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Nirvana
During its brief existence Nirvana served as the lightening rod for the Seattle scene and Kurt Cobain with his shaggy blond hair, three day beard, worn and torn jeans and tennis shoes was the Grunge poster boy. But it was those eyes that drew attention. At first glance they seemed vacant and expressionless. Empty. But they were anything but empty. The look was a mixture of pain and anger which only found release in music. Very loud, extreme music.
Aberdeen, on the Washington State coast, less than 100 miles from Seattle, was Cobain's home town. It's a place of endless rain and lashing winds with low gray clouds ominously rolling in. Pretty depressing. Fishing and timber drove the local economy. Both were in decline when Kurt Cobain was growing up. Very depressing. Cobain's parents got divorced. His mom worked as a cocktail waitress and they lived in a trailer park. Extremely depressing. Always feeling an outsider, Cobain deliberately tried to separate himself or at the very least insulate himself from the rest of the world. He took up drums but his real first musical contribution was hauling gear for the Melvins. That gig led to meeting Kris Novoselic. Their first effort had Cobain on drums and Novoselic playing guitar. When Melvins' drummer Dale Crover joined, Cobain moved to guitar and Novoselic to bass. Starting out as Ed, Ted, Fred and later, the Fecal Matter, they finally settled on Nirvana.
The group performed Cobain composed songs and roamed the Northwest club circuit, building a large and dedicated following. That, in turn, led to Nirvana's signing with the Seattle based Sub-Pop label. Their first release, despite Cobain's numerous compositions, was a Shocking Blue cover "Love Buzz." Bleach" followed and became a college radio staple. "Silver" came out in mid '90. After a series of drummers had come and gone (Crover, Chad Channing, Dan Peters), they found David Grohl. They also had a demo that caught the attention of producer Butch Vig who ran the boards on "Nevermind." It was nothing short of being a landmark creation with Rockers "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "In Bloom," "Lithium" and "On A Plane." But the best song was "Come As You Are." Starting with a hypnotic, reverb drenched guitar riff the song built until it exploded with Cobain screaming "No I don't have a gun." Of course, he did. Fame, fortune and all that noise descended on the group, and on Cobain in particular. Riding on "Nevermind's" coattails, "Insecticide," released in '93 was an excellent collection of early Nirvana live and studio recordings.
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"In Utero" appeared in '93. It was neither as sonically dense nor has hard edged as "Nevermind." Some attributed this change to Cobain's growing heroin problem. The brooding "Heart Shaped Box," the self-reflective "Dumb" and remorseful "All Apologies" were the best tracks. The album's production was fraught with problems with several false starts and sudden stops. Nirvana also recorded an Unplugged session for MTV. This performance generated significant praise for Cobain's songwriting and the band's playing. It showed Nirvana was not totally reliant on Grunge's wall of sound.
When things unraveled, it all went too quickly. Maybe it was life with Hole 's Courtney Love (Kurt and Courtney married in '92 with Francis Bean being born later that year). It could have been the pressures of Rock stardom. Or troubles with heroin. Maybe there was just a big hole that nobody or nothing could fill. On April 4th, 1994 Cobain's mom filed a missing person's report. A few days later Cobain's body was discovered at his Seattle home.
Mercifully, after years of wrangling, the lawyers left the building and the furious mud hurling battle with Grohl, taking a break from the Foo Fighters, and Novoselic on one side and Courtney Love and a fleet of attorneys on the other, subsided long enough to get the papers signed allowing the release of a retrospective simply titled "Nirvana" featuring the group's last recording, "You Know You're Right."
Nirvana wasn't around all that long but they sure made an impact. "Nevermind" is a Grunge classic. "In Utero" is neither as forceful or fierce as "Nevermind" but it is still a great album with "Heart Shaped Box" and the self-defeating "Dumb." Those two CDs are probably the group's best known studio work but there's more. "Bleach," arriving in '89 gives every indication Nirvana is a group to be reckoned with. "Incesticide" has some great songs, and some not so great songs.
The highlights of "Unplugged In New York" include "About A Girl" and a cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World." "From The Banks of the Muddy Wishkah" there's the blasting "Aneurysm." This is Nirvana live and loud. It just doesn't get any better.
"Nirvana" is a fourteen-song set, released in late '02 (just in time for holiday shopping), that covers their brief career and, as expected, focuses on their most popular period. It's a nice tidy package - something the group never was. This may be the only place (other than downloads) to get "You Know You're Right," but the original albums are still greater than the sum of their parts.
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