The Untouchables 12.22.05: Nirvana
Posted by Stephen Mogan on 12.22.2005
The band that rescued the music industry from itself, or overrated, under-washed whiners whose legend far exceeds their musical achievements?
There are many bands that are universally recognised as being great, some achieve superstar status, but very few reach the point where the acclaim for them is so intense, that it becomes inconceivable to question their genius. They are The Untouchables….
Hello there, and welcome to this week's Untouchables column. I'm Steve Mogan and I'm your host again as we take a look at another band that has achieved Untouchable status. Last week The Doors proved themselves worthy of the accolades they've accumulated over the years, despite a couple of underwhelming albums along the way. Or perhaps they weren't so underwhelming after all…here's Colin with his thoughts over the email tele-wire…
Yes, they do deserve untouchable status. Unquestionably. But there were no horrible albums. Not even bad ones. “The Soft Parade” is much better than you give it credit for, and can stand with “The Doors” or “Strange Days” easily. The debut gets overrated as an album, simply because it has “Light my Fire” and “Break on Through”. The former has to be one of the most overrated songs in the world, with Manzarek's usually perfect organs utterly annoying, and the Krieger-penned verse sounds like something a 10 year old would write. Millions of people disagree with me, I know; but I'm right. “ Crystal Ship”, “ Alabama Song”, “Soul Kitchen”, “I looked at You”, and “End of the Night” are all filler, and deserve to be with the filler you mentioned from “Waiting for the Sun” and “Strange Days”.
“Soft Parade” works because of the horns, strings and saxes. Jim was never meant to be a rock singer. The only rock and roll characteristic he had in his voice was the power when he yelled. He was meant to be a soul or blues singer with that baritone of his, and whether horribly drunk or not, soul fixtures should always have been a part of The Doors.
L.A. Woman was their one perfect album. Perfect. I can say without hyperbole or flinching that “The Changeling” is their best song ever, and is the perfect opener. What was started on “Soft Parade” came to an apex, with an awesome soul/rock song that had the ultimate head-nodding, foot-tapping hook. This is the style of blistering rock n' soul that Joe Cocker perfected in the late 60s, and The Doors ought to have done it sooner. The rest of the album is the blues that Jim always wanted to do, and with his deep, whiskey soaked voice, was meant to do.
Hi Colin, thanks for your email. You make some excellent points, and since reading it have gone back and listened to “The Soft Parade” again, but I have to admit, I still don't get it. You're certainly not alone in your views of the album, as I think the title track itself usually does really well in "favourite song"-type polls on Doors forums and such but for me it still feels inferior to the other albums I mentioned. When I hear an album with strings and horns like “The Soft Parade”, I always think "well, ok, but how are they going to do it live?" An album like “Funeral” by The Arcade Fire comes across even better live than it does on record because they have the personnel and instruments to recreate the strings etc. at their gigs. But The Doors only had four members. I know it's not a huge deal, but I still think that whatever you record in the studio you should be able to recreate or even better live and, I may well be wrong, but I don't see how The Doors could have done that with “The Soft Parade”. Also, you make a good point about Jim's voice; he possibly should have been a blues singer vocally, but with an electric stage presence like his he was always destined to be a rock icon. I agree that Jim was great as singing the bluesy stuff, but doesn't that go for the rest of the band as well? That's why I rated “Morrison Hotel” over “The Soft Parade”, the back to basics blues-style stuff over the album that I felt was part jazz, part blues and part something odd that I can't really define. Hope that explains my reasoning a bit more.
Ahhh, good ol' debate. Good to see someone with b opinions telling me I'm wrong. And thank God that my first piece of reader mail didn't just repeatedly call me gay, which is what I'd envisaged. If you don't know what that was all about then you need to go back and read last week's column , my friend. Remember, you can always feel free to email me here with any views, whether you agree, disagree, agree with my verdict but not my reasoning (like Colin here) or agree with my reasoning but just don't like the fit of my trousers, sir. Drop me a line and you too could have your thoughts up here in bold . Everyone likes bold, hell I'd type in it all day if I could.
