Never Say Disc: In Utero

This is an anniversary that, as the quintessential 90s kids cuspers X-lennials Oregon Trail Generation “geriatric millennials” was impossible to avoid. While we may not have been teenagers when their final album was released, the echo that Nirvana left throughout our adolescence was massive. Even aside from their own music and attitude, they helped open the door to an “alternative” culture that affected every part of our lives. When the Nevermind anniversary rolled around a few years ago, we didn’t do a Never Say Disc feature - it seemed like everybody was talking about the record and impact it had. This time though, the coverage seems muted, limited mostly to the fans and music scholars. And that’s a pity, In Utero is a unique and significant record… to us personally, to the music and culture of the time, and, yes, to the people that made it, even on the edge of the precipice. We have the hindsight of knowing what happened next, and there’s no way to separate this record from the tragedy that was only a few months away. On this thirtieth anniversary, let’s talk about Nirvana’s In Utero.

- B

A Side: One thing I always struggle with in Never Say Disc posts is my lack of connection and confidence with music writing. (Maybe I just think I’m dumb.) That isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy listening to music. That I’m not emotionally affected by it where it can enhance or change my mood. That I don’t play (or at least attempt to play) various different musical instruments. Sing along to it. Appreciate it. At least when we talk about TTRPGs, that is something that I actively work at. Something that I put effort into thinking about daily, if not playing the actual games themselves, whereas music appreciation seems to be more passive. Strangely, though, that mood description seems to fit the album that is In Utero. As Bugsy mentioned in the intro, while we weren’t really old enough to fully appreciate it upon its release, the same can be said for other albums we’ve already covered, such as Black Sabbath and Blizzard of Ozz which were both released before we were born. That doesn’t minimize the impact these albums have had on our lives. In Utero, at least to me, is full of the self-doubt, angst, and fears commonly associated with the era. None of those were things created by this album, but a generational feeling for which the album often serves as a bearer. It might also be seen as a marker, a touchstone, to try, and leave those feelings behind - even if Kurt was unable to do that himself in the end.

While that's one thing you can find in In Utero, the beginning of the end, there are many ways to connect to the album than just angst or self-reprehension - though those were always in abundant supply with 90s alternative music. As I’ve aged, at least, and while those struggles with confidence still exist, I do get different things out of the album than I did as a teen - even if they might sometimes still lead to self-reprehension. You might find connection to Kurt’s own struggles with his parents and becoming a parent himself. You might connect to the social issues the album touches on. Even if you still only connect with the fear of the future, you hopefully realize there's a way forward that doesn’t involve Kurt’s end, and save yourself. Perhaps if he were still around, he’d be writing songs about tabletop games and how much the Pinkertons suck. We can only imagine, but even if he couldn't, maybe you can.

B Side: In Utero is a different kind of record than ones we’ve discussed in previous Never Say Disc posts, which have generally covered starting points and new beginnings, or when an artist really opens up to new potential. (Incidentally, that last one also describes the Melvins’ Houdini, ostensibly produced by Kurt Cobain and released the same day In Utero came out in the US. More on that later.) In Utero, though, as an act of defiance against even its own title, is an endpoint, a torn, ragged edge closing with a literal apology. Cobain’s obsessions with the human body and its contradictory nature as something separate from ourselves, but also the only means we can connect with others, have grown wildly since the babies feeding each other on Nevermind. It’s the record of someone at war with their own body, of someone trying to reconcile who they are, what they represent to others, and the fragile meatsack every one of us finds ourselves trapped in. Just as the "anatomical angel" on the cover suggests, we are all ethereal and conceptual just as much as we're corporeal and trapped in the gross machinery of our flesh and organs. It's a tension that cuts through all of In Utero: "Doll steak / Test meat," Kurt bellows on "Milk It." There's the "Kurt Cobain" on the tabloid covers, there's "Kurt Cobain" the human contained within the limitations of a human body, and somehow connecting the two, the "Kurt Cobain" on the record, eternally frozen and unchanging, even as he sings of mortality and decay.

