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In Utero by Nirvana

In Utero

Release Date: 9/14/1993

Recording Date: 9/1993

Tracks: 12

Length: 00:41:23 Hrs

Label: DGC

Type: CD,CS,LP

Genre/Styles:
Alternative Pop/Rock, Guitar (Electric), Vocals, United States of America, Grunge, Alternative/Indie Rock

Album Tracks (12)

Song Title
Length
1.
Serve the Servants
03:34
2.
Scentless Apprentice
03:47
3.
Heart Shaped Box
04:39
4.
Rape Me
02:49
5.
Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle
04:07
6.
Dumb
02:29
7.
Very Ape
01:55
8.
Milk It
03:52
9.
Pennyroyal Tea
03:36
10.
Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
04:49
11.
Tourette's
01:33
12.
All Apologies
03:50

What the Critics Say

Nirvana probably hired Steve Albini to produce In Utero with the hopes of creating their own Surfer Rosa, or at least shoring up their indie cred after becoming a pop phenomenon with a glossy punk record. In Utero, of course, turned out to be their last record, and it's hard not to hear it as Kurt Cobain's suicide note, since Albini's stark, uncompromising sound provides the perfect setting for Cobain's bleak, even nihilistic, lyrics. Even if the album wasn't a literal suicide note, it was certainly a conscious attempt to shed their audience -- an attempt that worked, by the way, since the record had lost its momentum when Cobain died in the spring of 1994. Even though the band tempered some of Albini's extreme tactics in a remix, the record remains a deliberately alienating experience, front-loaded with many of its strongest songs, then descending into a series of brief, dissonant squalls before concluding with "All Apologies," which only gets sadder with each passing year. Throughout it all, Cobain's songwriting is typically haunting, and its best moments rank among his finest work, but the over-amped dynamicism of the recording seems like a way to camouflage his dispiritedness -- as does the fact that he consigned such great songs as "Verse Chorus Verse" and "I Hate Myself and Want to Die" to compilations, when they would have fit, even illuminated the themes of In Utero. Even without those songs, In Utero remains a shattering listen, whether it's viewed as Cobain's farewell letter or self-styled audience alienation. Few other records are as willfully difficult as this. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

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