Los Angeles / give me Norfolk, Virginia / dial one oh four ten oh nine / tell the folks back home th...
Los Angeles / give me Norfolk, Virginia / dial one oh four ten oh nine / tell the folks back home this is the promised land calling / and the poor boy is on / the line
Member since:17.02.2004
Reviews:159
Members who trust:90
Aaah 1989. A nice year for me. Holiday in the sun with the chaps in Kos, personal business all sorted back home.......until one of the albums I read about in the music mags I took away with me mentioned about this album.
For those of you not old enough to remember, hairspray metal ruled the roost in those days, think of Europe and "The Final Countdown".....oh the guilt........but in the hinterlands of Seattle, Northwest United States, three men and a producer were about to ignite a bomb blast that would annhailaite the existing order and the rock world would never be the same again. Still isn't either.
Look do you really need me to tell you the three members of Nivarna - well actually this album credits four - the other guitar player didn't play, he lent Kurt the $600 for its recording. Six hundred dollars which must have been repaid one hundred times over by now. Not by Kurt though, sadly.
Alright this is for you Nirvana virgins....take a downtuned guitar, a loser of a singer and a competent drummer (Chad Channing, NOT DAVE GROHL AS SOME PEOPLE THINK, Chris Novaselic played the bass on this album, though the bass is so lost in the mix that you do wonder) turn everything up to the max, add 22 years of the singers hate for himself and the world and voila! Here you have it, the magic ingredients that change the world of music, much as Elvis did in 1956 and the Sex Pistols did a generation later.
At first glance. like the Pistols mentioned above, this is a punk album. Listen to it a few times however, and subtle differences in the songs appear, which is always the sign of a great record. Take for instance Floyd The Barber....it seems that Channing is missing a beat on the second stanza, but hear the song again and you can pick up the same drum stutter throughout. The way the guitar seems to amble into the opening of Swapmeet, before being swamped by the bass and drums, but actually complemented by them. And of course you have the classic observation lyrics of the ultimate lonely kid in the playground, Kurt Cobain. Swapmeet. itself .."keep his cigarettes close to his heart...she keeps his photograph close to her heart..." I mean how brilliant is that.
Pop hooks? Good heavens this album is swimming with them. The singalong "About A Girl", which seems to be about, well, a girl, with its killer chorus "I spent all day with you"........"Blew", an honestly great rock song with its fat bass and "is there another reason for you staying, could you believe you knew the price we're paying, here is another word that rhymes with shaaaaaammmee...."
The album sags midway through, with the duff tracks Paper Cuts, a truly godawful dirge; and Negative Creep, where the production (such as it is on a garage album) tries to fatten out a basically one-verse song, and the closing track Downer, which feels like exactly what it is, filller.
Don't let it get ya down though....we have the relentless drumming that leads into Scoff with its classic line "give me back my alcohol" and the famous bass line into the cover version of "Love Buzz", which, dammit, I will learn one day. But only when my son is older and I can tell him all about it.
So there are indeed a couple of dud tracks (gasp!! sacrilege!!) but for the overall experience you just gotta love it. A truly great album and their best. Girl you fill my love buzz indeed. Wonderful.
Want the full track listing? OK here it is: Blew/ Floyd The Barber/About A Girl/School/Love Buzz/Paper Cuts/Negative Creep/Scoff/Swap Meet/Mr Moustache/Sifting/Big Cheese/Downer
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I always had a bit of a soft spot for hairspray metal, if only because mcuh of it was so naff it was funny, but Nirvana were unquestionably the real deal.
In 1989, Nirvana were mentioned in the same breath as Mudhoney, Tad and The Melvins--just ... more
another band doing the rounds on the Seattle underground. Bleach doesn't adequately explain why, so many years on, Nirvana remains a household name when so many...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Jan 6th, 2006
very helpful by (91%):
helpful by (9%):
![101 [SACD] - Depeche Mode](http://imagesa.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/598/prod_small-43598.jpg)
![River Is Wide, The [Remastered] - Forum (The)](http://imagesb.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/251/prod_small-6006251.jpg)
![Appetite For Destruction [PA] - Guns N' Roses](http://imagesb.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/237/prod_small-44237.jpg)
![Back In Black [DualDisc] - AC/DC](http://imagesb.ciao.com/iuk/images/products/small/505/prod_small-6303505.jpg)
