in utero vinyl
illustration
Art Direction: Sean McCabe
School: Tyler School of Art and Architecture
I chose to commemorate the 30th-anniversary of one of my favorite albums by redesigning it to honor the untimely death of Kurt Cobain. The design is made using a technique I learned called scanograpy. I wanted the design to be distressed and grungy to reflect the inner turmoil that Cobain clearly was facing during and after the release of this album.
In Utero received backlash when it was released, and major retailers like Walmart and Kmart refused to sell the album because of the song “Rape Me”. This was Nirvana’s third and final studio album and after Kurt Cobain's death in 1994, the songs were naturally viewed through a different lens. The music is complex and should not be boiled down to signs of Cobain’s mental illness, but rather appreciated as a self-reflective masterpiece.
I Hate Myself and Want to Die.
“I’m thought of as this pissy, complaining, freaked-out schizophrenic who wants to kill himself all the time,” Cobain said of the initial title in an interview with Rolling Stone. “And I thought it was a funny title. But I knew the majority of people wouldn’t understand it.”
