This week I picked up In Eutero by Nirvana. As I previously mentioned in my review of Nirvana’s unplugged album, I am a huge Nirvana fan. I think that their artistic style was very unique and that Kurt was a musical genius. What inspired me to pick this album up other than my love for Nirvana is that I recently just saw a trailer for the movie “Montage of Heck”. This is a new Kurt Cobain documentary premiered this year at the Sundance music festival. It received outstanding reviews and is going to have a theatrical release in movie theaters in a little over a month. It will also be available in the US to HBO subscribers. This movie looks awesome and finally looks like a good Kurt Cobain documentary. A lot of the other Kurt documentaries focus on slandering Courtney Love or their heroin addiction. This documentary is unique in that it portrays facts in a neutral way and has interviews with a ton of people who previously had refused to discuss Kurt. It also has a lot of home video from when Kurt was a kid and when he and Courtney Love were married. Overall it looks awesome and I am definitely going to watch it on HBO as soon as its up.
In Eutero is a unique album for me. I really like it and appreciate the artistic approach. I would say that in Eutero is more like Nirvana’s first album Bleach than their second and most popular album Nevermind. This album has a much more punk rock feel to it. Nirvana released this album knowing it would isolate a lot of their fans who liked the more pop-tunes of Nevermind. They didn’t care about losing fans and wanted to make the music they wanted to make. I am not a Nirvana fan that feels isolated by this album. Despite being a jam band fan, I enjoy the hard metalish riffs and the yelling of certain songs. It gives me energy and really allows for the emotion to come through Kurt’s voice. This album really has a depressed feel to it. You can feel the depression and the issues that Kurt is going through during this album. This depression did end up getting the best of him and this was the last album that Nirvana released because Kurt killed himself in 1994. (One more fact about the album, a lot of the songs don’t have a timeframe so its almost impossible to tap your foot or clap along like you could easily do to most of the songs on Nevermind. )
The first song on In Eutero is serve the servants. The intro lines speak a lot to Kurt’s mentality on this album.”Teenage angst has paid off well, Now I’m bored and old, Self-appointed judges judge, More than they have sold”. Nevermind was popular and a lot of people blamed it on the connection of teenagers with the angst in the songs. The second line is because Kurt had grown tired and bored with music, in fact it was one of the major reasons given in his suicide letter. The other two lines discuss how critics are judging him and his music and they don’t have any right. This song is one of the more tame on the album.
Another great song on the album is heart shaped box. It was one of the first Nirvana songs I fell in love with. It is more pop-ish and could have fit on Nevermind. It is about someone being stuck in love with someone and he knows that person will never love him because their heart is missing, and a “Heart- shaped box” is in its place. I still love this song as much as I did the first time I heard it.
A popular song on the album is rape me. It was intended to be an anti-rape song as well as a critique on how the music industry keeps pushing him for more and more and making him do things he doesn’t want to ( in an exaggerated way raping him). However, due the repetition of phrases such as “rape me, do it and do it again” it was not received in the way it was supposed to be. I used to really like this song, so much in fact that I used part of it as an alarm to wake up. Because of this I conditioned myself to hate this song.
Milk It is probably my favorite song on the album. It really shows the depression and anger that Kurt had. It has both loud and soft parts which are a really nice contrast. The song is about depression and heroin addiction and Kurt’s feelings about it. The song is unique and I highly recommend listening to it.
I am my own parasite
I don’t need a host to live
We feed off of each other
We can share our endorphins
Doll steak!
Test meat!
Look on the bright side is suicide
Lost eyesight I’m on your side
Angel left wing, right wing, broken wing
Lack of iron and/or sleeping
I own my own pet virus
I get to pet and name her
Her milk is my shit
My shit it is her milk
Test meat!
Doll steak!
Look on the bright side is suicide
Lost eyesight I’m on your side
Angel left wing, right wing, broken wing
Lack of iron and/or sleeping
Doll steak!
Test meat!
Look on the bright side is suicide
Lost eyesight I’m on your side
Angel left wing, right wing, broken wing
Lack of iron and/or sleeping
Protector of the kennel
Ecto-plasma, Ecto-skeletal
Obituary every birthday
Your scent is still here in my place of recovery!
