(226) Nirvana – In Utero
As just about everyone with an interest in music knows,
Nirvana hit the absolute big time with Nevermind. Practically overnight they went from being an
act used to playing small clubs in front of audiences of no more than a few
hundred to a thousand at best to being the most sought after act on the
planet. I well remember what happened
here. A mate and I bought tickets to
what was going to be, I think, a single show in Melbourne. It was no big deal; we went to an alternative
music shop in the city, asked for tickets and the clerk spent a while going
through a number of gigs for other acts before finding the Nirvana batch. We had already been seduced by Bleach and
were hoping to see a Seattle act that would be as good as Mudhoney, a band we’d
already seen 2 or 3 times. This was
before Nevermind had been released and before we’d even heard any of the tracks
from it. What happened after its release
was utter mayhem as just about everyone tried to get tickets and two or three
extra shows were added. The resultant
shows at The Palace in St Kilda, held at roughly the same time Nevermind hit #1 in the States, were OK
but were memorable mainly for an audience, the great majority of which were
clearly attending a club show for the first time. This included patrons in the glassed
in upper level V.I.P. area who couldn’t see anything because the glass had
fogged up due to the sheer number of people present. I also remember looking up during
Smells Like Teen Spirit and fearing for my safety; everyone standing on a non glassed in mezzanine level above us accessible
to anyone in the venue was jumping up and down just like in the Spirit video clip and their combined reverberations
were visible in the ceiling. But mostly what I remember
were the puzzled looks bordering on incomprehension on the faces of this newly
won audience whenever something from Bleach was played. This is why I think In Utero is one of the
bravest albums ever released by a major act.
It was an attempt by a band to discard a newly won audience in a
single bound and I’m pretty sure that, had there been a fourth Nirvana studio
album, this would have been achieved.
The tone is set over the course of this extraordinary album’s
opening three numbers. The opening cut Serve The Servants was meant to
antagonise this audience through the coarseness of the Steve Albini production
and even more so by its lyrics. Supposedly about Kurt Cobains’s desire to
not speak to his father after his parents divorce, the lyrics can also be interpreted
as an attempt to disconnect himself from a new audience with which he felt
nothing in common. As if to underscore this, the heaviest track
on the album, Scentless Apprentice, comes next.
Powered by a vicious Dave Grohl drum pattern and an incredible guitar riff, the
band throws out a musical challenge – like this or get out. It’s certainly not for the faint hearted and
is probably the only time that Cobain really got the band to sound like one of
his musical heroes – and very much a cult act – the Melvins. It, in turn, is followed by Heart Shaped Box. A song adhering to the classic slow/fast/slow
Nirvana template, it becomes a form of manifesto – THIS is what we now mean by
a commercial song. And then come the
truly brutal tracks – Rape Me, Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle,
Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, etc. An
incredible album, it has already usurped Nevermind in my affections and I have
no doubt that in the fullness of time it will be regarded as a true classic.
(227) Lou Reed and
Metallica – Lulu
Metallica has always made musical demands on its audience,
challenging them to open their ears beyond traditional heavy metal sounds. For the most part, they haven’t responded all that
well, be that for the instrumentals in the Cliff Burton era, the S+M album with
the San Francisco Symphony or the image changes around the Load era. But it is this album that has provoked the greatest
negative response of all, a collaboration with master antagonist Lou Reed. What a lot of critics have failed to
understand is this is not a Metallica album.
It is basically a Lou Reed album in the sense that the lyrical conceits are
all his with Metalllica providing the music and the occasional James Hetfield
vocal. To anyone unfamiliar with Reed’s
work and his fascination with the seedy underbelly of life, this album and particularly
its lyrical content, would come as a shock.
And ultimately this is what makes Metallica a cut above the average
heavy metal superstar act. They are
prepared to point their fan base into areas they would not usually tread
even at the expense of their own popularity.
This is a mark of musical integrity; not to always give the fans what
they want but to acknowledge that
everyone is capable of musical growth.
And for those willing to listen this is, on the whole, a
thrilling listen. The one two punch of
Brandenberg Gate and The View is at least as good as the opening to any
Metallica album. Pumping Iron and
Mistress Dread continue in that vein but it is the departures from the
Metallica road into more familiar musical territory that pays bigger dividends. The closer Junior Dad is very much a Reed
number, even down to the strings that play out the album which wouldn’t have
sounded out of place on either Berlin or Street Hassle. But the undoubted highlight is Cheat On Me,
another lengthy atmospheric track that continually builds to a momentous climax
as the band thrash around whilst Reed spits out withering venomous lyrics
backed up by Hetfield’s backing vocals.
Surely even the most one eyed Metallica fan can appreciate that?
(228) Public Enemy –
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
This is universally regarded as one of the greatest rap
albums of all times by one of the most uncompromising acts of all time. On this Public Enemy set out to make a forceful
commentary on the state of the (American) nation. The apocalyptic Countdown To Armageddon sets
the agenda leading into their best known track Bring The Noise. The theme of the rest of the album can be
determined simply by scanning the track listing: Don’t Believe The Hype, Caught
Can I Get A Witness?, Night Of The Living Baseheads, Black Steel In The Hour Of
Chaos and Rebel Without A Cause. All
backed up with a superb production job by The Bomb Squad it is an album that
will be studied by social commentators for decades to come. Having said that, I’m not of the view that
this is Public Enemy’s greatest hour.
This falls to its successor, the incredible Fear Of A Black Planet, an album
that is more tightly focused but also has the benefit of utilising the rage
that white audiences felt by this album and subsequent live performances to its
advantage.
(229) The Monks –
Black Monk Time
This is an album of brutal garage rock from the 1960s played
by, would you believe, by American GI’s based in Germany. A strong case can be made to suggest that
they invented the sound that The Stooges were to perfect. However, unlike the Stooges, who made multiple albums, the Monks were initially doomed to this one
album. An air of conflict unsurprisingly
prevails throughout this album and their anger at the world is palpable on
tracks like Shut Up, I Hate You, We Do Wie Du and Drunken Maria. The band has since reunited and an expanded
version of this album has been released with some truly loopy tracks such as
Cuckoo. 
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