Also, I notice that (ok that's enough of bold) a lot of writers here at 411 like to do a links section to other columns that you the people should be reading. This is a great idea that I will now steal.
Radio Free Berry : This week Brain takes us through his favourite albums of 2005. Props for including Eels and for covering bands that ordinarily I wouldn't get to hear about. There's a rule that only American bands that are incredibly trendy and unappreciated in their own country (where trendy and unappreciated in their own country generally = shit) can gain any sort of press coverage in Britain . It's written on the back of our flag and everything. Credit to Brian for redressing the balance.
Wake Up It's Time To Rock : Tollah has an exclusive interview with Eminem (!!!1!) and was the first person on 411 to incorrectly spell my surname with an R stuck in the middle of it, and therefore wins a prize. Hopefully this won't induce some kind of emotional breakdown on my part (Dramatic? Yes, but you people don't know the pain of having to spell out your surname every time you say it. It makes me go all Costanza – “I'm not Morgan! I'm not Morgan dammit!”).
The Stuff You Haven't Heard : In case you didn't know, Matt has the skinny (hey, I liked the 90's) on the latest bands you should be listening to. Dancing About Architecture : Ian looks at the music prize the longest list of contenders ever . How long is that award ceremony gonna be? The winners could be dead by the time they've read out all the nominees. I read something about this being his final column? I hope not, it's nice having someone who dislikes the NME (Boo! Hiss!) as much as I do.
My Take On : Is a wrestling column so it will be lost on those of you who are still prejudiced against my second favourite form of entertainment (“They be all wearing spandex and oiled up like a couple of faggots! Hyuck!” Please, it's 2005). Larry Csonka is a great writer and he covers the best matches of 2005 from my favourite wrestling promotion (ie. the one that doesn't make me cringe with embarrassment on a weekly basis, afraid to watch the show with any non-fans in case they ridicule me because of the ludicrous stories), TNA.
And with that all out of the way, let's look at this week's subject. A band that changed the music business, may have changed the way you think about life and almost certainly changed the way you dressed (mmmm…plaid). Ladies and gentlemen,
Nirvana
The band that rescued the music industry from itself, or overrated, under-washed whiners whose legend far exceeds their musical achievements?
The Band:
Good lord, this is messy. Ok, the band formed in 1985 when Kurt Cobain (vocals) and Krist Novoselic (guitar) met in Aberdeen , Washington (not Scotland . That would have been awesome: “Och! All fucking apologies, lad!”) and decided they wanted to make music like The Melvins, a difficult-to-categorise metal band from their home town. They went through a number of drummers before they recruited Chad Channing and released their debut, “Bleach”, in 1989. Some guy called Jason Everman was credited with playing guitar on the album, even though he didn't, and then briefly joined the band, before leaving again (you gotta wonder why they bothered doing any of the things in that sentence). A year later the drummer left, to be replaced by some other guy who wouldn't last, then they got some other drummer in for a stint (can you tell I'm enthralled by this fascinating tale of people coming and then going again?) before finally settling on Mr. “Hair ‘n' Teeth” himself, Dave Grohl. With the line-up complete, the band signed to Geffen and in 1991 they released their major-label debut, “Nevermind”, which was produced by the now-legendary Butch Vig.
As we now know, “Nevermind” was huge. It sold literally a hundred billion copies, and saw the launch of a new channel called “MTV Nevermind” to handle video coverage of the album's singles. The record proved to be the shot in the arm that music needed. The ‘80s had seen a slew of ridiculous hair metal bands in the US , and semi-gay synthesizer-fondling weidos in the UK . Music itself was in danger of disappearing up its own backside before Nirvana came along. For the first time in a while we had a band that was credible; they were real. They made people realise that you didn't need gimmicks to make music. Naturally the masses took to them immediately, imitating their grungy slacker look (for years the youth of America had been trying to get the ‘80s spandex-clad drunken transvestite look with little success) and turning the music into a rallying cry for a new generation; Generation X (which still sounds a little too much like Preparation H to me, but still). The album hit the top of the charts, and Nirvana went on to play one of their biggest gigs ever: headlining the Reading festival in England in 1992. This is often voted the greatest performance at Reading of all time, with Kurt coming onto the stage in a wheelchair as a practical joke based on recent press speculation about his health. The gig was the high point of the Nevermind tour, and underlined the media coverage the band commanded all around the world.
