The sound of Nirvana

The way people then and now about the production, you'd think Mutt Lange worked on it. Could've been good for those choruses though.

people go on

I like the gated drum reverb on Come As You Are, and I've warmed to those DX-7 synth parts on Polly, but the children's choir in Territorial Pissings sounds pretty dated in retrospect.

yeah, but fuck you if you don't like the Arthur Baker Gunblast Remix of "Lithium."

this may be a chicken-and-the-egg thing, but i feel like Nirvana's 3 albums all have production and material that go hand in hand with each other -- Bleach's production suited Bleach's songs and Nevermind's production suited Nevermind's songs and so on. i wouldn't really wanna hear one album's songs recorded in the style of the others.

I think the Muddy Banks album may be their best one

i don't have a favorite really

I probably need to hear With the Lights Out and Live at Reading

I think that Albini's raw production on In Utero (still my favorite album of the 90s) gave the songs an edge, which in Nirvana's case meant self-laceration.

― if hongroes could fly this place would be a geirport (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, May 3, 2011 9:20 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

agree with this, and that's part of what i dislike about in utero. the "edge" is fetishized and flaunted a bit too obviously. i find it oppressive, at least some of the time. like, i can't imagine a production better suited to "scentless apprentice" (one of my very favorite nirvana songs), but eventually the album starts to wallow in self-lacerating brutality for its own sake. it's artistically valid and undoubtedly true to the band's vision, but i don't personally like it much. i say this as a fan of the melvins, flipper, karp, jesus lizard, etc.

it is oppressive; you're right. That's part of what I like about it...

I've heard critics go on about Vig's smart, self-aware production on Nevermind (another great album); what exactly does that refer to?

ppl act like in utero is a whitehouse album or something

okay, i listened to in utero for the first time in quite a while, to recalibrate my impressions and maybe check myself. i still feel more or less the same way about it. the sound is incredible, especially in the bass/drums dept - much more naturalistic and immersive than nevermind's smoothed-out blur. love the first six songs and wouldn't change a thing about the way they're recorded, but side two quickly becomes a slog. it's partly that songs like "radio friendly unit shifter" and "tourettes" just aren't on par with nirvana's best, and while i won't fault "milk it", it's just not a personal favorite. i think a somewhat less belligerent (or a more adventurous) production might have helped the medicine go down. one man's opiniom

tourette's might be my favourote song from the album, so yeah, agree to disagree...

Great record. I think the second half of In Utero is the better. Personally side one loses a bit of momentum for me with Frances Farmer- still a good song and Rape Me also great, but a bit of a Nevermind reminder. Second half is when things get cooking for me(not to decry the funking awesome Serve the Servants, Scentless Apprentice, Heart Shaped Box 1-2-3.

this may be a chicken-and-the-egg thing, but i feel like Nirvana's 3 albums all have production and material that go hand in hand with each other -- Bleach's production suited Bleach's songs and Nevermind's production suited Nevermind's songs and so on. i wouldn't really wanna hear one album's songs recorded in the style of the others.

Yeah I feel like this too - I mean basically I'm happy with there being three Nirvana albums with three very different production styles, rather than there being a uniform sound for all of them.

I've heard critics go on about Vig's smart, self-aware production on Nevermind (another great album); what exactly does that refer to?

― if hongroes could fly this place would be a geirport (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, May 3, 2011 6:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

wait, people have called the production "self-aware"? what does that even mean? can you provide an example?

dude I'll probably have to dig around for it; back when I was 12 or 13 my mom would go to university libraries to do research for her master's, and she'd take me along and I would get on a computer and search the college's vast magazine/journal database for articles on Nirvana and PJ...offhand I'm thinking it was an article for something related to either Spin or Rolling Stone...

(it might have referred to some offhand comment by Byron Coley w/r/t the first Cheap Trick album that is casually dismissive to Vig)

(btw if you haven't inferred yet, all of this is coming back in kind of a muddle, so I might not even haven't remembered this right)

the sound is incredible, especially in the bass/drums dept - much more naturalistic and immersive than nevermind's smoothed-out blur.

i love the production on in utero, and the aesthetic is definitely less "slick" then nevermind, but i don't think i would ever call it naturalistic. the snare sound on this record is still a larger-than-life, compressed monster (and crazy loud in the mix on most songs).

well, natural-sounding relative to nevermind - not that in utero's a single-mic room recording or anything

was a little baffled by the idea of a "self-aware" production myself. implies that the sound is somehow meta. suppose it might apply to something like urge overkill's saturation, where the slickness and vague 70s-ness were a kind of knowing joke.

i think i'd really like to hear "Frances Farmer" with different production

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2gfsV6zY-4

thanks! I do like the production on that version much better.

its a pretty great version!

love the JR version! thanks, stevie. kind of funny that he comes up, cuz his blood visions often strikes me as "oppressive" in its sound. approach isn't at all similar to in utero, but the end result does a similar thing to my ears.

agree that the original "frances farmer" is too bombastic for its own good. song's strong enough that i'm more or less okay with the heavy-handed arrangement & recording, though.

blood visions often strikes me as "oppressive" in its sound.

otm

is like three times louder than most stuff on my ipod

even on LP it's like being mashed by anvils

Man, that JR cover is great! Gotta listen to more JR I guess, never delved too deeply.

I have the Lost Sounds' Black-Wave just waiting for me to give it a listen...

http://www.sendspace.com/file/o3n61w

if you want to A/B vig and albini, here's versions of "sappy" recorded before remix/remastering, supposedly.
(to be honest, the only real difference I hear is vig likes the vocal doubling more)

http://www.spin.com/articles/nirvana-unheard-concert-satyricon-dale-crover

nevermind is not really butch vig's best work imo

don't remember what this meant, probably 8 way santa

a bad quality Nirvana boot on Youtube is news?

new one I just heard on sports talk radio: the beginning drum fill in “teen spirit” was ripped off from the gap band’s “early in the morning”

I don't buy it, the kick drum is totally different

dave grohl said it himself on his tv show episode with Pharrell

video here, cant figure out how to link wout linking to rando’s tweet

Super dope. Respect to artists that give their inspirations a shout. Pharrell is really big on that so it's dope that he got the exclusive. lol pic.twitter.com/3N3POZ9Sg2

— Factions2BetaTester (@CR00K__Gaming) June 30, 2021

the Gap Band DNA is probably in that drum fill, but the sheer number of outraged people on Twitter complaining that no one ever gave disco the credit it deserved for influencing Nirvana is a little silly.

Dave Grohl is deluding himself idc

I was foot tapping that “likes to shoot his gun” one earlier

finally, disco gets the credit it deserves for dave grohl's drumming

dave grohl does dodge ram commercials

it's times likes these you learn to lease a dodge ram!!
it's times likes these you learn to lease a dodge ram!!, i said,
it's times likes these you learn to lease a dodge ram!!
it's times likes these you learn to lease a dodge ram!!, i said, whoa-oh-oh!

imagine kurdt cobain leasing a dodge ram. gtfo

Has Grohl ever mentioned a disco influence before?

Atm I think I agree with Jordan that shifting the kick to the "e" and "a" instead of the "&" seems like a significant difference.

Could imagine long grey haired grizzled kurt

but that chorus beat is straight Madchester...

xp i think it would be like "you know you're right" crossed with modern day dave grohl. on the + side, grohl would be the drummer instead of the front man in this scenario