The sound of Nirvana

I wonder if watching these 'behind the scenes' videos would have changed anyone's vote one way or the other:

paraphrasing, "Kurt really wanted it to have only one guitar track on the song. But I didn't. So I tricked him into recording the same part a bunch of times so I could layer them over each other and make everything sound like shit. Now it's sounding like a rock song."

this was from that poker forum where albini started the 'Ask a music scene micro celebrity' thread

ON WHETHER THERE IS A FULL ALBINI-MIXED VERSION OF IN UTERO IN EXISTENCE:
"The version of the album in the stores is the version the band wanted people to hear, and I respect that. Any 'alternate version' floating around out there is either totally bogus or a generations-removed copy of a cassette dub, and not worth your attention."

but this is on wikipedia:
"In 2003 what is believed to be the original Albini mix of In Utero was issued as a vinyl-only release by Universal Records in the UK. This is believed to be the result of a mistake at the factory when the wrong master tapes were used to have the album recut."

as an album i prefer In Utero but i am happy that Vig won.

i overwhelmingly prefer in utero/albini, but butch has the hometown cred (nevermind was recorded at smart, right?)

oh, apparently only the demos were recorded at smart, of which only "polly" made the album :(

"So I tricked him into recording the same part a bunch of times so I could layer them over each other and make everything sound like shit"

watching that video, it really supports the idea of nevermind as plasticky constructed manipulated sounding (and therefore "bad"), but on the other hand, watching him drop out tracks with the faders/flyers? looks like fun! like a reverse-guitar hero or something.

didn't someone leak the individual tracks of in utero some time back? I'd be curious to hear what people who think they could improve in utero's sound would come up with with those.

Those results are LOLZ

that video is great

Missed this poll. Prefer Steve Albini production by a mile.

Music production as a whole seems to have followed the path laid our by Butch Vig since then , so I guess WTF do I know?

laid out, that is...

awww c'mon, the songs on Nirvana are basically hooky, well-written pop songs, part of the job of the producer is to do justice to the material, and to not let the band shoot themselves in the foot. Also:

Wallance and Vig are quick to note that, at the time, in 1991, the band members loved the mixes, and the group signed off on the finished product

- they only became disillusioned when, y'know, uncool people started buying the album.

here's Drain You from an earlier demo that is also Butch Vig supposedly. do you guys prefer/dislike this version?

http://www.mediafire.com/?wtmuy3y4jkm

OMG this Live @ Reading remaster sounds AMAZING

^__________________^

I'm even more excited about the live disc that comes with the Bleach remaster.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e277/concreteloop/5665789dasurs3252009122953AM.jpg

n/a?

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. Listened to this on a comp tonight. Sounded rad in the car pumped up full bore. I know people thing its overkill and in for the Christmas rush but is there any chance this thing ( Bleach reissue and concert and Reading concert) could be fucking ACE?

http://endhits.portlandmercury.com/endhits/archives/2011/05/02/want-to-hear-miley-cyrus-cover-nirvana-no-too-bad

the URL . . . I want to click it and yet I don't . . .

goosebumps

as a priggish punk elitist, i have no interest in miley covering anything for any reason, ever

with the irony in mind, though, i am a bit weirded out by the hardline, pro-in utero, punk authenticity boosterism present in so many comments from two years back. ecuador_with_a_c otm:

awww c'mon, the songs on N[evermind] are basically hooky, well-written pop songs, part of the job of the producer is to do justice to the material, and to not let the band shoot themselves in the foot.

[the band] only became disillusioned when, y'know, uncool people started buying the album.

this seems about right to me, and while i think in utero is pretty spectacular, it only occasionally delivers the pure, simple, "raw power" kick of a great punkrock band in action as well as jack endino's budget job on bleach did.

butch vig's big, glossy nevermind production may not have earned the band much punk cred, but it served the songwriting exceptionally well, both as pop and as hard rock. remember listening to the album for the first time on a long plane flight (from NC back home to seattle) and tripping hard on its vastness and power. more than anything else, it sounded insanely expensive, like a scrooge mcduck-size ocean of lovely green money. as a punk/indie kid, nothing i cared about sounded like that, and i was both chastened and impressed by how much i dug it. the gleaming pop production and the careful attention vig obviously paid in crafting it had a great deal to do with the album's massive success and with the band's lasting legacy, imo. it's similar to the butcher brothers' work on urge overkill's saturation: bringing out the best in each song, honing everything for maximum accessibility without compromising the music's essential identity and integrity.

albini's work on in utero is truer to the band and era's "corporate rock still sucks" ethics, and it's undeniably impressive. but it's also uneven, and it holds the songs back at least as much as it shows off the band's ferocity. i sometimes love in utero, sometimes think it gets swamped in its period-chic, aggro-indie pretensions. were it not for the scott litt remixing on "heart-shaped box" and "all apologies", it'd be a much poorer album overall.

Wonder if some of the reactionary criticism towards Nevermind's production has anything to do with recidivist distaste for failed expensive production lavished on insecure artists: Elvis Costello, the Replacements, etc.

interesting question, i dunno. thing i remember is that few people that i knew had problems with the sound of album when it first came out. friends, co-workers, record store peeps: most everyone seemed to be into it right off the bat, and there'd been boots floating around for a while anyway. you heard some defensive grumbling about how bleach was better, of course, but the initial reception seemed quite positive (though at the time, i would have taken "sliver" or "negative creep" over anything on nevermind, except maybe "breed").

was only after the album got HUGE with all the wrong people, and especially in the wake of the much more brutal in utero, that anti-nevermind backlash became something like the hipster/critical consensus.

The eighties, remembered, were well populated with acts whose attempts at crossover failed ignominiously.

