Nirvana

DISCOGRAPHY

Bleach (1989) 6.5/10

Nevermind (1991) 7/10

Incesticide (B-sides, 1992) 5/10

In Utero (1993) 7/10

MTV Unplugged (live, 1993) 6.5/10

    Beginning with a stoner rock and sludge metal/punk sound derived from the Melvins, Nirvana were commercially propelled by Smells Like Teen Spirit, an "alternative" rock sound inspired by the Pixies. Cobain's aptitude as a melodicist contributed to the band's success, but his semi-bluesy, semi-emo vocals, distant demeanor and youthful profile are what made him an icon.

   Their angst, alongside with Cobain's tragic persona, made the poster band for the "alternative rock" genre. 

   Born in 1967 and raised in the moribund town of Aberdeen, Washington, Kurt Cobain developed a fanatical appreciation for pop music at an early age, singing along to bands like Queen, the Ramones, Electric Light Orchestra, and (especially) the Beatles. 

   Along with music, Kurt was obsessed with visual arts, expressing himself via sculptures, drawings, and paintings — a talent he would eventually employ for his bands' covers, symbols, and merchandise. 

   As it goes for many artists in their youth, Cobain went through some family conflict and health problems, including domestic abuse, manic depression, a disjointed spine, and chronic stomach pains — all following his parents' divorce when he was nine. All this, plus a heroin addiction starting in 1987, would influence a bleak and angry demeanor in his art. His affection for punk and noise rock (see his 50 favorite albums) would guide him to emulate alternative rock sounds of the 1980s, especially inspired by the Pixies. His rugged Home Recordings as well as the 20-minute sound collage Montage of Heck also demonstrates a love for more experimental and lo-fi sounds. 

   Cobain would befriend bass-player Chris Novoselic in High school and eventually the duo would recruit drummer Chad Channing and a second guitarist, Jason Everman, who would later leave to play bass for Soundgarden. 

   Nirvana would sign to the label Sub Pop and release their first album in 1989. 

    Bleach was Nirvana's sludge metal record, paying tribute to bands like the Melvins, while also proving melodic competence in the poppy About a Girl and the main riff in Blew. Meanwhile some hooks would also betray the poppy hard rock bands like Kiss, such as Sifting. 

   The album excels in showing off nasty riffs and monstrous vocals especially in Negative Creep, Scoff, and Swap Meet. 

   Another highlight is the cover of Shocking Blue's Love Buzz, a psychedelic mantra perverted into a morph of repetitive funk and noisy hard rock. 

   The original album would end with the suspenseful Sifting, but later reissues of Bleach would entail the B-sides Big Cheese and Downer. 

   After Chad Channing would quit, Nirvana recruited Dave Grohl, a drumming veteran from the band Scream. His more frenetic and flexible playing style would complement the band better than before. 

   By 1990, the band would sign with DGC. 

   With Nevermind, Nirvana's punk and sludge metal sound was polished to a state worthy of mainstream radio play. Under producer Butch Vig, Bleach's toxicity was left intact, but their noncommercial tendencies had a contraceptive: Vig took the racket of heavy drums and guitar fuzz and compressed it into something punchy and raw while still delivering Cobain's melodic emphasis. Even the most inattentive listener at the time was shocked to discover that Kurt's guttural caterwauling was, in fact, "catchy."

   Smells Like Teen Spirit conveys Vig's "wall of sound" right at the riff's second render, quickly washed away to set a bobbing bass-groove counterpointed by two resonant guitar-plucks. It speeds up, gets louder, then the chorus's detonation restarts the "soft-loud-soft" see-saw routine.

   Come As You Are eases us in with the coolness of an aquatic, bass-heavy riff until two runs of the chorus ("memori~a") discharges the "wall" in the bridge, letting the song stay in a state of eruption until fade-out. Lounge Act does something similar, presenting relatively reserved playing from the band (grooving to Novoselic's sexiest bassline) until Vig's "wall" busts in for the song's second half. 

   More studio tricks distributed throughout the album arouse interest: the stereo shifting in Breed (movement between the left/right channels); the portion of Drain You where a collage of spraycans and bathtoys hiss and squeak while the drumming prepares a breakdown; Krist's abrasive voiceover at the start for Territorial Pissings; and the back-up harmonies for On A Plain, which are isolated into a hymn at the song's fade-out.

