549. Foo Fighters / In Your Honor. 2005. 1.5/5

Having just praised the coming of Foo Fighters in my previous review (for Nirvana's In Utero) I now have to backtrack a little and try to understand how this album came together, and the purpose it serves.
OK, so we have a double disc release here, and the early reports did inform (warn) me that the first disc would be the 'rock' album, while the second disc would be a quieter reflection on things. No problem. It's the Foo Fighters, right? How bad could it really be?

Well, 'Album 1' has some reasonably worthwhile tunes on it. Not a solid album overall, but enough there to make you think there is something worth salvaging from the slight wreck.
...and then comes 'Album 2'. Why? What?! Really?!? Look, I'm sure this does cater to some people's tastes, and to those people go my sympathies. Perhaps a more important question is probably - did this band really have this inside them? Was it just a means to release this stuff from their systems? It's not as if they can't write decent ballad-type songs - "February Stars" is probably the finest example of this - but this is just boring, dreary and uninteresting.
Is this by the same man who came up with his concept for the Probot album? Did that album drain all sense of hard rock and metal from his veins? Seriously!!?! I cannot begin to conceive just what was going on here.

Unfortunately this was, and is, a huuuuuuge disappointment. Putting myself through the agony o listening to it all once again over the last couple of days should be penance enough for any wrongs I've done over the past 12 months.

Rating: Completely illogical. 1.5/5

548. Nirvana / In Utero. 1993. 3.5/5

Every person listening to this episode know who Nirvana were, and probably own or have owned a copy of their second album “Nevermind” and know the songs and perhaps even the story behind it. If not, you should check out the episode of this podcast dedicated to it in Season 1.
By the time the tour behind that album had finished, several question marks had begun to be raised. Cobain sought to have the royalty's distribution, which to that point in time had been divided equally, changed to reflect that he composed almost all of the band’s material. Though both Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl did not argue this, it came to a head when Cobain tried to make it retroactive to include the royalties for “Nevermind”. Depending on whose opinion you listen to, there was either little chance of this affecting the band morale, or in fact the band was close to ending at that point. Though an agreement was made where Cobain did receive 75% of those earlier recording's royalties, it did seem that this angst was present for the remaining time the band was together.
Cobain’s health at this time also led to rumours of the band’s demise, before they put together two of their most memorable performances, firstly at the 1992 Reading Festival, and then a few days later at the MTV Video Music Awards.
While the band’s record company had been hoping for a new album to release towards the end of 1992, they had instead released a compilation album contain rare live performances, B-sides and bootleg songs to appease the fans who were all looking for more material. From this point the band looked forward to the next album. Armed with a new producer in Steve Albini, some songs already written and others in an unfinished form, the band went into the studio in February 1993, and recorded their new album, “In Utero”, in just two weeks. Despite this, it took almost another seven months for the album to be released. Despite initially liking how the album sounded, the band and their record company soon had reservations about it, and then spent a number of months arguing about whether it needed to be remixed or re-recorded, while Albini adamantly refused to budge on what he felt was an iron-clad agreement not to change anything about the album’s recording. There was also concerns about whether the large American markets would put the album on their shelves, over the song “Rape Me” and what they felt it was portraying to the public. It seems almost ludicrous in this modern world that an album took two weeks to produce, but seven months for it to be released. Especially given that it profited all parties involved to get it out into the public's hands as soon as possible.

