NIRVANA

“My heart is broke
But I have some glue
help me inhale
And mend it with you”

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“D”

 

Main Decade: 90’s

Main Eras:

Grunge (1989-???)

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Key Members:

Curt Cobain, Guitar and Vocals

Dave Grohl, Drums

Chris Novoselic, Bass

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Key Songs:

Smells Like Teen Spirit, Heart Shaped Box, Lithium, Where Did You Sleep Last Night, Come As You Are, All Apologies, Rape Me, Polly, Dumb, In Bloom, Pennyroyal Tea, Aneurysm, Something In the Way, About A Girl, The Man Who Sold The World, Love Buzz, Lake of Fire,​

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Ugh! I don't know if there's any way to talk about Nirvana without getting myself into a mess. Nirvana is one of those bands you either love or hate, and there's no way to please either their fans or their detractors. The truth is, I considered skipping them, avoiding complications, and sticking with albums and bands that wouldn't cause so much trouble. Simply put, like Bob Dylan, whom I don't like as a musician, but whom I respect immensely as a poet, and therefore I don't think I can review his work objectively.

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Something similar happens to me with Nirvana. But if I want to compile a list of the most influential rock bands, I suppose I have to be able to tackle this incredibly complex and contrasting group without being overly sentimental. This is part of what a recent email got me thinking, and my intention isn't to fall into the trap of saying that Nirvana are the greatest, the absolute gurus of a generation, on the one hand, or the snobbishness of saying they're only for acne-ridden teenagers in flannel shirts, with -10 self-esteem and potentially suicidal tendencies, on the other.

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I think sarcasm can be used to a certain extent with some bands, but not with Nirvana, or you risk hurting feelings. I neither hate them nor believe they harmed music, nor do I idolize them, nor do I think their music changed history or rescued rock. So the only way to talk about them is to be completely honest and direct, without double meanings, mockery, or irony, and that's what I intend to do in this introduction.

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To begin, as I mentioned, Nirvana is generally either loved or hated. It's rare to find any shades of gray in the comments about them. The point that seems fundamental to me is the mood or state of mind that their music generates. It's undoubtedly a dark, depressive, aggressive, wild, melancholic mood. There are people who can identify with that mood generated by the distortion, the lyrics, the riffs, and the screams of the trio. Some people listen to this music and might say, “I feel the same way,” or “I understand,” or even better, “Someone understands me, someone is saying what I’m going through,” or “I’ve felt like that before.” Maybe not literally, maybe they only feel a little empathy, but Nirvana’s music and lyrics stir something within them. These are the fans, the ones who hold the band in very high regard, and they don’t really care if they play well or badly; the negative aspects musically are set aside because what matters to them is the connection they’ve felt with the music. And that’s perfectly valid. If it’s valid for Bob Dylan fans who don’t mind the nasal voice or the repetitive, weak melodies, we have to recognize that it’s equally valid for Nirvana fans. And I have very close friends who love Nirvana.

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In the other corner are people who don't feel that connection with the music and lyrics, and they judge the band solely on the musical aspect and lyrics that mean absolutely nothing to them. However, that doesn't mean they're a second-rate band that only plays three chords and screams as loud as possible. At least not always; I'm just saying they're overrated and underrated at the same time, and excessively so. I'm not exactly a Nirvana fan, and I think those who have been reading me from the beginning will have noticed that. It's incredibly difficult for me to listen to their entire albums without ending up with a headache (except for the unplugged one), and there are several songs, especially now that I've been listening to Bleach to review it, that leave me completely in a bad mood for quite a while (I tell Hiz that they make me want to grab a shotgun and… and… and… but those are the sarcastic remarks I don't want to make). They don't generate that connection for me, and a few days ago I was tempted to write a review completely tearing apart the album and the band, the Nirvana myth. It's very easy to take a stance and say they were a trio of junkie losers who looked like lumberjacks, that the guitarist played his instrument with the same grace as wielding an axe, that he screamed like a tortured soul from the Inquisition or something like that. But I think that given their influence in the 90s (and we must accept that, along with Radiohead, they were the most influential band of the decade), it's fair and necessary to do a proper review and evaluation. I'm not going to say they're gods, but in this case, given that they are a cultural, social, and generational force, there are many points to consider besides the strictly musical ones, points that we generally don't see.

