About that Hendrix sister...I think she´s insane. She has seen Jimi maybe two times in her life as a kid and she keeps telling "how close they were". She build a "mausoleum" to Jimi and I bet Jimi would have hated it. And in the nineties she thought she knew what Jimi was going to release when releasing "First Rays Of the new rising sun". Also I agree that BBC-Sessions & People Hell & Angels are great releases (Valleys is quite ok too, there are few great never before heard tunes also in South Saturn Delta, but mostly it´s also before heard) but the main point of that Hendrix "sister" is to make money from Jimi.

grohl sounds so fucking powerful and heavy on this record

^i agree, this is still mah favorite.

That version is fantastic.

Dave is hands down my all-time favorite drummer. He has such an obvious sound, you can spot him anytime. When I first heard Them Crooked Vultures, the first thing I asked, "Is that Dave fucking Grohl on the drums?" I just heard him in it. I wish he did MORE drumming, and hadn't wasted so much of his career on the Foo Fighters (ok, I'm trolling here but seriously, more drumming from Dave would be great for music in general).

The guy can blast, the guy can roll for ever, the guy can play polyrhythms or come straight with it, and he has such a powerful FORCE behind his playing, its like, SHIT, that is how drums are meant to be hit.

Fuck both those boring records...

hahaha.. they were terrible records, I was trying to think what the hell that guy is talking about? But generally speaking, when Grantland isn't writing about sports, they tend not to know what the fuck they are talking about ;)

Francis Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle? Milk It? Radio Friendly Unit Shifter? How are these not experimental for Nirvana? There is a lot of noise and feeback on those tracks in particular, something Nirvana hadn't even necessarily experimenting with live, almost like it was discovered in those studio sessions.. also simply put, tourrette's and very ape closet things to actual punk from Nirvana, I think that should be appreciated.

and the drum work on In Utero is epically better than the drums on Nevermind, and those were already fantastic!

In Utero 10/10

in my opinion

I listened to the Albini version at work today, and felt, several times, that I was listening to some of the best music ever recorded.

In Utero stands alone in the end. It's the true Nirvana record, and the one pure testament to what the band was all about, without the label pressure and need to deliver (Nevermind) or the piggy backing off of semi-successful peers in an attempt to get noticed (Bleach).

The album makes everything else in the band's discog, except for certain live performances, sound pretty tame. It finally brought them to a place where they could legitimately be compared to the true visionaries of the era, like Slint, Sonic Youth, and early Unwound. If it was the only album they released, it would be held in Spiderland-like regard by indie fans looking back. Nirvana never belonged in mainstream pop, and I often wish they'd never made it there. In Utero is probably the single most unlikely 6x platinum (or is it seven now?), no.1 album in the history of billboard.

What if it's predecessor had been called Sheep, and been released on K or KRS, and been mixed by the band during borrowed studio time? That's what Nirvana should have been, I often think.

But Biff kept the Almanac, and this is an "alternate-1985" timeline we're living in here. So. Y'know.

haha yeah In Utero is like the weirdest mainstream album ever.

It used to be my all time favourite album. I am burnt out on it now. I feel the limitations of the music. But mostly, I just feel a sense of disgust at how it all ended.

Despite their pretensions to kill off mainstream hair metal and the whole sexist partybro attitude that came with that, Nirvana were hypocrites. Kurt denied his drug problem and lived and died, a large part of the time, as a rock n roll cliche. What did Nirvana really bring to music other than a kind of slightly puritan liberal vibe and a failure to decide if they could take themselves seriously or not. I still love the band but they were IMO symptomatic of the dawn of the deadend era of hipsterism and dipshitted sneering and sarcasm and shitty indie that followed.

What is fascinating about In Utero is the weird vibe of burn out and exhaustion. If you listen to their last song YKYR, its just a really sad and pathetic song of regret and masochism and shame. It didn't end well. I don't really see how what happened can be viewed as a great success or anything. I certainly dont think it was some sort of grand existential statement, it was more like a sad and insane man who drugged himself too far and killed himself. It's dark rather than particularly heroic.

Im being critical here for the sake of debate, because it doesnt really interest me to gush over this album anymore since I've been listening to it since I was 12.

Always thought that was one of his beast screams.

But In Utero is fucking amazing. Although I love everything this band has done so much, In Utero is my fav of the three albums. Its fucking raw, on point, powerful and beautiful. And like I said its got the best drums of all time imo. Radio Friendly, Milk it, and Scentless are some of my fav Nirvana songs. And this Nirvana hate that goes around is bullshit. This band was fucking great. Nobody has ever rocked harder than they fucking did. Though I will admit from 92 to 94 their shows werent as energetic.

I love how all the dumb rock boys say kurt wrote his wife's "live through this" and don't realize this was obviously kurt's attempt to make his own "pretty on the inside"

Bold statement!

Albini is the dude

http://www.buzzfeed.com/danmartin/th...ust-incredible

Agreed. He is such an anti-hero, the tone of this letter reads like it was part of the antics of 1991: The Year That Punk Broke.. fuck I love Nirvana aand I love Steve Albini


In a way, I think he is right. Look at how much fun they were having on stage and also continually fucking around with the unintelligible music press/media. Have other bands rocked harder, louder, or faster? Possibly, but never with such a concentrated and yet expansive spot light. I can name a dozen bands whose music is "harder" but none of which have the scale and scope. Maybe Sabbath, but honestly, they weren't having anywhere near as much fun and had as much actual popularity so much as name recognition. I think this should be included in a Nirvana analysis, because the scope of their exposure means their loud rocking resonated even more so across so many TVs and radios..

