I saw Dave Grohl on The Graham Norton Show recently and it prompted me to take this album out for a ride. 'In Utero' sold close to 5 million copies but I'm fortunate to own one of only 15,000 special limited editions pressed on clear vinyl. The photos show the very slight blue/green hue the album has.
This is the band's 3rd and last studio album, the second to feature Dave Grohl. Their previous release, 'Nevermind' had sold at last count over 30 million copies and has one of the most instantly recognisable covers in music album artwork. Controversially the photo used of the naked baby boy swimming after a dollar bill is the subject of long on-going legal action. On the plus side, that album gave us 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and 'Come As You Are' among others.
This album though was a bit more .. um .. inaccessible ?? .. is that the right word? Certainly in it's original form the record company didn't even think it was commercial enough to sell. Producer Steve Albini had created a much more basic, raw sound than their previous work and after the studio raised concerns he refused to do anything to make it more .. again, what's the word .. acceptable ?? Anyhooow, R.E.M. producer Scott Litt was brought in to tweak stuff and he also remixed the singles 'Heart-Shaped Box' and 'All Apologies'.
'All Apologies' almost became Kurt Cobains swan song. It was the #1 charting track from the album and after Kurt's death in 1994 'Unplugged' was released and the clip of Kurt singing 'All Apologies' is the one most frequently associated with the video and album. Pity really, 'cos he does a great version of Bowie's 'The Man Who Sold The World'.
In 2014 the surviving members of Nirvana were at the 29th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with a twist. They invited four female singers to cover the band's songs - Joan Jett, who sang 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', St. Vincent did 'Lithium', Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth sang 'Aneurysm' and to top it off, Lorde did a strong, grungie heartfelt version of the main track from this album, 'All Apologies'. Lorde was just getting her feet on the ground, what a massive endorsement this was.
Nirvana came and went, but their shockwaves are still rippling in ever-outward circles.
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