   Gentle acoustic numbers close Nevermind's sides on LP: Polly is hypnotic in its quietude as well as ominous; Something In The Way's gripping cello accompaniment adds a funereal flavor to it, like it's the album's whispered farewell. 

   On CD Nevermind ends with an encore, a (mostly) free-form jam titled Endless, Nameless -- a glimpse at Nirvana's discordant and anti-commercial grunge.

    A little more than a month later Nirvana would play at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, one of the last concerts to be recorded of Nirvana before they would become a "radio" band. Cobain's physical antics are entertaining, as is the rest of the band's energy in exhibiting their own talents consistently within each song on the setlist.  

   Live At The Paramount would not get an official release on CD/DVD until Nevermind's 20th anniversary in 2011. Maybe the most significant aspect of the concert is seeing a show during the interesting transitional phase of the group in which their "stoner-punk" sound from Bleach meshed with the more melodic/accessible sound of Nevermind's grunge-pop.

   In late August of 1992 their Live At Reading performance would be recorded; a concert notable more for the band's theatrics rather than the music itself. The CD features: 

•  The audience singing along to the first verse of Lithium, validating how truly anthemic that song really was. 

•  Kurt's vocals swapping between the nasal voice of a bratty kid and his regular voice in Sliver. 

•  A choppy instrumental of Star Spangled Banner at the end (hardly matching Hendrix's rendition, which Kurt may have been meaning to imitate) 

•  A cover of Fang's The Money Will Roll Right In, anti-commercial sentiments therein relevant considering Kurt's emerging distress with fame. 

   The DVD features more material of interest: 

•  The concert begins with Kurt led out in a wheelchair wearing hospital garb, then Krist introduces him like he's been struggling as a patient in a mental ward to muster up the strength to play for everyone tonight; Kurt stands up shakily to deliver a hysterical (and thankfully brief) cover of Some Say Love before collapsing dramatically, only to get right back up with a guitar to start the concert. 

•  Beginning to play the riff for Teen Spirit, the band starts playing a cover of More Than A Feeling instead, Novoselic singing it in a dumb mocking voice. 

•  Before Kurt plays an unfinished version of All Apologies he asks the audience to shout "Courtney, we love you" for the offensive and recent scandals over the couple. 

•  At the very end of the show we see Kurt's guitar bespattered with the blood of his fingers. He nonchalantly hands this reddened instrument to the audience members in the front row rather than tossing it or smashing it. 

•  There is a hilarious interpretative dancer on-stage throughout the show who has admirable energy, but is an eyesore for those just trying to listen to the music. 

•  Students of Cobain as a person will rejoice at a scene after the credits where he converses with a kid-fan diagnosed with a terminal illness. ("Don't smoke," Kurt says to the kid; while literally lighting up a cigarette in his face).

      At Nirvana's boom in popularity, Geffen was quick to release Incesticide, an archival collecting B-sides and songs previously unreleased. 

   There are two decent covers of the Vaselines (Molly's Lips and Son Of A Gun); and a "New Wave" rendition of Polly that just feels very rushed and phoned-in. In fact, most of the tracks are filler that call back to the style of the Bleach era (Stain, Turnaround, Beeswax, Mexican Seafood) or material they recorded in the process of refining their sound (Hairspray Queen, Aero Zeppelin, Big Long Now).

   Exceptions are Dive (a grunge mosh), the passable grunge-pop of Been A Son, the quick musical seizure of Downer (later to be included in Bleach's reissues), and the two best cuts of the album (which come closest to the sound perfected in Nevermind): the bratty pop of Sliver and the rhythmic riot/love-chant Aneurysm. 

   The production of In Utero was originally done by one of Cobain's heroes, Steve Albini, until Geffen Records (and admittedly, even Cobain himself) expressed dissatisfaction with the results. The final product, remixed by REM's Scott Lit, manifested Nirvana's roots of noise and punk music better than Nevermind, though there remains Cobain's ever-present emphasis on melody. Butch Vig's "wall" is absent to censor all the distressing thunder and feedback. 

