‘Nevermind’ vs. ‘In Utero’: A Nirvana track-by-track battle royale
For a band with such a massive legacy, it’s important to remember that Nirvana only have three studio albums to their name. While compilations, box sets, rarities collections and the like have expanded their repertoire, the core of the band’s canon is whatever fans heard on Bleach, Nevermind, and In Utero across just under half a decade. For the majority of fans, the foundation of the band’s legacy lies in those final two albums.
To many, Nevermind was ground zero for their Nirvana fandom. As ‘Smells Like Teens Spirit’ took over MTV in the back half of 1991, a new rock revolution was kickstarted. Teenagers who were coming of age at the time held Kurt Cobain close to their hearts, and each subsequent generation has had their own love affair with the ‘King of Grunge’. Most importantly, Nevermind is where Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and new drummer Dave Grohl found the perfect balance between pulverising punk and pristine pop.
After Nirvana broke big, In Utero became its own anti-stardom statement. A discordant and depressing LP, In Utero nevertheless still had the hooks and power that had made Nirvana so beloved in the first place. It was meant to be a step out of the spotlight, but counterintuitively, it only served to make Nirvana bigger and more respected within the rock world. It was an untenable existence, one that would ultimately lead to a tragic end.
When paired next to each other, Nevermind and In Utero couldn’t seem any more different. One is a significant juggernaut that fused rock, punk, and pop together into a viable commercial package. The other is completely anti-commercial but also filled with lovely acoustic numbers and delicate emotions. Nevermind is confident, bombastic, and punishing. In Utero is fragile, aggressive, and uncompromising. So which one is better?
To find out, we’ve done the impossible and decided to put each album’s sequence of songs head-to-head to determine the best of the best. Internationally, In Utero includes the hidden track ‘Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flowing Through The Strip’, which mirrors the 12 tracks and one hidden track sequence of Nevermind. That’s the version of the album we’ve chosen for this, just for symmetry’s sake.
Get ready, it’s time for a true battle royale to find out which Nirvana album reigns supreme.
Nirvana battle: ‘Nevermind’ vs. ‘In Utero’
1. ‘Smells Like Teens Spirit’ vs. ‘Serve the Servents’
So much gets revealed here in this first matchup. Are you someone who embraces ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ for what it is, namely one of the best rock songs of all time, or are you so sick of it that you automatically look for something else? The easy pick would be ‘Serve The Servents’: it’s a direct kickback at the fame and attention that ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ put on Nirvana’s shoulders.
It’s also a great song, with a surprisingly potent pop hook buried under layers of distortion and angular guitar riffs. But there isn’t any world where Nirvana would even be discussed without ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, overrated or not, so it gets the win here.
Winner: ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ – Nevermind
2. ‘In Bloom’ vs. ‘Scentless Apprentice’
Let’s do this right here: Dave Grohl was the essential ingredient that made Nirvana who they were. With all due respect to Chad Channing and the litany of stand-in drummers employed by the band over the years, Grohl added so much to Nirvana that it almost seems unbelievable.
A massive attack on the drums, plus harmony vocals, songwriting abilities, and an affable demeanour, made Grohl an invaluable asset to the band. He gets to show off his knack for drum hooks and his killer backing vocals on ‘In Bloom’, but he also wrote the central riff to ‘Scentless Apprentice’. The edge here has to go to ‘Scentless Apprentice’, which distils the thesis of In Utero down to about four minutes of music.
Winner: ‘Scentless Apprentice’ – In Utero
3. ‘Come As You Are’ vs. ‘Heart-Shaped Box’
Two of Cobain’s most beloved lyrics, fighting against each other. Oh boy. The palpable darkness around ‘Come As You Are’ is only lifted by its pure pop brilliance, with murky guitar lines rubbing up against catch choruses without either seeming out of place.
Meanwhile, ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ is the perfect mix of balladry and attack, with a perfect set of open-ended lyrics to boot. Look, it’s not perfect math, but here’s the deciding factor: ‘Come As You Are’ is pretty clearly a rip-off of Killing Joke’s ‘Eighties’, so when it comes to deciding the better of two amazing Nirvana songs, that’s where ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ steals a victory.
Winner: ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ – In Utero
4. ‘Breed’ vs. ‘Rape Me’
First off, no one would ever be able to get away with naming a song ‘Rape Me’ these days. Let’s get that out of the way first. It’s neither here nor there, but it’s still a wild thing to see when it catches you off guard.
‘Breed’ contains one of Grohl’s craziest drum parts plus one of Cobain’s sneakiest and catchiest hooks. ‘Rape Me’ is immediately burned into your brain, whether you like it or not. Songwise, ‘Breed’ probably gets the advantage, but in terms of importance to the band, ‘Rape Me’ stands alone. In Utero takes another one.
Winner: ‘Rape Me’ – In Utero
5. ‘Lithium’ vs. ‘Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle’
This will be the first of many times that the head-to-head format of this debate works against In Utero. I have no problem saying that In Utero works better as a start-to-finish album, one with a narrative, a pace, and a unique dynamic that Nevermind doesn’t quite have.