The whole vibe of “In Utero” is a different breed form both of the two preceding albums. There is a real divide between the way the songs are recorded and played here on this album that the others, something that both producer and writer was looking for. There is a true raw vocal sound from Cobain on many songs on the album, including the opening tracks “Serve the Servants” and "Scentless Apprentice". Unlike most Nirvana songs, the guitar riff on “Scentless Apprentice” was written by Dave Grohl, and though Cobain professed not to like it he wrote the song to accommodate it, while Krist Novoselic helped compose the song's second section. It is the only song on In Utero on which all three band members received songwriting credits. For some reason, this gets high praise in fan circles, and supposedly Cobain wanted to release this as the second single from the album. I admit I don’t get it. The track seems off, the screams are over wrought, and to me it just isn’t a very accessible track. Perhaps that’s why he was so keen to get it out there.
In polar opposite from those tracks, the next two have Cobain at his crooning best. “Heart Shaped Box” came from a riff that Courtney Love claims was the only riff she ever asked if Kurt wanted, because she wanted to use it for her band. After the previous song, this is much more back in the NIrvana groove, with the brooding vocals and loaded drum work from Dave. “Rape Me” was actually written before the release of “Nevermind” and was literally written lyrically as an anti-rape song, but the addition of lyrics in the middle of the song months later also gave it a twist of being against the litany of fame and the increased desire of the media and public to want every part of the artist and his family. “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” continued down the path of those drawbacks to fame and the mental fatigue it caused especially Cobain at this time.
The remainder of the album continues in this vein of coarse vocalled tracks and the most recognisable Cobain croon, while the music morphs as is necessary. The hasher verdicts of songs such as “Milk It” are measured out by the less frantic and less audible tones of songs like “Dumb” and “Pennyroyal Tea” and “All Apologies”
Nevermind’s success was built off the opening single, a song that captured the imagination of the listening public around the globe and blew up all over the world. There’s no doubt that many fans came into “In Utero” and were looking for another “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to light the fire again, and that the album would follow down the same path as “Nevermind” did. The fact that it didn’t, and that the opening single to this album “Heart Shaped Box” was perhaps more of a brooder and a creeper than the raw energy of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” always felt from my perspective that it threw a massive curveball at the fans of the time.

My view of “In Utero” has always been in a comparison, much the same way as Faith No More’s album “Angel Dust“ was on a completely different level from their multi-million selling commercial breakthrough “The Real Thing“. Just like “Angel Dust” this is the ugly duckling of the discography. “In Utero” is a different beast, which is the way that Kurt Cobain wanted it. He didn’t want an album that was as slickly produced as the previous album was, which was why he changed producer from the acclaimed Butch Vig to using Steve Albini. He wanted a more raw and abrasive sound for the album, one that harked back to their debut album “Bleach”, while still being able to have those other more subtle sounding songs where he could use the quiet emotion of the band to express that side of their sound as well.
The end result was “In Utero”, an album that Cobain was quoted as saying was “impersonal” in interviews on its release, but surely nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the songs here lyrically are dealing with depression, and dealing with the trappings of fame, and dealing with life itself. There are people – overly obsessed people to be sure – who have spent years dissecting the words of the songs here, and trying to interpret just what Kurt was trying to say – what he was REALLY trying to say, and looking for doble meanings and hidden truths amongst what he wrote and sang. Which, really, is madness. Everything Kurt Cobain was feeling is right there in his lyrics, at the surface. He’s not trying to be clever or make songs difficult to derive meaning from.
When I first bought this album, I was no different from the other hordes of people who climbed aboard. I was not necessarily looking for, but probably expected, another “Nevermind”. And that definitely is NOT what this album is. And it definitely took some getting used to, because it isn’t as easily accessible as that album was. But once you wade in past the change in mood, the change in vocal sound and the change in expectation, what I found was a really interesting album. It is , probably surprisingly, not as aggressive an album musically as its predecessor, something that I had been anticipated and even looking forward to. Instead, it is an album that draws a lot of introspection instead. It was an album I expected was going to be great to play at parties loud and sing along to loud. And instead it is an album that seems better utilised by sitting in a lounge chair and considering the lyrics and admiring the musical work. And that’s where my enjoyment of this album comes from. It’s a different piece of art, that’s for sure, but one worth admiring nonetheless.
Kurt Cobain has been called a genius in the years since his demise for the way he wrote songs and lyrics and the way he sang to exhort the maximum amount of emotion from each track. To me, that really is overdoing it and making his work more than it actually is. Kurt Cobain was obviously a person who had trouble dealing with a lot of things in his life, but most especially the fame that came with his band’s amazing popularity, and the things he had to deal with as a result of this explosion in fame. He suffered from depression, and as a result drug dependency. And he wrote about these things in his music. And his music and words, on this album and the only other two albums the band produced, is amazing and ground breaking and iconic. Whether that makes him a genius or someone to be pitied is a completely different conversation.

