I Hate Myself And Want To Die was the original title for Nirvana's 3rd studio album.
It was ultimately titled In Utero, derived from a poem of Courtney Love's. In Utero was a pruning process for Nirvana, an attempt to see if there would be anyone left in the aftermath; from the multitudes that swarmed the almost religious proliferation of Nevermind into the mass consciousness. Nirvana wanted to make an album that brought them back in touch with the screaming, emotional noise-rock subterranean vibe that had been such an integral part of their inception.
The production on In Utero is magnificently beautiful. It manifests a particular sound and rawness. Kurt's penchant for writing songs that can shine through layers of murk and grime are made all the more obvious with the raw, abrasive sound on this record. The drums are thick, and pound relentlessly (A persistent rumor among Nirvana fans is that Dave Grohl used the larger end of the drumsticks to pound his skins), the bass grooves and slinks, twisting and sinuous, and Cobain manages to wrench a completely tortured and naked wail from his guitar every time, and succeeds in making it a wall of noise, melody and rhythm that constantly lurks, menacing and predatory.
The words on In Utero bite, gnaw and chew. They snarl and smirk and consume the consumer; burrowing into your soul and your intellect, until they reach your center and propagate, until they suffocate you. This album is unsettling in the best possible way. It explores the vacuum that is modern existence and attempts to nullify the void through intensity and sheer bravado. Each song is a sharp statement of intent, defiantly reaching into oblivion and tipping itself over.
- All themes that somehow
Nirvana managed to rock and groove into In Utero.
William S. Burroughs; when he read the lyrics for In Utero; proclaimed that Kurt "was
dead already" when he wrote them. Kurt said that In Utero was "very
impersonal" and a rare
television commercial for the album showed the band giving
birth in a classroom, while a drill-sergeant/headmistress-type berates them and implores them to "
breathe, you sons of bitches."
For all its chaos and cacophony and sprawling noise; sludge-like and lazy; In Utero is a neatly-drawn, tightly-wound work of musical artistry that is more than the sum of its parts. Conceived and born of a band that had reached its logical sum and bordered, inevitably, on the deadened, numbed out culturally-jet-lagged scattering of the eternal rock and roll cliche; it is rock for the ages; a fiercely burning fire within the heart of rock music.
Sources:
http://www.knotmag.com/?article=868
http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=1009&name=Nirvana
http://realitystudio.org/biography/william-s-burroughs-and-kurt-cobain-a-dossier/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8wNUyDaaIE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Utero
http://www.jimdero.com/News2001/GreatOct21Nirvana.htm
http://www.nme.com/reviews/nirvana/7373