*remember

^ don't remember this. not saying you're wrong, but i came of musical age in the mid-late 80s, and many of my early horses ran quite well - in terms of critical reception and my own tastes, if not hits/sales. thinking here of albums like tim and pleased to meet me, goo, bandwagonesque, green mind, doolittle, hit to death in the future head, independent worm saloon, etc.

then again and especially in the wake of nevermind, lots of bands DID get the shaft, no doubt. husker du suffered badly circa candy apple gray, and tons of also-ran bands were quickly signed, stripped of all character and subsequently dropped: sixteendeluxe, gaunt, etc.

not sure what the situation might have been prior to the late 80s indie boom, though. like i saw costello's failures more as the product of his own missteps than of label interference and/or misguided production, but i wasn't really paying attention in the same way, so i don't really know.

Well, with Costello, I was thinking of the Langer-Wistanley mismatch of 1983 and 1984.

those are dispiriting records, no doubt (love the t-bone burnett and nick lowe productions on the follow-ups though). it's true that even by the mid 80s, i was aware of a strong distrust of "slick, major-label productions" among yr hipper fans and critics, perhaps owing to missteps like that. and yeah, by the time in utero dropped, such attitudes had become hipster cant.

didn't the loudness wars start about this time, too, though?

YEAAHHHH!!!!!

i dont really care much for slick compressed processed stadium rock sounding crap like nevermind. albini brought out the best in the band -the dynamics and spaciousness of his recordings is untouchable. bleach was recorded for about $500 and sounds way better than nevermind. ive heard more energy on bedroom demo tapes than any track on nevermind, the life was squashed out of every good song on it.

my guess is that it probably sounded alright until andy wallace got his hands on it.

bleach was recorded for about $500 and sounds way better than nevermind.

but the songs mostly suck

besides, Scott Litt sprinkled great sugar on lots of those IU tunes.

harsh words for Bleach from Alfred...About a Girl, Negative Creep, School, even the Love Buzz cover: all stone-cold classic!

yeah, theyre all down to earth, direct, raw, rocking songs alright.

and I disagree with contenderizer: 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.

I don't what to make of your binaries, jumpskins. How is Vig's mix not down to earth or direct?

A more reasonable answer:

in utero is rougher but also brighter, i think it makes better use of cobain's voice, among other things. i definitely do not hate (or hate on) nevermind, i just think in utero does better justice to the sonic idea or ideals of nirvana.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, March 25, 2009

yeah, somewhat

Vig's production is a great example of something that was derided as "overproduced" at the time but now sounds practically quaint (albeit still effective).

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

Albini had much harsher words for the Pixies.

The Pixies “Surfer Rosa” LP: A patchwork pinch loaf from a band who a their top dollar best are blandly entertaining college rock. Their willingness to be “guided” by their manager, their record company and their producers is unparalleled. Never have I seen four cows more anxious to be led around by their nose rings.

Except that I got to rewrite their songs with a razorblade, thought the drums sounded nice, and managed to get Nate the Impaler on the LP as a cameo, I remember nothing about this album, although I thought it was pretty good at the time. During the recording, a sibling of the sexual partner of a Pixie was lounging around making little fuck me noises, so I took her home and got stiffed. Had to retreat to Byron’s “den of satisfaction” and run a batch off by hand. I seem to remember that their Filipino guitar player was pro-Marcos, but I could be wrong. The album took about a week maybe two all tolled. Fee: $1,500.

I later recorded a single track with them for a label-stroke compilation album. The band had been getting the Big High Building “pampered performer" treatment for a couple of years by then and were consequently bored and dour. It took a couple of hours after dinner one night. Fee: $4,000. About a year later, Bob Krasnow, the geeb at Elektra’s Big High Building who fathered this dumb idea sent me a truly revolting nickel-and-gold Omega wristwatch (the kind Record Producers wear), with tacky Biz inscription and tacky presentation case. As soon as somebody at the pool room offers me what it’s worth, I'm gonna have a hell of a nice dinner.

I listened to Razorblade Suitcase not that long ago, it is good, that record was ubiquitous for a while in 90s on alt-radio & in people's cars but I always enjoyed those songs

the best part of the Bush/Albini relationship was Andy from Silkworm getting to do a two week fill-in spot as Bush's pale, balding guitar player

During the recording, a sibling of the sexual partner of a Pixie was lounging around making little fuck me noises, so I took her home and got stiffed. Had to retreat to Byron’s “den of satisfaction” and run a batch off by hand. I seem to remember that their Filipino guitar player was pro-Marcos, but I could be wrong.

I really hate Albini when he's enjoying being this much of a dick. It's like the ugliest side of that era of hardcore/pigfuck, this nasty inverted macho bullshit that just makes me think of that KITH routine, The Shortest Tubes In North York.

He later admitted he was hardmanning about the Pixies when he wrote all of that.

...and regretted being so harsh.

There were about 20 years between the two blurbs tbf. Dude mellowed with age no doubt.xps

When Bush headlined the basketball arena in Champaign back in 1995, Gavin wore a Hum shirt and shouted out the band at multiple points during the show. Sure, cheap pops for the hometown crowd, but he genuinely seemed to be excited about them, so it checks out with their support of smaller bands.

I started listening to Razorblade Suitcase but then thought to watch KiTH.

What are the most abrasive songs?

"Tendency to Start Fires"

Yeah that's one that pops to mind. To be clear I'm not suggesting this is Scratch Acid or anything, but it go pretty abrasive compared to where Bush's first album was.

I started listening to Razorblade Suitcase but then thought to watch KiTH.

wise IMO!

Am I wrong in remembering Albini saying he threw out a ridiculous number to Bush's team since he was already so busy, thinking they'd go elsewhere, but they accepted it right away?

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0

This is called the Charlie Watts Dictum.