547. Scorpions / In Trance. 1975. 3.5/5

The progress of German band Scorpions had been a slow burn since the first iteration of the band under that name back in 1965, through to the recording of their debut album in 1972 called “Lonesome Crow”. Listening to that album now, or anytime after the 1980’s in fact, is like trying to search out how the band could have gone from the sound they produced in that post-1960's era to what the band became in the MTV era of the 1980’s. On the back of the album, they toured Europe and the UK, and in particular as support to the British hard rock band UFO, who were also trying to find their niche in the music market. So impressed were the band with the Scorpions young guitar prodigy Michael Schenker that they asked him to join their band. Having consulted with older brother Rudolph, who encouraged him to further his career, Michael left Scorpions for UFO. A fusing of two bands, Scorpions and Dawn Red, saw the coming together of Uli Jon Roth (guitars), Francis Buchholz (bass) and Jürgen Rosenthal (drums) with Rudolph Schenker and Klaus Meine, and with it a change in the dynamic of the writing teams. Scorpions split into two camps, with Rudolf and vocalist Klaus Meine on one side and Uli Jon Roth on the other. Their sophomore album “Fly to the Rainbow” saw these new writing partnerships put together for the first time and showed the creative forces that were available, and the meshing of both brought together a different sound from the debut album and yet one that still felt fragmented, not yet ‘a band’.
For the follow up album, another change was forced upon the band. Drummer Jurgen Rosenthal left the band because he was drafted into the Army. He was replaced by Rudy Lenners, another fellow German, and by the time the band entered the studio they were in a much better place. Having toured together now on the back of “Fly to the Rainbow”, they felt like a band and were comfortable within themselves moving forward. The other move that proved to be an important one not only for this album but for those moving forward was the appointment of Dieter Dierks as producer. His influence, not only on this album but for the next decade was an enorous part of the rising success the band experienced.
As such, everything was set up for Scorpions to truly find their feet with their third studio album, and album that with the firm base of the band and its new producer, would be released in September 1975 under the name “In Trance”.

The album kicks off with one of the band’s most interesting songs, “Dark Lady”. It is a typically offbeat Uli Jon Roth track, incorporating his amazing guitaring style that doesn’t seem to stick to the road, it is always looking for off ramps to explore. It is a first for the band with both Uli and Klaus sharing lead vocals. You have Uli on the verses and Klaus screaming on the chorus, shrieking to the heavens. Ui’s solo pieces are just as entertaining. It’s a truly unique song, one that challenges everything that the band has done to this point, and opens the album in an infectious way. To then move from the outwardly raucous beginning to the title track that follows is something that probably shouldn’t work. The quiet almost acoustic opening passage of “In Trance” is a complete opposite to what has come from the opening, and yet, here for the first time, Scorpions make it work, and indeed make it an absolute classic. Not a power ballad per se but with tidings towards that direction, “In Trace” highlights what the writing core of Schenker and Meine produces, a melodic and harmonic track both musically and vocally. The harmony vocals from Klaus in the chorus are spectacular, and the addition of the keys that complements and in no way overpower the beauty of the song are sublime. The power comes from the song, not any singular piece or part of the composition. Scorpions would become one of the greatest composers and writers of power ballads through the years, and while this song doesn’t really classify under that banner it showcases everything great that would be utilised in those songs in the future. As the benchmark, it radiates its aura here. “Life’s Like a River” is another softer rock track that is highlighted by the terrific rhythm of Francis’s basslines and Lenners’ drumbeat, which give the song its deep meaningful sound all the way though. Uli’s solo and Klaus’s manoeuvring vocals highlight the change in tone through the song. This is interesting as it has co-writing credits for Uli and Rudolph, but also Dieter Dierks’s wife Corina Fortmann.
“Top of the Bill” immediately comes in with that wonderful Schenker rhythm guitar riff, the type that he writes so well, that are immediately invoke a reaction that requires air guitar and a mimicking with your voice. While it may sound simple, it is the perfect structure for a Scorpions song, with Burchholtz’s bass running alongside. Klaus sings to the ceiling on this track, telling the story of the rock and roll life, trying to be top of the bill, and the vocal harmonies are superb and add to the dynamic. And Uli plays out the back half of the song in his uniquely fluid style of solo that ends the track on a high. Still a great song in the Scorpions catalogue. This then sweeps back into another slower less energetic tune as per earlier in the album with “Living and Dying”. It is a brooding moody track that sludges through the mire to complete the first side of the album.
Side 2 opens with another killer track, “Robot Man”. Here we are treated to a song that sounds nothing like what has come before it, the guitars and drums drive us out of the blocks at pace, the combination of Schenker’s fast guitar work and Klaus’s vocals picks up the energy and pace from the outset. Klaus and Rudolph showcasing the other side of their writing partnership, the ability to produce a high octane track that pushes the bands boundaries. Then we have the other side of Uli’s writing with the ballad “Evening Wind”, an atmospheric opening heavy on the bass, and back to a morbidly slow pace where everything seems drawn out, Klaus’s vocals and Uli’s guitar solo included. It’s a very blues based song that does brings thoughts of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin in places. As it fades out, we have the introduction of “Sun in My hand”, which does have a bassline and guitar riff sound that is derivative of other bands of the era, one that is basically repeated through the course of the track while Uli squeals and solos his guitar over the top. The lead vocal is also provided by Uli, which brings the song down in both energy and inspiration. Again, the question can be asked that if you have Klaus Meine in your band, why do you need anyone else providing lead vocals on any track? These two Uli penned tracks are the longest on the album as well, and they do both tend to overstay their welcome. The second of the Roth and Schenker songs is “Longing for Fire”, which is fine, but it just isn’t an inspiring sound like the songs on side one of the album. Francis’s bass is very high in the mix here and sounds good, and Uli’s solo to play out the song again is a highlight. But there is a modicum of averageness about the songs as a whole. And the album then closes out with another Uli track, this time an instrumental titled “Night Lights”. It’s a pretty song, almost a singular playoff between lead guitar and bass guitar. It is that slow, mid-tempo track with dreamlike qualities, almost enough to send you off to sleep by. Is that the way you want a Scorpions album to finish? Given down the track they almost always ended with the ballad, perhaps it is one and the same.

