The sound of Nirvana

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

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...

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.