Pretty soon it was time to record a follow-up; a rawer, less mainstream follow-up. “In Utero” was released in 1993 to a collective shrug (and one guy in Ohio going “Ummmmm….?”). The album wasn't what the public wanted, but this was what Nirvana wanted; Nirvana wanted the album to be what the public didn't want and so it was Nirvana, and no the public, who didn't get what they didn't want (my head hurts). Although the album is considered by some to be a more “rounded” album than its predecessor (the 1991 fad of square CDs is often blamed for this), it didn't have a big hit that radio could grab onto and endlessly repeat until everyone hated it. This is a big no-no, and resulted in Nirvana playing to half-filled arenas on their latest tour.
It was time for a change, to show a different side to the band. “MTV Unplugged” gave them a chance to do this. The band played a gentle, mostly acoustic set of songs that included covers of David Bowie, Leadbelly and Meat Puppets' tracks. It was a turning point for Nirvana, never before had the writing skill of Cobain been showcased more clearly, with the usual grunge coating removed to allow the beauty of both his lyrics and the band's playing to come to the fore. The session is universally acclaimed at the greatest of “MTV's Unplugged” series, and would be released as an album to critical and commercial acclaim a year later. It even won a Grammy, in the days before people who weren't Kanye West won them. Unfortunately, Cobain would never get to see this. After a disrupted European tour, Cobain's battles with heroin addiction got the better of him and he committed suicide on April 4 th , 1994. Legal battles aside, this marked the end of the band.
The Albums:
Bleach (1989)
The band's debut sounds much rougher than anything you'd find on “Nevermind”, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. There's a chaotic feeling to this album that makes it infinitely more likable than if they'd attempted to polish it up. The songs themselves are certainly the weakest of the group's career, but this is made up for by the feeling that the whole thing could go off the rails at any time. The record opens with “Blew”, which has a nice bass sound and a simple riff to accompany Cobain's sneering lyrics. It's one of the better tracks on the album, but is followed by one of the weakest. “Floyd The Barber” opens with menacing drums, but doesn't progress into anything significant. Whilst the drums work nicely for the intro, they aren't b enough to be sustained for the entire song. Cobain's voice also sounds somewhat weak on the chorus. Next up is “About A Girl”, the most famous song on the album. It's a gentler track than the rest and, dodgy backing vocals aside, is the record's major success. Great solo too. Unfortunately, from here, the album all begins to sound a bit samey. “School” is generic, whilst “Paper Cuts” sounds too similar to “Floyd The Barber”.
“Love Buzz” offers something different with its eastern-sounding guitar riff, but Cobain's vocals are poor. Judging by these vocal “experiments”, it's no surprise that he decided to stick with the hoarse, screaming style he later became known for. “Scoff” is a song built around a simple drum pattern and guitar, with a crazy vocal from Cobain. I really like this song, but again it's very similar to the other tracks on here. “Mr. Moustache” sees more bad vocals, whilst “Sifting” is pretty dull and repetitive, to be blunt. Kurt's vocal experimentations come to a head on “Big Cheese”, with his whiny tone just too much to bear here. Finally, “Downer” is a chaotic closer which captures what the band was about at this point. A good, fast song with another psychotic vocal from Cobain.
