformative. Or at least that's why I tell myself to get through the thing.

Ugh.

"All Apologies". Great song from a generally overrated album, and the one song that would have fitted on the way superior "Nevermind" album.

"Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" has the long noisy ending and I wanted to go for that, but it accidentally took my vote for "Scentless Apprentice" which I guess is also fine because the groove in that song is massive.

voted scentless apprentice because it is my favourite Nirvana song and freaks me out still.

tourette's has some really hooky screaming

The #1 is an odd choice

i do love it though. but it definitely isn't the peak of the album.

such a great opening line tho

yup. I'd put it as my #3 i think

Very Ape is maybe my favourite song of theirs but it doesn't seem to get much love

Tanya Tagaq's is the only version of Rape Me I need and I tend to skip it on this

that hypothetical next nirvana album with all the strings and shit - would it have been more stuff like all apologies or unplugged? would it have been more americana? baroque pop? chamber grunge? it's hard to imagine something radically different from what we have but who knows

Always shocked when Cobain stifles a giggle at the final chorus of "Milk It", like a cartoon scribbled in the margins of a suicide note.

That giggle is one of my fav bits in any of their songs

hmmmmTEHH MEEEEEE

Anyway ask me 10 years ago I'd have said Pennyroyal Tea was my favourite on In Utero and now it's my least favourite (still very good). I don't think it's because I've worn it out either I just prefer the 11 others now (or 12 others - Gallons still retains its novelty somehow)

I’d loftily dismissed Nirvana as a populist Pixies ripoff and tried to ignore them, but then this record came out and I was slapped across the face by how great they truly were. “Milk It” was the track that did it. Very few songs match its electricity.

xp Where does it say they wanted to do an album with strings?

I think the only evidence of the direction of the next album were "You Know You're Right" and "Do Re Mi," which sounds to me like some of it would have been their poppiest stuff.

The first lyric of this LP was paraphrased, nicely, as the first line of SPIN Magazine’s review of Green Day’s Nimrod.

And it’s a fantastic way to start In Utero.

XP Courtney Love (or maybe Grohl) said Kurt was really into Automatic For The People and wanted to move in that direction.

The author was Jesse something

https://www.spin.com/2017/04/green-day-nimrod-review/

They'd have been better leaving that remark for (the very good but noticeably more adult-sounding) Warning

I don’t think Serve the Servants is an odd pick at all. Has one of the most iconic first lines of an album ever and lets you know that the entirety of the album In Utero is ahead of you.

But for real the ramshackle charm of it is undeniable, an amazing first statement post Nervermind, I probably voted for it.

This album sounded better than anything blasting out of shit ‘94 Ford Explorer speakers, cassette ripped from CD. Like it was precision designed for it. Wore. It. Out.

this is the first album i really remember going and buying on release day and coming home and playing it over and over and calling my friend Mark to talk about the songs

yeah my brother and I played it on a dubbed cassette in a player I hacked into his 79 Corolla, it sounds like insanely hot Australian summer to me which is pretty hilarious

Cobain gushed in his last Rolling Stone interview how R.E.M.'s Automatic.... had inspired him to record a string-laden Nirvana album.

I like the idea of them releasing an album that tells the Counting Crows where to stick it but it being 1996 so only going about 2x or 3x Platinum or something.

Always wondered how Grohl and Novoselic got co-writing credit on just “Scentless Apprentice”.

Anyway, “Dumb” is probably the best on the record. I love how the band used the cello on this album, Nevermind, and Unplugged

I like the thought of their “man who sold the world” cover becoming a branching off point into a softer moody cello laden AftP influenced album

same. also imagining Rasputina becoming enormous as the opening band on the next tour.

Anyway, “Dumb” is probably the best on the record. I love how the band used the cello on this album, Nevermind, and Unplugged

The de-cello'd Albini remix of Dumb is, well...

The song is great but but this specific Kurt quote about the song

"I’ve met a lot of dumb people. They have a shitty job, they may be totally lonely, they don’t have a girlfriend, they don’t have much of a social life, and yet, for some reason, they're happy."

became the basis of a long running in-joke between me and an old friend that Kurt wouldn't have liked us as socially anxious autistic people and I've never been able to hear the song the same way since (sorry Kurt I know you meant well).

Always wondered how Grohl and Novoselic got co-writing credit on just “Scentless Apprentice”.

It's the only song on the album not originated by Kurt: https://www.stereogum.com/2029102/dave-grohl-demo-krist-novoselic-rey-washam-scentless-apprentice/music/

xpost I think Kurt envied those people, certainly didn't dislike them.

I like them as songs but I was never crazy about the singles choices for this album, I just think it would have been quite the left turn had the first or second single been “Milk It”, or “Scentless..”

Or to put it another way - Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, Lithium etc are together broadly representative of Nevermind. Heart-Shaped Box and All Apologies don’t really hint at what is essentially noise-rock in several of the album tracks.

xpost no not at all, me and said friend used to jokingly make stuff up in one context and milk it (pun intended) all dry.

In Utero might be the hardest, loudest, punkest album to top the Billboard chart unless I subtract "punkest," which would allow Metallica and Def Leppard and Zep to join in the fun.

^^^

I was about to say that it must have more feedback than any other #1 album, but then I remembered that Electric Ladyland and the Woodstock soundtrack both hit #1.

xposts to Master, yeah, I remember as a teen trying to get into rock music and hearing "All Apologies" and telling my friend excitedly and he was like "lol none of the rest of teh album is like that"

“You Know You’re Right” suggests a heavier (and better) direction they were heading in in comparison to some of the hypotheses upthread

“all apologies” may not be as noisy but it’s maybe the most brutal and intense on the album emotionally.. a different kind of heavy..

It's a great one

Also, it is pretty noisy too.

esp the whole climax post-buried which is like a contaminated noise that is barely able to stand up.

In Utero might be the hardest, loudest, punkest album to top the Billboard chart unless I subtract "punkest," which would allow Metallica and Def Leppard and Zep to join in the fun.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 3:26 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

it has the most crushing drumming as well, with the possible exceptions of Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zep IV only a No. 2 album on Billboard tho (but it did top Cash Box and Record World). To the US what DSOTM is to the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kpqo0eaxZ4

This is pretty well done. Really enjoy the Scentless Apprentice, Milk It, and Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.

OMG, Scentless Apprentice is the sound of the most palm sweaty boss battle of all time. It's stressing me out.

_In Utero_ might be the hardest, loudest, punkest album to top the Billboard chart unless I subtract "punkest," which would allow Metallica and Def Leppard and Zep to join in the fun.

yah add them to the list, though they peaked after IU

Slipknot

lol

This version of scentless apprentice is one of the craziest things I've ever heard

NO SAVES ONLY ONE HEART LEFT FINAL BOSS AAAAAAARGH

i hope i can remember to make scentless apprentice my #1 song of 2023, if i vote in the poll next year

it rocks so fucking hard. the vox are perfect