In Utero 30 years of Nirvana: a heart-shaped coffin

Released on September 21, 1993, In Utero contained all the signs leading to the Nirvana frontman’s suicide on April 5 of the following year. At the time, not even the striking art with the anatomy of a winged woman and the back cover full of fetuses, the dark letters or the sinister music video for the first single Heart-shaped box were unraveled as notes in favor of a radical solution.

Kurt Cobain accustomed to publicly declaring what he denied in private or had another aspect, in order to always keep the edition of his rockstar persona up to date, oblivious to the vagaries of popularity, was quick to declare that In utero It contained no personal references. However, the lyrical evidence points in the opposite direction. The first cut Serving the servants It was an undisguised autobiography from the first verse with nods to the enormous success of It smells like a teenagerthe title with which he conquered the world:

“The teenage angst was worth it,

Now I’m bored and old.”

Then came the media trial of his wife Courtney Love, the leader of Hole, who, in the press’ packaging, was a sort of reincarnation of Nancy Spungen, the tragic girlfriend of punk icon Sid Vicious, responsible for the get involved in the hardest drugs. The reality, as was often the case in the Nirvana universe, was different. While the singer desperately tried to stop using narcotics, Cobain faced day after day bouts of overdose and mocked his partner’s attempts to abstain.

“If she floats,” the Nirvana frontman wrote, “then she’s not a witch like we thought.”

Towards the end, he dedicates lines to his father Donald Cobain, a gray figure in the musician’s life: “I tried so hard to have a father, but instead I got a father.”

The rest of the album contained numerous references to his tumultuous life and his growing desire to find a way out that was none other than death or figurative alternatives, such as the desire to return to prenatal comfort as he sings in Heart shaped box -“throw away your umbilical cord so that it can come back up”-; The serious gastric problems due to poor diet which marked a large part of his adult life are also mentioned in Pennyroyal Tea: “I like warm milk and laxatives, cherry-flavored antacids.”

All the interviews given by the singer and guitarist in 1993 approach death from different angles.

“A truly raw album,” was Kurt Cobain’s promise regarding Nirvana’s third studio effort. Publicly criticizing Butch Vig’s FM sound in Nevermind (1991), he wanted to put together demos with Jack Endino – producer of the first raw album bleach (1989) – then in collaboration with Steve Albini. The signature of the latter, a former member of Big Black, a group with principles that seduced Cobain in terms of independence and the rock musician’s relationship with the environment, was to use only analog technology in favor of natural capture. instruments. ; the complete opposite of Butch Vig’s compressed and radial sound.

The result of the quick sessions with Albini – they lasted only 12 days in the second half of February 1993 – was exactly what Cobain had intended in terms of brutality.

But they don’t like it.

He told the press that he realized something was wrong with the album after going a week without listening to it. Indeed, Steve Albini’s mixing, which conformed more to the engineering than the production itself – he had no influence on the songs and did not have a greater appreciation for the band – favored an austere sound in notable favor of the drums. It is therefore the first work where Dave Grohl is appreciated with the weight indebted to John Bonham that he always desired – the bass drum resonates with impudence – but the conquest of this space was achieved at the cost of subtracting other ingredients. Krist Novoselic protested the lack of bass, and there was consensus that Cobain’s heartbreaking vocals were crushed between the guitars, drums and cymbals.

In the 2013 edition , also generous with 60 cuts, there are examples of the original blend that prove the critics right. Albini, a Stalinist in his work ethic and the moral significance of indie rock, flatly refused to remix the songs, which were given to REM producer Scott Litt. The sound was still raw, but now you could play it on the radio, on MTV, and indulge in the corporate magazines that Kurt claimed to hate.

For this thirtieth anniversary version the album has been remastered. The results are typical of today’s sonic concept of rescuing classics, with great depth and space, combined with a certain warmth. It seems more natural and balanced, nuances that in no way redefine the work.

The extra studio material contained on the first disc of this triple edition includes tracks known from other versions, which were not included in the final cut of In utero; between them, Full of sap And I hate myself and I want to die . The latter was the working title of the album, until Krist Novoselic warned Kurt Cobain of the possible legal implications of such a title.

The next two albums of this release depict Nirvana on the eventful tour promoting In utero between 1993 and 1994, the leader’s reluctant tour. He did not want to move away from his granddaughter Frances Bean, because the heroin addiction was serious and caused conflicts with the environment, overcome by the musician’s drug addiction; Attempts at intervention were completely useless. It was on stage that Pat Smear of Germs joined them as guitarist and they added strings to reproduce some extracts from MTV’s Unplugged, recorded in November 1993.

The shows correspond to the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, on December 30 of the same year, closed with a boring feedback session; the last performance in Seattle at the Center Arena on January 7, 1994, and only a half-dozen tracks from the February 22 concert at the Palaghiaccio in Marino, Italy.

A week later, Nirvana played their final concert in Munich, Germany. The last song of the evening was Heart-shaped box. Early versions of the lyrics weren’t about a box, but rather about a heart-shaped coffin. In 2012, Lana Del Rey covered it live, prompting a reaction from Courtney Love on Twitter. The singer and actress assured that the subject concerned her vagina, pointing out as proof that he “pulls her umbilical cord so that it goes up”. Kurt Cobain’s widow also mentioned having written a few lines on the subject. The tweets are gone.