While the album opener suggests Cobain views his success cynically (“Teenage angst has paid off well / Now I’m bored and old”), a sense of shame creeps in over the course of the record - he doesn’t feel up to what’s being asked of him (“what else could I write / I don’t have the right,” and all the rest of "All Apologies" for that matter) and suggests that even the jaded cynic of "Serve the Servants" was just as much a facade: “I’m too busy acting like I’m not naive / I’ve seen it all, I was here first." On previous records, Cobain had assumed various narrative guises or, painter that he was, served as an omniscient narrator describing near-abstract scenes and images. For much of In Utero, though, “I” refers to him specifically, a counter to the curated media image or figure fans imagined just enough like them to project themselves onto. Rather than the “voice of a generation” or the stereotypical mystic tortured artist wrestling with substance abuse, Cobain leans into least dignified and most mortal aspects of his existence: “I’m on warm milk and laxatives / Cherry-flavored antacids.” (I should acknowledge here the theory, espoused by, among others, the Melvins’ Buzz Osbourne, that Cobain’s mysterious, undiagnosable stomach ailment only alleviated with opiates, was simply an excuse to justify his continued heroin use. Opting for an ugly, non-glamorous personal justification for a behavior generally tolerated among “rock stars” is certainly consistent with how Kurt presents himself across In Utero.)

Justification or otherwise, Cobain's rough patches around this time are well-recorded, and it's hard to imagine anything coming out of it other other than record we have, let alone anything following it up. In the original liner notes for the Incesticide compilation, he mentions being asked to co-produce the next Melvins album as one of his "rewarding experiences" of recent years, but by the time he took part in the sessions for Houdini he was, to quote Buzz Osbourne, "in no shape to produce anything." Kurt took part in a couple songs and was ultimately fired. Which is both sad and ironic - when he was younger Kurt Cobain worshiped the Melvins (who were still based out of their collective hometown of Aberdeen, Washington). Their connection is with him was certainly the primary motivator in the Melvins, for all their signature weirdness, getting on a major label at all. But when it came time to actually record their debut for Atlantic Records, the band was worn out and creatively drained - so they called in Kurt to help them creatively... which he was utterly incapable of, sleeping (or heroin dozing) through most of the sessions. The irony is in how Houdini ended up being a beginning just as much as In Utero was an ending: perhaps out of desperation, the Melvins try a number of different sounds and experimental tracks where previously their albums had been largely monolithic and uniform. But the Houdini approach has been their standard ever since, very much to their benefit, and helping to make them the band I would discover (with a little nudging from my older brother, who had been a fan about as far back as Kurt Cobain) and become very invested in for myself a number of years later.

But I never may have gotten there without Nirvana and In Utero. Earlier, I mentioned the way Nirvana opened things up for alternative music in general, which is true in a very literal sense - Kurt Cobain was a huge music nerd, and did what he could to draw attention to the lesser-known artists that he loved. And their own success, of course, showed there was money to be made in a thriving, but previously overlooked genre. But, as I've come to realize over time, Nirvana still sounded different from their peers and many of the bands that followed them - they were noisy to a degree that I'm still amazed a major label, MTV, and the radio allowed. Even Nevermind, ostensibly the "cleanest" Nirvana album, still features waves of atonal guitar, raw vocals, and overloaded bass. While they may have filed in a category with more accessible acts like Pearl Jam, Nirvana was always closer to the noise rockers of the 80s like the Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid (they even did a split single with Jesus Lizard, the band Scratch Acid eventually morphed into), and, of course, the Melvins. But Kurt's pop sensibilities and songwriting chops somehow made it all something even teenagers totally unaware of these bands could get into... teenagers like me. And when I did follow those trails and get into the artists who didn't get the opportunities Nirvana had, I was prepared to appreciate them in a way I hadn't if Nirvana hadn't paved the way first. In Utero is a big part of that. From the first atonal chord to the final drawn-out word in "All Apologies," the record is a crash-course in racket. But as Andy said above, it's a sympathetic racket. It's the musical equivalent of hanging out in a friend's messy room, with weird and ugly art pinned to the walls, looking through notebooks and sketchpads. For any of us who's felt like screw-ups, as teenagers, adults, or otherwise, it's a friendly, accepting space that makes you feel a little less alone. And in the process, this friend of ours turns us on to some really cool music. That's In Utero. Even when feigning a jaded demeanor, there's an honesty that comes through, the honesty of the people who made it... who could could tell very real truths even when they were lying. It's all they, or we, could do. All in all, it's all we are.

Send questions, comments, and Kurt Cobain murder conspiracy theories to neversaydice20@gmail.com or "X"-tricate us @neversaydice2.