   You can tell the band is happy to horrify the casual listeners from the start. After a count-in from Dave, the first note of Serve The Servants is delivered with the grace and tact of a sledgehammer busting a pane of glass. Further anti-commercial examples: The concentrated aggression of Scentless Apprentice and the epileptic blast of Tourette's. The leaning toward extra dissonance and sludge-metal tones while maintaing the speed of punk rock equate to the spirit of powerviolence. 

   Only five of the twelve songs on In Utero can compare to the accessibility of Nevermind's grunge-pop: Heart Shaped Box, Rape Me, Dumb, Pennyroyal Tea, and All Apologies. 

   Radio Friendly Unit Shifter is the noisiest Cobain's guitar has ever been, verses almost devoid of any discernible notes or chords, just whines of wavering feedback and squealing amp leakage until the refrain; Francis Farmer Will Have Her Revenge beats like a funeral march and has one verse where the "riff" is nothing but pure feedback; Very Ape sports a whistling Egyptian riff behind the smashing drums and fuzz; Milk It is both unusually soft in the "soft" parts and unusually loud in the "loud" parts (vocals ranging from trembling mumbles to infantile shrieks). 

   Nirvana would recruit the Germs' guitarist Pat Smear to tour with them for live shows in '93 and '94.

   Their acoustic  MTV Unplugged allowed the band to show their acoustic talents. More than a quarter of the setlist are covers, three of which by the Meat Puppets (Plateau, Lake Of Fire, and Oh Me) as they appear to play with the band partway — but their presence is almost indiscernible since all they do is play back-up acoustic guitars. 

   The cover of the Vaselines' Jesus Don't Want Me For A Sunbeam features Krist on accordion and an enlisted cellist to underline the music's religious severity. Another stunning cover, David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World, reinterprets the stale psychedelia of the original into something more dramatic and personal. Pennyroyal Tea strips to Kurt on guitar and vocal alone like a true troubadour, and the result is just as alluring as the fully accompanied electric studio version.

   The four songs that follow make up the show's least memorable portion: Dumb, Polly, On A Plain, and Something In The Way. Three of these songs were already acoustic rock beforehand, so hearing them performed "unplugged" is not much of a contrast. As for On A Plain, the critical Mmm Mmm's that highlighted the chorus of the original song are gone due to the venue's limitations -- hence the refrain performed here is underwhelming. 

   Nirvana ends the set with a cover of Leadbelly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night, perhaps the most essential performance of the entire show. Cobain's relentless rasp is thrown in the spotlight with the song's straightforward structure, and the foreboding cello makes the tone all the more haunting and funereal. The last run of the refrain, where Cobain screams "Shiveeeeeeeeer" will be a sound to remember for the rest of my time living.

   The concert is a landmark experience for all devout Nirvana fans, especially on DVD. Mainly because the video exhibits Kurt behaving shy and awkward on-stage, which is vividly contrary to his "punk" persona that was marketed with Nirvana's studio albums and other live shows. The stage itself was decorated under Cobain to "look like a funeral," establishing a gloomy and peaceful mood, a calm kind of mourning. 

   On April 5th, 1994 Kurt Cobain would commit suicide (or was murdered, depending on who you're talking to). Nirvana would officially disband shortly after. 

   A few months later Dave Grohl would form the Foo Fighters, and Krist Novoselic would switch his career to politics, but would play periodically for bands such as Sweet 75 and Flipper.

   Over the years a deep conspiracy theory was conjured suspecting that Courtney Love hired a professional hitman to kill Kurt and make it only appear as a suicide. I wouldn't feed such paranoid speculation, but you can reference plenty of online articles about it, as well as the informative (if not propagandizing) movies Kurt & Courtney (an independent road documentary) and Soaked In Bleach (a fully-funded docudrama).

   From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah would be a compilation/archival of different live shows from 1989 to 1994. The perceptible changes in recording quality as well as musical style concerning the band's phases through sludge-metal, grunge, and noise-rock really add variety to the album as a whole, thereby keeping it less monotonous than your average concert CD. 

   On vinyl the album's fourth side would be "bonus material" that is nothing but six minutes of the group's comical rambling on-stage, also being snippets across many different shows. 

   In 2002 a greatest hits album (titled simply Nirvana) would feature the band's last completed studio song as its opener: You Know You're Right. 