For all those playing at home, you will have heard on the very recent episode I did on Scorpions second live album “World Wide Live” that it was my true introduction to the band, and that everything that I discovered came after that. When it came to the 1970’s albums, including “In Trance”, that was quite a few years after that fact. I had happily sat with the 1980’s second phase of the band’s career albums for quite some time, and not really given those early albums much thought at all, until I then got another album that I have reviewed on this podcast all the way back in January, episode number 6 of this season, called “A Tribute to the Scorpions”, which had a wide range of Scorpions songs covered by other bands, some well known, others not so much. And, what I discovered on that album was not only new bands I needed to check out, but some great songs that I only had a minor grasp on. And it was at this point that I decided that I needed to invest in those first five studio albums, along with the first live album, from the band, and see what I had missed along the way.
“In Trance” is an interesting fulcrum for this lineup of the band, of the Uli Jon Roth years. Michael Schenker had been in the band for the debut album and was a heavy influence in the writing. On “Fly to the Rainbow” he had moved on to UFO, but in agreeing to let him go he had had to help with writing that album, which meant Uli only had one writing credit on that album, even though his guitaring was noticeably different and a major part of the sound of that album. Here on “In Trance”, we have the first teu album of this line up, with Schenker and Meiene writing together on one hand, and most Uli Jon Roth on his own on the other. And this created the different pathways that helped create the uniqueness of this band. Both writing teams produced both genres of tracks – the hard rock to heavy songs and the slower to ballad songs – but they did it in their own way. “Dark Lady” and “Robot Man” for instance, which open up either side of the album, are similar in pace and heaviness, but are different because of the different writers. The same can be said in comparing “Sun in My Hand” and “Living and Dying”. This is where the band moved on this album, and it can be argued that it is more authentic as a result.
Having had the album out again, for the first time in a while, over the last few days, I find that there are songs that stand out more than others. I question – as I almost always do – the decision to have fast paced energetic songs immediately followed by softer quieter and slower tracks, and then back again. Some albums are good enough structurally to be able to handle these changes without by default losing focus. Others are not. Having the momentum of the album drained or constantly changed may be something that some people enjoy. For me it is often an album killer. There is some truth in that for me with “In Trance”, but I must say that I can overlook that when it comes to this album. I’d prefer it structured another way, but that is not how the bad wanted it to be, and when it comes to the Scorpions I will allow it. Perhaps it is just because I don’t listen to this album as much as I do others, you know, those from the 1980’s that I mostly grew up with. With “In Trance”, when I DO put it on to listen to it, I let it flow as it is put out there.
This is an album that the Scorpions fans who are bigger fans of the 1970’s decade Uli Jon Roth years love to a fault. And I can understand why. It has all of those qualities that make it one of their best of that era. It also has some of their best songs of the era, “Dark Lady” and “In Trance” and the brilliant “Top of the Bill”. It is, remarkably, now 50 years old, and that in itself is something to ponder, to consider how an album of this type has weathered over the massive changes in the music world since its conception. As it turns out, it has weathered pretty well.