Originally Posted by
binnie
From the vaults: Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)
For many hard rock fans, ‘grunge’ was defined by what it wasn’t rather than what it was. The ‘absence’ of stage-presence, or at least the glitz and glam; the rejection of the ‘hey Mom, look at this!’ style of guitar heroics in favour of a song-over-ego approach; and the abandonment of hair-spray in favour of plaid. But, in truth, what separated ‘grunge’ from what came before was a completely different attitude. Generation X, for whatever reason, didn’t feel the ‘nothin’ but a good time’ vibe of the decade before, and whilst their detractors heard only what was missing, the grunge bands themselves pointed to what was there in spades – earthy emotions, genuine expression and an approach which favoured simplicity over complexity. Indeed, when seen as an extension of the alt.rock movement of the ‘80s – rather than as a reaction against Hair Metal – grunge makes a hell of a lot more sense, and no longer appears to have come completely out of the blue. Nirvana had far more in common with Sonic Youth and REM than anything you might call ‘metal’, but by the same token they also had far more power and clout than the Patridge Family with guitars of Poison and Warrant’s ‘Metal’.
‘Nevermind’ was not the best-selling grunge record – that tag goes to Pearl Jam’s ‘Ten’, a record that was really just a dirtied-up Classic Rock masquerading as something new. Nor was it the ‘best’ grunge record – that tag surely goes to either Alice In Chains’ ‘Dirt’, or Soundgarden’s ‘Badmotorfinger’. Hell, it wasn’t even the best Nirvana record – ‘In Utero’ was a far, far superior album. But ‘Nevermind’ defines grunge precisely because it encapsulated so much of the zeitgeist, and so much of what grunge was about: injecting a punk aesthetic back into pop music, and welding together edge with melody. And it flat-out rocked. Sure, it was simple – but making something this powerful from something so simple is close to genius. And it felt more real, and less of a performance than what happened before – more human, if you will. Much of that was down to the rawness of the sound, but Butch Vig had proven himself a very clever producer – there is plenty of studio magic here – over-dubs, multilayered vocal harmonies – but they add tone and shade which amplified the band’s power where in the previous decade they had added a sheen and shine which detracted from it. Almost a quarter of a century on, this is a record which stills arrests attention.
It was all about the songs, stoopid. If the band’s first record – ‘Bleach’ – had been about blustering power, here Nirvana were all about the songs and putting the melodies first. Dave Grohl’s drumming had a classic, American rock feel to it, stripping the arrangement of the songs down to essentials in a way that Springsteen and Petty would be proud of. You here that simplicity in ‘Come As You Are’ – a musical revenge of the nerds – a song propelled by the most uncomplicated of bass-lines; or in the acoustic closer, ‘Something In The Way’ – does music come much more beautiful than this whisp of a song? Cobain touched on themes far from synonymous with multi-platinum records – the abducting/rape trauma of ‘Polly’ being a standout – and in a sense it worked not because it shocked, but because it provided something so distinctive in such a melodic form. But they were never overly austere – ‘Territorial Pissings’ is the sound of a band content to be goofy, and the deeper cuts like ‘On A Plain’ and ‘Drain You’ show an out-and-out rock ‘n’ roll band in shit-kicker form. It is songs like these that jump out far more than the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, the best cover of ‘More Than a Feeling’ ever recorded.
Even those who didn’t like grunge would have to admit that it ultimately widened the palette of heavy music – lyrically, Cobain and the other frontmen presented a heavy sound which was open to expressions of vulnerability and tenderness in a way that the alpha-male metal of the ‘70s and ‘80s had not been. Much of the lyrical content of the ultra-heavy bands which trip over one another in the 21st century owe a great deal to records like this. Ultimately, in trying to explain why this record kicked off an explosion, it is easy to over-complicate the explanation, to focus on what it was about grunge that was unique or different. Perhaps it is wiser to think about what it had in common with the rock’s past – here was a record of rebellion, of teenaged awkwardness, of striving, and, most of all, 3 minute tunes you could sing after first listen. Is there anything more thrilling than that?
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