   The 4-disc archival (3 CDs, 1 DVD) With The Lights Out features a multitude of good songs as well as a lot of regrettable content to bear with it. 

   The three CDs were separated by era of the three studio albums: Bleach (disc 1), Nevermind (disc 2), and In Utero/Unplugged (disc 3). The Disc 4 DVD is an exhibit of rare footage and other audiovisual material -- and what's cool is that you'd literally have to navigate the different pages of the navigational menu to see everything it has to offer. (The best of which being a showcase of one of Kurt's home mosaics from 1993.) 

   Disc 1 opens with a laughably sloppy cover of Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker that befits Nirvana's sense of humor. The demo Pen Cap Chew could have been directly transferred onto Bleach. Kurt's fun experiments with audio effects make an appearance on Beans. The slow-motion mantra Clean Up Before She Comes is a messy experiment with melodic and atonal harmonies. The home recordings Polly and About A Girl are haunting in their sincerity. The percussion-oriented instrumental Grey Goose is daring, but hardly sustains interest at four and a half minutes. They Hung Him On A Cross is a catchy exercise of punk-blues, and Ain't It A Shame recycles the sound although it is revitalized thanks to Krist's fast and cheery bassline. Token Eastern Song and Even In His Youth mark the songs becoming more melodic and danceable, which betrays the transition to the poppier songwriting for Nevermind. 

   Disc 2 begins with three short acts of Kurt performing solo for a radio show: Opinion, Lithium, and Been A Son. Pay To Play is an early version of Stay Away. Here She Comes Now is a cover of the Velvet Underground that improves upon the original song's riff, although Kurt's vocals hardly match the mood Lou Reed probably intended. One of the earliest performances of Teen Spirit is at track 10 (which is not to say that the recording nor the performance is very good). Butch Vig's mastery in production surfaces on an old mix of Breed and two discarded acoustic-rock tracks, Verse Chorus Verse and Old Age. There are several radio performances that include a cover of the Wipers' D-7. Among the best of the disc is Oh The Guilt, Curmudgeon, and another Wipers cover (Return Of The Rat), which conclude the CD before an alternate mix of Teen Spirit.

   Disc 3 starts with two demos of Rape Me -- one an acoustic home recording and one fully accompanied (replete with an intro of Cobain's crying infant daughter). A long rehearsal of Scentless Apprentice breaks the flow of the album, but at least we hear what the band might have sounded like if Kurt did acid. Worse are the long improvisations Gallons Of Rubbing Alcohol and The Other Improv: both are over eight minutes of little creativity. Marigold creates the most tender atmosphere Nirvana's music has ever had despite Cobain's absolute lack of participation, as the song was wholly written and recorded by Dave and Krist. Sappy is redundant and straightforward, but Kurt's agonizing inflection makes it work. The live rehearsal of Jesus Don't Want Me For A Sunbeam was poorly-recorded in a way that actually added to the music, since you can hear the cello over any other instrument which adds an exotic taste to the song that other versions (from Unplugged and Paramount) don't offer. The most heart-wrenching home recordings conclude the third disc: Do-Re-Mi, You Know You're Right, and All Apologies.

   A (bad) summary of the box set's "best" content was released a year later: Sliver - The Best Of The Box. Reviewing its choices, there are dozens of tracks that I would choose before including Opinion or both Rape Me demos. Here would be my tracklist for the "best" of the box:

• Heartbreaker [Live]

• Pen Cap Chew [Demo]

• About A Girl [Home Recording]

• They Hung Him On A Cross [Demo]

• Ain't It A Shame [Demo]

• Token Eastern Song [Demo]

• Even In His Youth [Demo]

• Polly [Demo]

• Sliver

• Here She Comes Now 

• Verse Chorus Verse

• Old Age

• D-7 [Radio Appearance]

• Oh The Guilt

• Curmudgeon

• Marigold

• Sappy

• Do Re Mi [Acoustic]

• Jesus Don't Want Me For a Sunbeam [Demo]

   But even if the tracklist was like so, I would sooner suggest just buying the full box. 

   In 2005 Gus Van Sandt would release his film Last Days, a recreation of Kurt Cobain's downfall exploiting the poetic "tortured artist" cliche, of the performer getting everything they want but still being miserable. Scenes are slow and uncomfortable to stall the nagging tension leading up to the rockstar's inevitable suicide. Yet the scenes are not chronological to prevent any spells of monotony. 

