“Here we are now, entertain us”: Kurt Cobain doing what he did best.

A lot was at stake when Nirvana went into Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, in 1993 to record their third album, “In Utero”. The Seattle band had stormed the pop charts, toppling even Michael Jackson from his usual number 1 spot, when they released “Nevermind” two years earlier. Since then, singer Kurt Cobain had become the poster child for conflicted rock stars, a songwriter who coveted fame even as he embraced the noisy, underground sound of the indie '80s.
“In Utero” was the album that tried to bring those two worlds together. The cynical punk rocker had crashed the MTV party, and now what? Cobain kicked off his most scrutinised album with the words “Teenage angst has paid off well/Now I'm bored and old.”
Twenty years later, those lyrics have proven at least partially prophetic. Cobain never got old; he killed himself in April 1994 at the age of 27. Nirvana imploded and the 'alternative rock' era started coming undone almost as quickly as it began. But the business of Nirvana continues to pay off.
Nirvana represented the leading edge of a movement born in the sub-basement of '70s punk and the '80s underground. Nirvana sold tens of millions of albums. Most of their primary influences and predecessors were lucky to sell a few thousand. Most toured in battered vans, played shows in ratty bars and released records on independent labels that depended on college radio and fanzines run by hardcore followers for exposure. Within that universe, a radical set of guiding principles emerged: a distrust of corporate dollars and mainstream values; an appreciation for outsiders, especially women and gays; an embrace of stylistic and musical 'authenticity'; and an idea of punk as a type of folk music, with a nastier guitar tone.
To those who tracked key bands and artists on the punk and post-punk timeline – the Ramones, The Clash, The Replacements, Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr., the Pixies – the arrival of “Nevermind” and its 30 million-selling ascent to world domination represented a triumph of these values. The 'good guys' won, but it didn't last.
After “Nevermind”, there was a rush of hits by bands and artists with underground pedigrees: Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, The Flaming Lips, The Breeders, The Offspring. And a bunch of veteran indie bands that didn't sound like anyone's idea of pop acts improbably signed major-label deals, including the Butthole Surfers, Ween, the Melvins and The Jesus Lizard.
But when 'alternative' turned into a commercial radio format and a gaggle of cookie-cutter bands emerged with a sound tailored for it – Seven Mary Three, Bush, Candlebox, the Stone Temple Pilots – its days as a vital movement ended. Cobain sensed how the music he loved was being co-opted in the songs he wrote for “In Utero”.
With one of Cobain's heroes, Steve Albini, doing the production, “In Utero” blew out the edges of Nirvana's sound, giving Dave Grohl's drums and Krist Novoselic's bass more presence and letting Cobain's guitar swim in feedback. The singer's voice was tucked deeper inside the maelstrom rather than out front as most radio-friendly songs demanded.
Albini said the corporate suits were out to quash the record. Cobain lashed out at journalists for reporting the story for fear that his punk-rock cred would be tarnished. In the end, the album sold spectacularly well, and still holds up as a volatile merger of melody and mayhem.
What to make of the trio's legacy? Cobain felt a constant tension between his desire to be heard and to remain true to his punk ideals. He sought not just to become part of the mainstream conversation but to elevate it. With each album, he proved more adept at answering that challenge. Yet through no fault of his own, the excess of the new box set, “In Utero: 20th Anniversary Deluxe Reissue” set to release this year -- continues a troubling pattern of cash-ins. It's the third Nirvana box set to land in the last decade, in addition to three single-disc compilations and a live album, plus a volume of the singer's Journals. Cobain wanted his music to endure, but the notion of repackaging his past over and over again surely wasn't part of his agenda. In death, Cobain has become exactly the type of commodity he spent his life fighting not to become.

Source: BBC