in utero poll

^^The B-Sides/Outtakes would have made for a killer follow-up stopgap EP, as was the style at the time.

Also: Kurt would have been 50 today.

I really can't imagine Cobain at 50.

Re the Litt production, my understanding was that he rerecorded the vocals and mixed, but the instrumentation is from the Albini session. And there was that German vinyl pressing which has the Albini versions, or am I making that up? I seem to remember they weren't even terribly different.

Litt remixed/polished up a couple of tracks but that was about it.

I definitely think the Albini versions of HSB and All Apologies have surfaced somewhere

What happened to Scott Litt, anyway? I remember he did that Green Day album, but seems like he's been more low profile as a producer since he finished working with R.E.M.

xp the albini versions are on the 20th anniversary disc 1, after the b-sides

their worst show ever according to everyone but kurt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWDU8OE_mBU

much of this not widely circulated until semi-recently... I've only ever listened to the unbelievably fucked up version of School at the beginning of the set. god he is such a mess. and then they start jamming... it rules. they're so bad

"Scentless Apprentice" for me, still.

having great drumming from Grohl really amplifies it too, like the shift in the drumming pattern after the ascending single note riff.

plus that single note riff seems like it's wanting to be a violin on electric guitar.

I'm only on a Nirvana kick lately as last week, at an outdoor beer festival, a stoner band randomly covered "I Hate Myself and Want to Die". pleasant surprise that.

"Scentless Apprentice" is my favourite Nirvana song

the live version on Muddy Banks of the Wishkah is pretty incredible too

"Milk It" also deserves plenty of praise. god that riff.

also you could like, do a 60s dance to the chorus

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..