Product Description
-------------------
Second studio album by the legendary American grunge band.
Originally released in 1991, the album has been been remastered
and re-released to mark the 20th Anniversary of its original
release. Regarded as one of the most influential albums of all
time, it includes the tracks 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Come As
You Are', 'Lithium' and 'In Bloom'.
.co.uk
------
One of the defining moments of the 1990s, despite happening at
the start of the decade. The guitars start jittering, then
"BOOMA-ABOOMA-ABOOMA-ABOOM!", the drums kick in and grunge
splatters itself all over a generation of MTV viewers. "Smells
Like Teen Spirit" will surely always speak to alienated
teenagers, while giving them something to th around their
rooms to, kicking the whole thing off as it means to go on. "Come
As You Are" is dark and twisted, while "Lithium" and "In Bloom"
show Kurt Cobain's often overlooked sense of humour, and "Stay
Away" highlights the best way to shred your vocal chords. It's
nigh-impossible not to love this album, and it will remain
Nirvana's most affectionately remembered work. It's just a shame
that a misplaced sense of "selling out" (stupid term if ever
there was one) led to such an internal rejection of "...Teen
Spirit". A work of genius, no question. --Emma Johnston
P.when('A').execute(function(A) {
A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse',
function(data) {
window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100);
});
});
Review
------
Before its 1991 release, Geffen Records were hoping to sell
250,000 copies of Nevermind. It eventually sold more than 100
times that a and is also acknowledged as being a factor in
its primary songwriter’s death.
With hind it is easy to work out why the frontman struggled
with the LP after it had been made. In Utero, the last studio
album the band made before his suicide, was a difficult, abrasive
record, clearly the product of a mind pushed beyond its limit.
But he dismissed this follow-up to debut Bleach as “a Motley Crue
record” rather than a punk album.
The tunes are still ace, but there is an unquestionable MTV sheen
plastered over the bulk of them. The band enlisted Butch Vig to
produce the record and trusted him behind the desk. But when
mixing went awry, Slayer mixer Andy Wallace was brought in to
tweak the record.
Although Wallace used less studio trickery than the average pop
producer, Kurt was right: what now sits on 26 million shelves is
definitely not punk.
Instead, it’s an awesome mainstream rock record. Its four 45s
including “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Come As You” Are are
exemplary, soaring rock singles and became angst anthems for
teens across the world. The quiet/loud schtick that Nirvana made
their own was stolen from the Pixies, as Kurt freely admitted,
but even Frank Black’s merry crew never managed to hook listeners
like the Nevermind singles.
The guitars are all crunched, phased and compressed to within an
inch of their six strings and the drum sounds are predictably
accountant-tight and brickie-tough. Lyrically, aside from
“Polly”, Nevermind rarely goes beyond woe-is-me or the cryptic:
witness “On A Plain”’s ‘The black sheep got/blackmailed
again/forgot to put/on as a coat.’
But even the occasional nonsense lyric couldn’t hide the
beguiling, revelatory side of his writing. The aforementioned
“Polly” is about a rapist, while Kurt said “Something In The Way”
was about ing rough (friends have since denied he ever did).
And there were Kurt’s vocals. By turns haunted and hurting, caged
and desperate, it’s his scuffed, torn diary of a voice that you
remember after the guitar crunch has gone, ultimately ensuring
that Nevermind is a flawed classic, but a classic just the same.
--Lou Thomas
Find more music at the BBC
( http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/syn//albumreviews/-/music/ ) This link
will take you off in a new window
See more ( javascript:void(0) )