Overall, then, a disappointing album. With only four good songs: “Blew”, “About A Girl”, “Scoff” and “Downer”, and a distinct lack of anything even approaching variety, it's a really tiresome listen. You'll be very bored of hearing the same simple guitar riffs and drum patterns after the first 10 minutes. Kurt's vocals are also just all over the place. I suppose in 1989 this could be considered radical, but nowadays the ludicrously uncomplicated riffs that make up the album just don't cut it. I like the rough feel, but the songs are weak, the playing is very limited and it's just a monotonous experience on the whole. Unimpressive.
Nevermind (1991)
The album begins with the skull-crushing riff of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and within 30 seconds the band has surpassed anything they did on their debut. Grohl's powerhouse drumming adds a lot to the band's sound and it's clear that Kurt had been practising with his guitar. I can't say anything that hasn't been said before; an absolute classic, a great album opener and one of the best singles ever released. The progression from “Bleach” to this is just incredible, it sounds like a 10 year gap when in fact it was just 2. “In Bloom” follows, which is a personal favourite of mine. Listening to it again, it has a lot in common with the simple songs from their last album. There's certainly nothing too challenging in the song, but whereas this would previously have resulted in a dull track, Cobain has mastered the art of the chorus and saves this one with his vocal performance. “Come As You Are” is next, and it's the third single in a row to start off the album. This has one of the most famous basslines ever recorded and, more importantly, shows some variety from the first two tracks, something that the band couldn't manage last time out. With “Breed”, the band changes style again. This is a faster, more punk-sounding track with urgent vocals and squealing guitar from Cobain. Another great chorus, another winner.
Speaking of great choruses, “Lithium” is next. The euphoric melancholy of this one is still striking today, and this song remains addictive listening. So far, there's nothing I can fault here. Next, we have a slow, acoustic track, “Polly”. For the first time we get to hear the range in Cobain's voice, with this lament bringing out much more emotion than any of the shouty tracks. The result sounds pretty heartbreaking. “Territorial Pissings” is the complete opposite; loud, angry and snotty. This one is filler for me, to be honest, as is the next track, “Drain You”. “Lounge Act” has a nice bassline and vocal performance but the song is pretty mediocre, though better than the two it follows. Unfortunately, this is a trend that seems to continue for the rest of the album. Most of the songs sound like polished versions of “Bleach” tracks. I mean, it's pretty good, but it just isn't exciting. There's nothing that grabs you. “On A Plain” is the best of the remaining bunch, but even that sounds pretty standard. The album ends with another “crazy” track, “Endless Nameless”, which really doesn't do anything for me.
The best of this album is packed into the first half, which is a real shame. The singles “…Teen Spirit”, “Come As You Are”, “Lithium” and “In Bloom” are all classics, as are “Polly” and “Breed”. After that though, it seems that the same problems that the last record had resurface. Nirvana seems to have one standard song structure that they keep coming back to and it's sometimes difficult to differentiate between the later tracks on the album. It appears that they used up all their great riffs on the aforementioned tracks. The result is that half the album sounds amazing and the other half sounds dull and uninspiring. There are exceptions to this of course, “On A Plain” is pretty good and “Something In The Way” is haunting, but the rest just sounds like cookie-cutter stuff. “Nevermind” is a big step up from the first album, but still not all it's cracked up to be. If they cut this record down to 10 tracks it would have been an undisputed classic. As it is, there's a lot of sifting through the average going on to find the pretty good stuff later on the disc.
In Utero (1993)
What an opening! “Serve The Servants” is, in my opinion, one of the greatest songs the band ever did, and is a great way to start this album. The thing that gets me here is that it sounds like much more noise than 3 people could possibly make. It's all very layered, with lots going on; something their last album lacked. Good start. The guitar riff on “Scentless Apprentice” sounds like a drill boring into your skull, in a good way. It's similar to the heavier stuff they've tried before, but unlike previous attempts, this one actually works, creating a feeling of energy and menace rather than of boredom. “Heart Shaped Box” is next, which was the first single and something of a departure for the band. The song is a nice mix of mellow and heavy guitars, and one of the stand-outs on the album. “Rape Me” was extremely controversial at the time of the record's release, but today sounds very tuneful; one of the poppier moments on the record, despite its heavy subject matter. “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle” is filler, “Dumb” is another slow track, which is again very good. “Very Ape” sounds a lot like “Breed” from “Nevermind” (which is either very good or very bad, depending on how you look at it).