Nevermind is filled to the brim with fantastic songs, whereas In Utero takes ample opportunity to throw you off your rhythm or subvert the expectation that Kurt Cobain needed to write poppy hard rock tracks. ‘Frances Farmer’ is a deeper cut with plenty of ties to Nirvana’s overarching lore, but is it better than ‘Lithium’? Absolutely not.
Winner: ‘Lithium’ – Nevermind
6. ‘Polly’ vs. ‘Dumb’
If you’ll notice, Nirvana knew how to sequence an album. By frontloading the disc with memorable pop-adjacent material it leaves room for more experimentation and challenging dynamics throughout the rest of the record. On their two biggest LPs, Nirvana decided to slot an acoustic track as the sixth song. It makes sense – a change of pace is definitely called for in both cases.
So do you prefer the sinister and unnerving tale of ‘Polly’ or the relaxing and haunting atmosphere of ‘Dumb’? To me, it seems like ‘Dumb’ is what Nirvana always wanted from a song like ‘Polly’ but hadn’t quite matured into it yet, so ‘Dumb’ narrowly gets the edge.
Winner: ‘Dumb’ – In Utero
7. ‘Territorial Pissings’ vs. ‘Very Ape’
Of course, after bearing your emotions on the acoustic track, it’s time to overcompensate with bludgeoning aggression. This is a toss-up mainly because of how similar these songs are: brief blasts of distortion and chugging rhythms that are meant to destabilise and prove Nirvana’s punk rock bona fides.
‘Territorial Pissings’ has a special place in my heart for giving us one of the only Novoselic vocal appearances on record, but ‘Very Ape’ actually feels like a better-crafted song with solid smart-ass lyrics.
Winner: ‘Very Ape’ – In Utero
8. ‘Drain You’ vs. ‘Milk It’
For my money, ‘Milk It’ is probably the hardest song to get through on either album if you’re a casual fan. Purposefully meandering, stop-start, and aimless, ‘Milk It’ is what most people mean when they say that Nirvana was making an anti-Nevermind with In Utero. That’s all well and good, but intentions don’t beat pure songwriting, and ‘Drain You’ is one of the more underappreciated tracks in the Nirvana canon.
Winner: ‘Drain You’ – Nevermind
9. ‘Lounge Act’ vs. ‘Pennyroyal Tea’
Just when you thought that Nevermind was going to clean up from here on out, ‘Pennyroyal Tea’ comes in to remind you how much of a genius Kurt Cobain was when it came to songwriting.
After Nevermind, Cobain actually had to face the fact that people were making a big deal about his words, the same words that he would scribble down two minutes before recording sessions started on Nirvana’s first two albums. ‘Pennyroyal Tea’ has a great balance of musical brilliance and insightful lyrics, so even though ‘Lounge Act’ is a solid deep cut, ‘Pennyroyal Tea’ has to be acknowledged in this spot.
Winner: ‘Pennyroyal Tea’ – In Utero
10. ‘Stay Away’ vs. ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter’
Here is where Nevermind and In Utero break from each other in the most obvious way. Whereas Nevermind keeps the awesome pop-infused punk rock songs flowing at an unstoppable rate, In Utero purposefully gets long, aggressive, and weird toward its conclusion.
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would consider ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter’ to be their favourite Nirvana song unless they’re purposefully trying to be an ass, so this choice is easy.
Winner: ‘Stay Away’ – Nevermind
11. ‘On a Plain’ vs. ‘Tourette’s’
Yeah… remember when I said the track-by-track format doesn’t exactly favour In Utero? Well, this is actually where that becomes the most obvious. In no universe does the brief wild blast of ‘Tourette’s’ have anything on the killer hooks and expert craftmanship found in ‘On a Plain’. Maybe, if you’re pressed for time, then you might listen to ‘Tourette’s’ over ‘On a Plain’. But that’s definitely the only scenario.
Winner: ‘On a Plain’ – Nevermind
12. ‘Something in the Way’ vs. ‘All Apologies’
In many ways, this is probably the true heavyweight matchup of this debate. For their final (official) songs on each album, Nirvana put down some of their most hauntingly beautiful songs. ‘Something in the Way’ is pure escapism with a direct window into Cobain’s subterranean psyche. ‘All Apologies’ is one of the loveliest and most devastating songs in the Nirvana canon.
On any given day, this spot could go to either of them. The ending chant of “all and all is all we are” from ‘All Apologies’ is mesmerising, but today, it’s the eerie atmosphere of ‘Something in the Way’ that wins this matchup.
Winner: ‘Something in the Way’ – Nevermind
Bonus Deciding Round:
‘Endless, Nameless’ vs. ‘Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flowing Through The Strip’
So here we are, an even split of six and six between these two classic albums. Luckily for us, both LPs have bonus hidden tracks that will help us decide this debate. And folks, they could not be more different.
‘Endless, Nameless’ is half song, half excuse for the band to trash their instruments at the conclusion of a show. ‘Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flowing Through The Strip’, meanwhile, is a wonky and slow-burning semi-improvisation that can mean everything or nothing. But dollars to doughnuts, nothing beats that wild surprise that comes from leaving on your stereo and hearing ‘Endless, Nameless’ for the first time. If only one can win, then it will be ‘Endless, Nameless’ and Nevermind.
Winner: ‘Endless, Nameless’ – Nevermind
Final Tally: Nevermind 7, In Utero 6