Unbelievable...two hundred and fifty reviews completed. It's been a really fun 6-ish months, and a big thanks to everyone who comments, suggests new music and reads on a regular basis. You all keep me going and make me want to get stuff out everyday. Thanks again.
For 250, I decided to go with probably the most iconic band of my time, Nirvana. In Utero is probably my favorite album by them, and it's fairly easy to see why. Track after track of solid, outstanding music. In Utero is considered the third and final studio album by Nirvana. For those who maybe didn't realize, Incesticide was actually a compilation album with older recordings and some radio broadcast stuff. Nirvana actually put that out because the same stuff was floating around on bootlegs and the initial thought was the band put it out in order to give fans this same stuff in a higher quality. Turns out, they wanted to have creative licensing on the artwork...so not such a great thought after all. Anyhow, this album came out in 1993 and is Nirvana's best seller at 5x platinum. The recording of this album came from Minnesota, and they goal of the record was to lose the more 'polished' sound the band achieved in 'Nevermind'. They wanted a more abrasive, hard record to give out to fans. There was some controversy surrounding this, because the record execs weren't happy with that lack of production quality. So the man behind the music wanted to remix a bunch of tracks and then ship it out. Well, Nirvana didn't exactly like that - so they hired a new mixer and they made a few tweaks and sent it out. Fans didn't care much for that - as they were interested in the raw stuff. Turns out they got that years later in the box set, but that's neither here nor there. In summary, this record is awesome. It might not be 100% perfect, but it's pretty darn close. Lyrically, Nirvana lives up to the hype as one of the best bands ever. Songwriting and changing the entire music landscape was kind of there bag - you know, no big deal. There are a handful of influential bands or artists like that - and it's a short list. Beatles, Michael Jackson/Madonna, Hendrix and that's about it. Then in the 90's, everyone modeled after the success Nirvana had and wanted capture that brand of sound. Please, check out this historic album today, you won't be disappointed. Thanks again for reading and we'll check back in on Monday!
TRACK LISTING:
1. Serve the Servants
2. Scentless Apprentice
3. Heart Shaped Box
4. Rape Me
5. Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle
6. Dumb
7. Very Ape
8. Milk It
9. Pennyroyal Tea
10. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
11. Tourette's
12. All Apologies
Listen To Samples
Top 3 Tracks:
1. Dumb
2. Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle
3. Pretty much any other track, but I'll go with All Apologies
FINAL RATING:
5 out of 5 stars
agree 100% with 'dumb' as number one, and it's awesome on unplugged too.
ReplyDeleteon a tangent, in vegas this last week while on a brief down moment in the hotel, my travel companion and i were watching VH1's '100 greatest artists of all time' countdown, and nirvana, of course, was very much toward the top. i made the comment "that probably has old kurt just rolling in his grave." to which my compatriot replied "he's already rolled so much he's rolled 5 graves down." which i agree with (should a corpse be capable of grave-hopping).
i find it quite ironic that the last thing kurt cobain wanted was to be in all the top 10s of the countdowns, to be an icon, to have his widow publish his diaries (i'll hold my thoughts on courtney love). do you think that ruins or is ruining the whole idea of nirvana and just exactly how 'different' they were? they're just as 'big' and marketable as motley crue or G'N'R are/were.
and vh1s top four were of course 1-beatles, 2- michael jackson, 3- led zep and 4- rolling stones, if you were curious. i wonder if michael jackson wouldn't have been 4th if he were still alive, but i concede that the top three were probably all very closely scored.
Dumb blows my f'ing mind every time I hear it. Whether that be on this or Unplugged.
ReplyDeleteI saw that. EVERYTHING VH1 does on a countdown is super predictable. Beatles obviously deserve numero uno, Jacko, sure I guess. Zeppelin, duh. Stones...eh, sure. Nirvana, of course. But grow a pair VH1. Put Radiohead in the Top 10. They deserve it. But I think they were like 30 or something. Regardless, a countdown of that type is so invalid because different times yield different artists.
I hate Courtney Love. I still think she actually shot Kurt. She's so gross. Watch her Behind the Music sometime. She's so...GROSS. I mean, what guy would see that and think, "man, i need to hit that!" No one. That's who.
i agree - if she didn't pull the trigger, then she hired someone else to. i don't think it was suicide. and i don't think i could sit through a courtney love/hole behind the music without damaging my tv.
ReplyDeleteYeah...it was semi tough not to get angry. But then again - my tv is expensive, and not it's fault.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably overstated though - so many think if that hadn't happened, Nirvana would still be pumping out delicious tuneage to this day. I won't go that far - since they probably would have broken up anyhow. And, the Foo Fighters are pretty rockin'.
exactly! if nirvana had stuck around, we might not have had all of the delicious musical works dave grohl has been a part of - works with queens of the stone age, tenacious d, them crooked vultures, probot, and of course, the foo fighters. i submit the video for 'learn to fly.'
ReplyDeleteEverything Grohl touches is gold. Except Crooked Vultures. I don't dig them as much as I expected. Maybe a second album...
ReplyDelete