"He's The One Who Likes All Our Pretty Songs"

I've never really cared much for Nirvana. I know they're like one of the most important bands of the last twenty years, that they changed the face of music by blending arena rock and hard rock and punk, that their album Nevermind is one of the cornerstones of grunge, and that Kurt Cobain is some sort of flannel-clad messiah. Despite all this, I just really don't care for much of their music. Cobain, while a good lyricist, was a little too heavy on the angst for my tastes, and tended to scream his lyrics rather than sing them.

I was just never really very thrilled by their work. It didn't do all that much for me. While I did listen to some grunge--I can admit, with only a twinge of guilt, that I owned albums by Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots--I was never really all that into it (remember, this was back in the early- to mid-90s, when my musical taste was still firmly entrenched in the 60s and 70s). "Smells Like Teen Spirit" grated on my nerves, as did "Come as You Are."

I will admit I've listened to and do like some of Nirvana's stuff. Like I said, Cobain was a decent lyricist, and he also tended to marry his lyrics to some decent melodies. The problem was that it was hard to find those melodies and lyrics underneath the bashing on the instruments and screaming into the mic approach that Nirvana took to music.

Except for Unplugged in New York. It's the only Nirvana album I can listen to all the way through, and the only one where I think their songcraft and musical ability really shone through. I tend to like the singer/songwriter approach to music anyway, so this album was always the most pleasing of their work for me, and really exemplified their diversity (something I don't feel their three "proper" albums ever really did).

I bring this up because I'd noticed on a website today this little "Today in Music History" blurb, and today's mentioned that Nirvana's Nevermind went gold on this date back in 1991. It would of course go on to Platinum and all that, selling millions of copies and cementing Nirvana's place in pop music history, but it's also hard to believe that the album came out when I was 11 years old.

Anyway, I never really did listen to their stuff much. I've since picked up copies of both Nevermind and Unplugged in New York (both by way of CD burner), but they're not discs I spin with anything approaching regularity.

Of course, it also occurs to me that this might be because I'm a pansy-boy who only likes mellow, "sissy" music, but I think we all know it's only because I actually listen to music that's good.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Nirvana, "In Bloom"