^^^this document above is priceless! Is this REAL? Where the fuck was that found?

"I would like to be paid like a plumber"

That is why I love the guy. Everybody was trying to cash in on the Nirvana meal ticket, and Steve was just trying to help them make an epic record. I've always loved Albini for this, the guy is again the anti-corporate corporate anti-hero. He has straddled the mainstream, indeed, engineered and/or produced some of the best indy-to-mainstream records of all time, and yet, entirely lacks the pretentious greed of so many music industry slimeballs.

While on an Albini discussion, I just want to throw in that when I met him and talked to him for a little bit at a Shellac show back in 2011, he was an unbelievably nice guy and really mellow to chat with.

Only listened to the 2013 mix a bit, but it's pretty sweet on what it could have sounded like.

That is good to hear, because I almost was interested in buying this box set basically just for that DVD.. Thanks for the heads up!

Damn I love this dude. He is not just my favorite recordist, and the engineer on literally like five of my all time favorite records, but the guy is sincerely one of my favorite people, just for being himself. This letter should rise to the ranks alongside the now infamous The Problem With Music, his prank phone call to Eddie Vedder (Steve Albini, pretending to be Bowie/T. Rex producer Tony Visconti, in a prank call to Eddie Vedder: “Your voice really speaks to me, I can get you in a real band to do some recording,” Azerrad, “Vedder bought it”), and his rap feud with Odd Future ;)

here is another gem

Here is another lost gem recorded by Steve Albini. What is fantastic, is that the Geffen "people" involved with In Utero were right , Albini's mixes for bands are often "unreleasable" in the most popular, commercial sense, but in the raw, guttural, wrenching sense, they are priceless. Albums like In Utero, Shannon Wright's Over the Sun, Pussy Galore's Dial M For Motherfucker, Tad's God's Balls, Superchunk's No Pocket For Kitty, obviously the Jesus Lizard's Goat, Helmet's Meantime, P.J. Harvey's Rid of Me, Hubcap's Those Kids Are Weirder, Left Over Crack's Fuck World Trade, Godspead You Black Emperor's Yanqui UXO, F-Minus' "Wake Up Screaming", The Desert Fathers "The Spirtuality", The Ex's "Turn", Ferocious Fucking Teeth's Ferocious Fucking Teeth S/T, The Strain's Teeth...

these record are not commercially marketable, but they are epic records for that crisp, loud, guitar feedback, drum oriented sound which ONLY Steve can seem to properly capture.

I think Shannon Wright's Over the Sun, Nirvana's In Utero, P.J Harvey's Rid of Me, Jesus Lizard's Goat, and Pixies Surfer Rosa is a legendary enough discography by itself and are his best work, in fact some of the best albums of all time, let alone all the other great albums and bands he's worked with..

i meant it. they fucking went hard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIOEgR251To

i dont get how pearl jam fans find shit in nirvana beyond the 'YO SEATTLE, GOLDEN AGE OF ROCK PT. 2" shit. sounds like a singer-songwriter jesus lizard/cows

do not forget tar's jackson under any means. best albizzz production

my favourite song on in utero is 'its shoved'.

hell yes.

that right there is a legacy of music that few others could hope to match,,

fuck glice.

The new masters uncover layers of sonic awesomeness that were, until now, buried in pop production. Minimal though it may have been, the pop element chopped In Utero off at the foreskin. I'm glad we're all getting a chance to hear the album for the first time again.

Probably one of the boldest, most powerful, most challenging, and hardest rocking albums ever made. I prefer the 2013 mix to Albini's original. I'm going to have to purchase the whole goddamn box ....

Sorry- someone drove by, blasting the instantly recognizable riff from "School" (live) and I had to take it in.

Anyway, I'm 'bout to spend a hundred bucks on a shit ton of (relatively... Kind of) new Nirvana.

kurdt is just a kenny loggins wannabe

Live and Loud was released independently, I'm SOOOOOO buying it. Also, they released this disc not just as that exorbitant box set, but a $19.99 double disc. I'm now wondering, why even buy the box set when you can get the reissue and DVD for under $50 buying them individually? Really though, I'm not sure there is a need for another Albini mix aside from the Scott Litt tracks?? I listened to some samples and it just sounds a bit louder, and the vocals are a bit more pronounced, but I'm not sure its "better" but i haven't been just sitting and listening to it so...



That is called the Radiohead strategy. They always release box-sets with strategic art work, remixes, and DVDs, and EVEN when they GAVE their record away with In Rainbows, they STILL sold out their $100 box set and had backorders up the ass.
Also, if I were to take a wild guess, after reading some comments by Krist about his motivation to make the remix of this record, I think he is not telling the whole story. On the last box set With the Lights Out the track list was purposefully arranged to dick Krist and Dave out of any money. If Krist is involved with Steve on the remixing, does he get a different cut of the 2013 Mix release? If so, is THAT really the motivation to release this, to let Krist finally get some of that Nirvana money that Courtney and her Army of Darkness Lawyers have been so painfully denying him. I certainly hope so, I could really get behind that.

I can't bring myself to get into this album. I loved the original back in high school but just can't get psyched about it.

Does Steve Albini give the most boring interviews ever??

Well you know some insanely great audio engineers aren't also show biz types. The human mind just doesn't work that way.