Coming of age in the 1990s, I remember diving deep, and I mean deep, into Nirvana. Growing up fairly conservative in an evangelical environment, I didn’t really listen to any “secular” music at all expect maybe the blues nights on the local NPR station or adult contemporary stuff. I really did lead a sheltered existence when it came to music. That all changed, though, when one my friend’s brother, who played drums in metal bands, let me borrow Nirvana’s In Utero on cassette. That moment changed the trajectory of my musical tastes and influences. I don’t recall my immediate reaction to hearing the clipped guitars at the start of “Serve the Servants” all the way through to the stripping down of the band in “All Apologies.” I just remember that the album kicked open the door for me in so many ways.

In Utero serves as one of the quintessential albums for me, one that I can listen to start to finish, multiple times, and always hear something new. It’s what happened when, a few years back, I listened to Stone Temple Pilot’s Purple straight through after visiting my mother right before she died. Recently, I did something similar with Nirvana’s final album as I drove back to Louisiana to visit my dad after he had a byspass for clogged arteries. The distance between my current home and Louisiana allows for these types of listens and nostalgic reminesces because there is nothing, and I mean nothing, really to enjoy on the ten hour drive over interstate asphalt. On this listen, I realized that, like Purple, In Utero stands as an album that warrants us to listen to it straight through, from start to finish, and rewards us for doing just that.

Coming off the meteoric success of Nevermind, In Utero feels and sounds completely different, stripped down like Bleach but also, in many ways, bright and jangly like Nevermind. “Serve the Servants,” in some ways, could be on Nevermind with its melodic nature and harmonies at the end where Ghrol “ohhs” underneath Cobain’s repetitive “serve the servants, oh no.” This feeling of pop sensibility melded with a hint of chaotic rage, thanks to Steve Albini’s’ production, leads into one of my favorite Nirvana songs, “Scentless Apprentice.” I’ve always been drawn to this song, mainly because of Ghrol’s drumming, which provides the backbone to the droning four-minute song that never lets up as it moves from verse to chorus to solo and all around. It’s a song that maintains cohesion while also trying to rip away from that structure.

Anyone who had their finger on the pulse of music during 1993 or even had a peripheral view knows about “Heart Shaped Box,” a song whose video, directed by Anton Corbijn, presents a wide pastiche of images ranging from religious to aesthetically pleasing to downright disturbing, a juxtaposition that mirrors the song which shifts from the quite verses to loud choruses just like “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” “Heart Shaped Box” is a song that stands out to me, and I can understand why it served as the album’s single, but it falls way short of being the best song on the album. As a teenager, I always felt subversive singing “Rape Me,” another song that reminds me, specifically through its opening chords, of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It’s a straight forward song that, while I understand Cobain’s sentiments for writing it, doesn’t always sit well me, unlike “Polly,” another song which also deals with sexual assault and sexual violence. “Rape Me” does stand out though because even in its slower tempo compared to other songs, points to Nirvana’s punk roots which become evident on the second half of the album.

The first side of In Utero ends with “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” and “Dumb,” two songs that seem diametrically opposed to one another based on sound with the former moving from a quiet first verse to an explosive chorus and the former being a droning lament where Cobain bemoans, “I think I’m dumb.” On each song, however, we hear Cobain struggling with the fame that he encountered during this period and how that fame impacted him. On “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle,” he sings during the chorus, “I miss the comfort in being sad,” a line that he delivers in his typical growl with a twinge of quivering. Coming off of “France Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle,” the stripped down “Dumb,” with its acoustic guitar, cello, drums, and bass, focuses on the same individuals that “Mr. Mustache” did on Bleach, individuals who have no issue sitting around, watching television, and not bettering themselves. However, the outro, with Cobain repeating, over and over again, “I think I’m dumb,” feels as if he refers to himself, a self-effacing lyric that sounds as if Cobain is referencing himself and his life within the new-found fame.