“Pennyroyal Tea” has the same quiet/loud dynamic going on as “Heart Shaped Box” and is a b song with some good lyrics and vocal work from Cobain. The remainder of the album is pretty heavy, “Tourette's” being a short, sharp shock and “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” a longer, more drawn out kind of ear-destruction. Both are decent, but unspectacular. “All Apologies” closes out the record and is just a fantastic song. It's the perfect continuation of “Something In The Way” from “Nevermind”; beautiful and melancholy at the same time. This, along with the “Unplugged” performance, is probably the best indication we have of the direction the band would have taken if they'd have been able to continue. On the evidence of this song, the fact that they didn't is an enormous loss to music.
This is a better album than “Nevermind”. There, I said it. The slower songs work much better, there's more variety and the musicianship is more accomplished than before. Yes, “Nevermind” had the hits, but once you get sick of those you want a more complete experience. That experience is “In Utero”; the best album Nirvana ever crafted.
Their Influence:
Well, first of all there's the small fact that Nirvana created a whole new genre and allowed bands like Pearl Jam, the Stone Temple Pilots and Mudhoney to enjoy the success they did. This is certainly a good thing. However, Nirvana also made self-loathing not only acceptable, but very cool. Many bands since have used this as an excuse to create angst-ridded rants and pass them off as albums, resulting in the whole nu-metal fiasco we ended up with at the end of the 90's (I mean, seriously, what the hell was everybody thinking? How was Fred Durst ever considered cool by anyone? He looks like a bloated tramp). Nowadays, we have to put up with bands like Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd stealing Nirvana's sound (and Kurt's hair), which is just as bad. That's possibly the worst list of bands anyone could ever wish to cite them as an influence. Most of the time, the acts featured in this column have an overwhelmingly good influence on the future of music. However, on this occasion that really isn't true, which is a shame. No matter what you think of Nirvana, you have to admit that they don't deserve to be held responsible for the likes of Linkin Park , Three Days Grace and, lord help us, Creed.
The Verdict:
I might get a lot of shit for this, but this one is a negative. Yes, they created some of the best songs of the 90's. Yes, they did have a big impact on music at that time. However, nowadays most of “Nevermind” sounds very, very dated. At times it feels like there's little or no variety between one song and the next. “In Utero” is their saving grace, the only album of theirs I'd call a true classic (“Nevermind” is borderline, in my mind). But one out of three doesn't cut it. Now, with that said I do have a policy that I don't review live material, which means I couldn't review the “Unplugged” album. If I had, however, it wouldn't have changed my mind. Yes, that is a good album, but “In Utero” is still better. Had they been able to recreate that “Unplugged” performance on their next album the whole story would be different. It is a great indication that the band were about to create something very special, moving away from the heavy stuff and focusing on the gentler side to the band that was allowed to come out on “In Utero”. The fact that everything pointed to the next album being an absolute classic simply makes Kurt's suicide even more of a waste. This is all speculation though, the truth is that the recorded output of Nirvana does not warrant the Untouchable status that they have.
What Now?
Well, as is now traditional for this section, we open with the fact that Kurt is now no longer with us (what's with all the great, dead musicians?). Krist Novoselic formed various failed supergroups with various former rock stars and is now into politics. Finally, Dave Grohl went on to become the most boring man in rock (possibly the world), though I can't be any more specific than this because every time he comes on the TV, the radio, or even when his name is mentioned, I immediately fall asleep. Seriously. It took me 15 tries to write this article. Luckily, there is a cure for this Grohl-induced narcolepsy, it's called “exciting music”.
That's all for this time, hope you enjoyed reading. If you have any comments or suggestions for the columns, feel free to email me using the link at the bottom of the page. Happy Holidays everyone!