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Dissecting the Nirvana phenomenon, the first thing that jumps out is that they weren't virtuosos. If anything, Dave Grohl is the one who has the greatest mastery of his instrument, who somehow gave pauses, nuanced and manufactured the explosions with greater meaning.

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Of course, he's not on this first album, and it shows. Once he joins the band, he'll help to temper Cobain's energy and fury, but he's no virtuoso either, and I think his best drumming moments are more with the Foo Fighters than here. Chris Novaselic is a competent, very energetic bassist, capable of some arrangements while Kurt tries to play guitar solos, but while not bad, he's not particularly creative or a bass prodigy. The musical limitations become apparent when you get to Cobain. He's no Jerry Cantrell, nor does he have Cantrell's magic and expressiveness on the guitar. He's very basic, closer to punk than the 70s hard rock that many other grunge guitarists dabble in. He even started out as a drummer; his idols were the Beatles, particularly Ringo Starr, and in his early bands, they played Creedence Clearwater Revival and David Bowie covers. So, we have the band's influences from classic groups, to which we can add Black Sabbath and Motörhead. Curt himself repeated it countless times: fame was never on his agenda, and despite being a common refrain among many rockers, Cobain actually believed it. What Cobain desired was a more harmonious sound, perhaps more acoustic, more in line with what these classic idols were doing, but his own limitations as a musician prevented him from achieving that, except for a few songs where distortion, screams, and rage aren't the main focus, such as "About a Girl," "Lithium," "Rape Me," "Dumb," and "Polly." And there are also some other, more powerful tracks that I like and can listen to without any problem, like "Heart Shaped Box," or even the hugely famous "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The truth is, these songs have some great guitar moments, very effective hooks, and some more complex harmonies, but these songs were his peak as a guitarist; these were his limits, and he couldn't always create good melodies, couldn't always break out of three or four chords, or stick to very basic guitar solos. And even though these are his strong points, any teenager just starting out on guitar can play these songs. Kurt wanted something similar to the sound he achieved on the Unplugged, something like what Courtney did with Hole, but he himself said he was already being held back by the fans and the record label. Those who say Cobain was a zombie on guitar should pay attention to these songs to realize that there was at least something there, a melodic spark and a more pop sensibility that never surfaced in the rest of his flatter, hookless songs.

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On the other hand, there were Kurt's other underground idols: The Melvins, Mudhoney (whom I haven't listened to), R.E.M., The Pixies, and Sonic Youth, who were still unknown. These latter bands would only become famous in the alternative scene later, thanks precisely to Nirvana. Let's remember that the 80s were completely dominated by Pop, New Wave, and Synth, with the most commercial sounds since Rock emerged in the 50s. Kurt Cobain didn't want to become the generational icon he became; he wanted to make noisy music, within his own limitations, play in bars, have fun, and be an unknown artist playing music that wasn't commercially viable like his idols. That's why he didn't even bother with decent harmonies; his music wasn't aimed at MTV viewers who in 1989 were glorifying Madonna and were shocked by such distortion. His music was aimed at a very small circle of people in Seattle clubs. He wisely said: If I can't do what Bowie, Fogerty, or Lennon did, I'm going to make underground music because I'm comfortable with it and IT'S what I CAN do. Period. He was never interested in the money he earned; his wife chose the house; he continued wearing his flannel shirts and Converse sneakers, unwittingly setting a new trend. And he spent his last days living as he did before fame, in seedy motels, waking up in alleyways with barely a few dollars in his pocket, just enough to get drugs.

