Day 0782 - MTV Unplugged in New York

Nirvana "MTV Unplugged in New York" (1994) - got it

 
The write-up in the book seems to express surprise at the idea that acoustic grunge could work... which is odd as Pearl Jam had already done a session for MTV's (at the time) popular unplugged segment a couple of years earlier.

Regardless, Nirvana were approached to do an unplugged show.  Their show was unconventional in that the band weren't just trotting out their hits on acoustic guitar.  In amongst a selection of Nirvana tracks were covers of songs by the Vaselines, David Bowie and 3 songs by the Meat Puppets.  Two members of the Meat Puppets joined the band on stage to play and Mark Lanegan was invited but declined, which lends credence to the suggestion that Kurt wanted to use Nirvana's celebrity to help gain exposure for his friends and artists he enjoyed.

The set closes with a bleeding-throated rendition of bluesman Lead Belly's take on the traditional track "Where did you sleep last night".   That seems an appropriate choice because the acoustic approach to Nirvana's sound mixed with Krist Novoselic's heavy bass gives everything a kind of heavy, rootsy blues sound.

Perhaps Kurt's voice had always been this raw, ragged (yet strong) and emotive, but recast without loud distorted guitars to hide behind, it is quite striking.

While the posthumous track "You know you're right" suggested that they probably would have continued with their loud-quiet-loud approach to songwriting, it's great that this album exists and it's nice to think that it could have led to a new direction for the band.

Day 0742 - In Utero

 Nirvana “In Utero” (1993) – got it

 

In my teens I was moving from mostly listening to my parents’ music, to getting into louder, heavier stuff.  There were a few albums (on cassette back then) from my brother’s collection that were starting to inform that transition.  Amongst these were the Nirvana albums “Nevermind” and “In Utero”.

With “In Utero” Nirvana were in the unenviable position of trying to follow up an album that had been a huge smash-hit, had reignited mainstream interest in punk and had helped helm the grunge movement… so, no pressure.

The band looked to kick back against the polished sound of “Nevermind” by hiring ‘punk’ producer Steve Albini.  Albini had worked with the Pixies, of whom Kurt Cobain was a fan, so that probably fed into the decision.  

The band had told Albini that they wanted to make a raw and uncompromising album, and he obliged, but it seems as though, once the record company heard the rough mixes, the compromises started.  Albini refused the band's request to remix the album, leading to several tracks being given a polishing remix by R.E.M’s regular producer Scott Lit.

You can kind of hear the difference between the two approaches.  Single “Heart Shaped Box” has a clean drum sound and clear vocals, whereas something like noisy opener “Serve the Servants” still has its roomy, noisy ambience favoured by Albini.  The raw, heartfelt "All apologies" sounds like the best of both worlds, with clean melodic, string-backed verses and raucous, 'recorded-in-someone's-bathroom' distorted choruses.

All in all, I feel like the mix and compromise makes the album more interesting than uneven.   More interesting than either another completely polished, ‘clean’ sounding Nevermind-esque recording, or a completely dirty, punky Albini-style record.

In true 1990s rock style, the album closes with a period of silence followed by the then-popular secret hidden track.