DUST IT OFF:

Nirvana - "In Utero"

Jacob Kanclerz, music editor

Each week the Edge will highlight an older band that's still kickin' today.

“Wait, what about Nevermind?” Settle down, novice Nirvana fans. For most, including myself, the Seattle grunge band’s ultra-breakout 1991 album is probably the most memorable and accessible effort of the trio’s short career. I have heard plenty of music heads gush about how “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the sole driving force behind the emergence of alternative rock. Pretty crazy stuff. But I am here to talk about the follow up, In Utero, which the band regarded as the better of the two albums.

What is there to like about In Utero? One of the greatest live albums ever recorded, Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York (featured in an earlier Dust it Off) pulls a lot of songs from In Utero. A good mix of Nirvana’s raw days of Bleach and their commercial success in Nevermind is represented here. “Scentless Apprentice” is a loud, heavily distorted confusing mess of angst, while the rather neat and tidy “Heart-Shaped Box” remains a huge Nirvana classic, arguably the biggest from this album. And although apparently not as commercial as Nevermind, front man Kurt Cobain writes some of his most memorable melodies and lyrics on this album, with songs like “Serve the Servants,” “Rape Me” and “Dumb” all containing their own hooks to draw you in, mostly from Cobain’s trademark of singing lines over and over again.

One more key factor may just draw you to In Utero: the fact that you are not supposed to like it. Cobain didn’t want fame; his popularity only drove him to his death in 1994. In Utero represents everything rebellious about rock music: stripped down, raw and live sounding performances. However, by this point in Nirvana’s career, the public ate it up, which was put best by Time’s Christopher John Farley when he said that Nirvana hadn’t gone mainstream, but that “mainstream had gone Nirvana.”

Regardless of how many people really liked In Utero, the album helped cement the band as one of the best of all time, and definitely one of the most influential, not just in style of music but in the way they carried themselves. Let this be a lesson to you, mainstream rock: Go ahead and create that radio friendly sound that wins over all of the pushovers in music. The real success lies in the foundation of any kind of rock itself: rebelling from the norm and being different. 

Questions? Comments? Contact MusicEdge at kanclerz@msu.edu

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