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It's sad but true. Everything Cobain did was unintentional, and with apologies to his fans, he was the "donkey who played the flute" because he didn't want to popularize a genre, he didn't want to set a trend, he didn't want to bury the '80s, much less become a generational icon and a role model, and I get the impression that he didn't even enjoy playing the music he played. If we add to that the tremendous anger and frustration he already felt before forming Nirvana, which undoubtedly shines through in his lyrics, the unsettling thing isn't that he committed suicide, but that he didn't do it sooner, and I say that with all due respect. But with all due respect to his detractors, by playing that "flute," he unwittingly opened Pandora's box, generating a musical and generational shift he himself never could have imagined, and which was absolutely necessary for music. He never thought anyone else would identify with his music and songs, and yet many people in Seattle did. When they recorded their first album, many of the songs didn't even have lyrics and were finished on the way to the studio, so they can't really be taken seriously. They themselves didn't take them seriously, but many people did. With this album, which cost them about $600 (and sounds like it), they managed to survive on music and continue their lifestyle, and perhaps if they had continued like that, he would have been relatively happy and would never have had his encounter with the shotgun. But with Nevermind, they made the mistake of giving production to Andy Wallace, who made the sound more accessible, and suddenly it started getting airplay on radio stations here and there. Then MTV aired a video, and more angsty kids liked it, and suddenly it was a massive hit, selling millions of copies and knocking Michael Jackson's Dangerous out of the top spot. And with this ironic symbolism, they achieved something else they never intended: they buried the superficiality of the '80s and popularized alternative rock and grunge, opening doors for countless emerging bands and bringing to light the '80s bands that had influenced them and that until then had been completely underground. They had a backward and forward influence. Some say Nirvana sold out the underground. That's partly true. They made the music, but it was never their intention to create it on the scale they did. It was MTV and the record labels who realized the tremendous business potential of teenage angst and who turned an underground product into something fashionable.

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On the other hand, their lyrics were largely the hook that reached that generation of teenagers—anxious, lost—who no longer wanted to listen to New Kids on the Block or Cyndi Lauper, or the glam rock of bands more concerned with mascara and the amount of hairspray in their hair than with the quality of their music, but which was all that was playing on the radio in 1989. Kids without identity, without true idols, who needed anything, any pretext to motivate them to rebel, and Nirvana's music is a kind of rebellion; it breaks away from the politically correct and inoffensive music that pleased parents in the 80s. However, I can't take lyrics like "I feel stupid / and contagious / Here we are now / Entertain us / A mulatto / An albino / A mosquito / My libido…" too seriously. I understand that some people identify with the rage, with all the courage Cobain expressed, but I simply don't, and they seem somewhat naive to me. The fact that he titled his greatest anthem after a teenage deodorant and didn't realize it until much later speaks volumes about this. What I have no doubt about is the honesty and sincerity of the rage and powerlessness that shine through in Cobain's lyrics, attitude, and voice. Perhaps since Lennon, he was the most savagely honest and brutal songwriter with himself, and many young people were able to grasp that transparency and see themselves reflected in a mirror.

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I don't agree with his lyrics, and I find him very limited as a guitarist, but when he stops screaming and starts singing seriously, Kurt can be an excellent vocalist, with a wide, expressive range, and that raspy, almost raw tone that's so incredibly difficult to achieve, which is why countless grunge vocalists preferred to follow Eddie Vedder's vocal style. But when he really screams, it's ear-splitting.

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In short, he could write some good songs, he could sing well, and when he did, few of his contemporaries surpassed him. The problem isn't that he didn't always want to write good songs, good lyrics, or sing instead of screaming, but that he couldn't always do so because of his own limitations. Kurt wasn't the absolute genius his fans proclaim him to be. Many of the things he did were involuntary, and this led him to suicide when he couldn't find any other way out. And he wasn't a complete idiot either, as many of his detractors claim. Whether intentionally or not, they managed to completely change musical trends and open the doors for countless bands like Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice in Chains, who would redefine grunge and elevate it to its true musical heights, or rescue earlier bands like the Pixies and Sonic Youth that had been unjustly forgotten. I don't identify with their songs, and to be honest, I don't like the vast majority of their catalog, but I think there are some worthwhile things in a handful of more elaborate and produced songs, and that they played an important role in musical history, so they shouldn't be underestimated or dismissed. In short: neither overvalue them as musicians nor undervalue them as icons, just give them their due.

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By Corvan 

Oct/6/2009

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