While the first half of In Utero, apart from Albini’s abrasive production (which I love), becomes accessible to casual listeners, the second half plays heavily into Nirvana’s punk influences. “Very Ape,” clocking in at 1:56, and “Milk It” both contain aspects of hardcore punk. “Very Ape,” in particular, with its sliding guitar and driving drums has a tension of rage bottled up in a tight two-minute burst. Yet, the melodic sensibilities come through with the lead guitar during the verses that moves up the scale to the progressions during the choruses. “Milk It” has a structured yet deconstructed sound, partly through the very disjointed guitar lines during the verses which lead to the driving choruses. It’s a song that moves, as so many of Nirvana’s songs do, from soft to loud and back again, but it’s also a song that showcases Cobain’s interests in biology and even gives us a glimpse into his humor as we hear him snicker before scream “test meat” near the end of the song. Each of these songs are ones that, in many ways, wouldn’t appear out of place on late 1990s post-hardcore albums by bands like Fugazi or The Refused.

“Pennyroyal Tea” serves as a break from the punk-infused side of In Utero, sandwiched between “Milk It” and “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter,” it becomes, in a way, like a sorbet before the next course, cleansing the pallete of the ferociousness that precedes it and follows it. It’s a plaintative song that begins with Cobain and strumming an acoustic guitar as he sings, “I’m on my time with everyone. I have very bad posture” before the entire band enters for the chorus. It’s another simplistically structured song that moves between quiet verses and loud choruses, but its speed, clocking in at about 56 beats per minute (bpm), feels languid next to the 151 bpm for “Very Ape” and 135 bpm for “Milk It.” This decrease buttresses the back side of In Utero, offering the listener a slight reprieve from the brutality of side two.

“Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” and “Tourettes,” two of my favorite Nirvana songs, follow “Pennyroyal Tea” and pave the way for the end of the album. Even though it’s over four minutes, “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” ups the tempo again to 156 bpm and blasts us with its punk aesthetics mixed with post-punk disjointedness. The song serves as a masterwork in sonic manipulation, something that I wholeheartedly took away from my introduction to Nirvana. Cobain’s feedback and contortionists sound during the verses, weaving their way over Krist Novoselic’s bass and Ghrol’s drums, feel chaotic and annoying, yet for me they create a sonic tapestry that epitomizes the sounds I could create would just a guitar, an amp, and a few pedals. Coming in at 1:35, the penultimate song on In Utero, “Tourette’s,” drives home the punk feel of the album. It’s a four chord song that contains a driving punk back beat and almost indecipherable lyrics. It’s a song that I cme back to again and again for its sound and aggressiveness, a sound that reminds me so much of earlier punk recordings that sound like the band laid down the tracks on a boom box.

The end of In Utero brings us back down from the punk high, culminating with the melancholic “All Apologies,” a song that, like “Dumb,” centers on the acoustic guitar and cello. It’s a fitting song to end Nirvana’s recording career, and as I listened to it on the drive to Louisiana, I noticed the ways that it counters and compliments the clipped opening of the album. For all intents and purposes, the song could end around the 2:45 mark with Cobain repeating, “All in all is all we are.” However, it carries on for another minute, with Cobain repeating the lyric as each of the instruments recedes into abyss of the recording. The distorted feedback of a guitar plays over the drums and bass until about 3:30 when we’re left with only the feedback and Cobain singing “All in all is all we are” before the silence. It feels, in many ways, like Cobain’s growl at the end of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” a weary voice struggling against so much uncertainty.

In Utero will always have a special place in my heart. It’s one of the albums that I used to teach myself how to play guitar. It’s the album that led me to think about what I could create sonically and how I could record music. It’s an album that hit me during my formative years and shaped who I am today. It’s an album that opened my mind to new genres and aesthetics. It’s an album that feels like a sign of what was to come during the late 1990s and yet still an album that feels raw and new, even over thirty years after its initial release.

What are your memories of In Utero? What is your favorit song? Songs? As usual, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Bluesky @silaslapham.bsky.social‬.