   Aside from the vivid depictions of Kurt's junkie friends and deteriorating mental health, one scene works as a jarring display of music as Cobain's core communication of feeling: he rarely speaks throughout the film so we're not sure if he's in any pain until we see a long session of him alone in a studio making aggressively noisy and mean sounds to no set goal or reason; it's just implied that it is to let his heart unload. 

   The film's last shot alone proves its point, showing the rocker's ghost ascend an invisible staircase up from the greenhouse into the sun. It resolves the film as a cinematic portrayal of Van Sandt's consoling words to all Nirvana fans: "He's in a better place now."

   AJ Schnack's About A Son is a creative achievement in building an autobiography written and narrated by a dead man. The audio is almost entirely from the elaborate interviews with biographer Michael Azerrad (aside from a soundtrack, a compilation of Cobain's many musical influences). Visual accompaniment is made up of sleepy scenes of the sites from Cobain's life (shot in the modern day) to set this nostalgic melancholy mood incomparable to most rockumentaries. 

   Kurt's conversational and direct tone of voice as he discusses many of his childhood issues, silly artistic ideas, and other banter surely makes it seem like you've befriended the guy by the end of the movie's 97 minutes, which makes the tragedy of his death all the more palpable.

   After Gus Van Sandt's symbolic and subtle Last Days and AJ Schnack's imposed autobiography About A Son, a third artsy film about Kurt's life was Brett Morgen's Montage Of Heck.

   The film gladly skims over the expected textbook biographical info to discuss Kurt as a character rather than some historical relic. This is shown through intimate dialogues with friends and family: very calm, mellow scenes typically counterpointed with blasts of gimmicky visuals from Cobain's vast collection of sketches, sculptures, short films, and paintings -- alongside other clips and imagery of subjects relevant to his life. (IE the anatomy of the human stomach, a reference to his bad cramps.)

   Overtime the movie gets exhausting with its sheer length of 145 minutes coupled with all the explosive montages of abstract cinematics, which is why it stays more consistently calm in its last quarter (made up of mostly home footage with Kurt, Courtney, and Frances). Its ending is abrupt, but that's part of the point of conveying the tragic and rude permanence of his death, and how his suicide was such a disappointing, hurtful act to commit. 

   Overall though, the idea of a documentary exclusively tackling a historical figure's personality intrigues me more than the typical routine of Rockumentary films (hosing the viewer with info they could have just found on the person's wikipedia page). But in all honesty Montage Of Heck did not handle the idea as well as it could have been in the hands of a more capable editor/director. It succeeds in entertaining for its two and a half hours and it supplies us with enough obscure facts about Cobain to make us feel like we learned something, so the movie's definitely not a waste of time, it just comes off as a tad pretentious -- which is very bad when the subject matter is an artist most famous for being genuine.

   Oh, and there is also a scene with Courtney's naked tits, which either values or devalues the film depending on the viewer's taste. 

TOP 10 SONGS

• 1. Lithium (1991)

  2. Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)

  3. Where Did You Sleep Last Night (MTV Unplugged, 1993) - Lead Belly cover

  4. Polly (1991)

  5. Come As You Are (1991)

  6. Heart-Shaped Box (1993)

  7. In Bloom (1991)

  8. Pennyroyal Tea (1993)

  9. Jesus Don't Want Me For a Sunbeam (MTV Unplugged, 1993) - Vaselines cover

  10. Aneurysm (1991)

ROCKUMENTARIES

Nick Broomfield: Kurt & Courtney (1998) 4.5/10

Gus Van Sant: Last Days (2005) 6/10

AJ Schnack: About A Son (2006) 6.5/10

Benjamin Statler: Soaked In Bleach (2015) 4.5/10

Brett Morgen: Montage Of Heck (2015) 6/10

EXTERNAL LINKS

• The song heard 'round the world -- official video

• Where Did You Sleep Last Night? -- live from MTV Unplugged (video)

• In Bloom video -- stylized after early-60s White America boy-band performanes

• Heart-Shaped Box video -- a good showcase of Cobain's visual art set to his music

• Kurt's tape-music piece Montage Of Heck