In Utero (album) - Production Controversy and Remixing

Production Controversy and Remixing

After the recording sessions were completed, Nirvana sent unmastered tapes of the album to several individuals, including the president of DGC's parent company Geffen Records Ed Rosenblatt and the group's management company Gold Mountain. When asked about the feedback he received, Cobain told Michael Azerrad, "The grown-ups don't like it." He said he was told his songwriting was "not up to par", the sound was "unlistenable", and that there was uncertainty that mainstream radio would welcome the sound of Albini's production. There were few people at Geffen or Gold Mountain who wanted the band to record with Albini to begin with, and Cobain felt he was receiving an unstated message to scrap the sessions and start all over again. Cobain was upset and said to Azerrad, "I should just rerecord this record and do the same thing we did last year because we sold out last year—there's no reason to try and redeem ourselves as artists at this point. I can't help myself—I'm just putting out a record I would like to listen to at home." However, a number of the group's friends liked the album, and by April 1993 Nirvana was intent on releasing In Utero as it was. According to Cobain, "Of course, they want another Nevermind, but I'd rather die than do that. This is exactly the kind of record I would buy as a fan, that I would enjoy owning."

The band members began to have doubts about the record's sound. During this time Cobain admitted, "The first time I played it at home, I knew there was something wrong. The whole first week I wasn't really interested in listening to it at all, and that usually doesn't happen. I got no emotion from it, I was just numb." The group concluded that the bass and lyrics were inaudible and approached Albini to remix the album. The producer declined; as he recalled, " wanted to make a record that he could slam down on the table and say, 'Listen, I know this is good, and I know your concerns about it are meaningless, so go with it.' And I don't think he felt he had that yet My problem was that I feared a slippery slope." The band attempted to fix its concerns with the record during the mastering process with Bob Ludwig at his studio in Portland, Maine. Novoselic was pleased with the results, but Cobain still did not feel the sound was perfect.

Soon afterward, in April 1993 Albini remarked to the Chicago Tribune that he doubted Geffen would release the completed album. Albini commented years later that in a sense he felt he spoke about the situation "from a position of ignorance, because I wasn't there when the band was having their discussions with the record label. All I know is we made a record, everybody was happy with it. A few weeks later I hear that it's unreleasable and it's all got to be redone". While Albini's remarks in the article drew no immediate reply from the group or its label, Newsweek ran a similar article soon afterwards that did. Nirvana denied there was any pressure from its label to change the album's sound, sending a letter to Newsweek that said that the article's author "ridiculed our relationship with our label based on totally erronous information"; the band also reprinted the letter in a full-page ad in Billboard. Rosenblatt insisted in a press release that Geffen would release anything the band submitted, and label founder David Geffen made the unusual move of personally calling Newsweek to complain about the article.

Nirvana wanted to do further work on the recorded tracks, and considered working with producer Scott Litt and remixing some tracks with Andy Wallace (who had mixed Nevermind). Albini vehemently disagreed, and claimed he had an agreement with the band that it would not modify the tracks without his involvement. Albini initially refused to give the album master tapes to Gold Mountain, but relented after a phone call from Novoselic. The band decided against working with Wallace and chose to remix and augment the songs "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" with Litt at Seattle's Bad Animals Studio in May 1993. One song, "I Hate Myself and Want to Die", was omitted from the final track listing as Cobain felt there were too many "noise" songs on the album. The rest of the album was left unaltered aside from a remastering which sharpened the bass guitar sound and increased the volume of the vocals by approximately three decibels. Albini was critical of the album's final mix; he said, "The end result, the record in the stores doesn't sound all that much like the record that was made. Though it's still them singing and playing their songs, and the musical quality of it still comes across."