The Musical Legacy
By Alec Foege
It's no coincidence that Kurt Cobain was obsessed with Leadbelly, the legendary
bluesman. Cobain, too, had a gift for encapsulating his daily concerns in
a few deceptively simple lyrics, then energizing those sentiments with memorable
melodies and an inimitable delivery. "School," as genius a song
as Nirvana ever produced, universalizes the rage and frustration every person
experiences going through life adjudged by social cliques ("No recess!")
in a mere 15 words.
"Love Buzz," Nirvana's first single -- a psychedelic love song
originally recorded by the obscure '70s Swedish group Shocking Blue -- lacks
the canny mix of experimentalism and accessibility that brands the band's
own best work. "Big Cheese," the single's B side, hits closer
to the mark; from its abstract, plodding chord progression to the mocking
humor of its lyrics (ostensibly about Sub Pop head Jonathan Poneman), it
rips and roars its way into a gnarled piece of genuine punk art. While other
early tracks, such as "Hairspray Queen," "Beeswax" and
"Mexican Seafood" (available on the 1992 DGC collection "Incesticide"),
each contain shards of compositional brilliance -- and hint at influences
ranging from Gang of Four to Sonic Youth -- Cobain had yet to hit upon "the
voice," a magnificent instrument that could carry a tune even at full
scream.
Considering its tiny recording budget, Nirvana's 1989 debut album, "Bleach"
(Sub Pop), comes off like the world's most astonishing field recording.
Despite the occasional rushed take or muddied mix, the songs and arrangements
are wholly formed. On heavy-metalish tracks such as "Paper Cuts"
and "Negative Creep," one hears Cobain twist and strain his voice
to mimic the pain that accompanies, respectively, being abused as a child
and being ostracized as an adolescent. But it's the songs with the carefully
devised melodies, "About a Girl," "School" and "Scoff,"
that bulge with the promise of mass appeal. Not a note is wasted: Witness
"Swap Meet," a claustrophobic snapshot of rural America's desperate
flea-market culture, amid which Cobain carves out an elegant, inventive
guitar solo where others would have opted for throwaway noise.
For past generations, rock & roll signified liberation, freedom from
the ordinary world and its expectations; but in Cobain's case, rock equaled
enslavement. On one hand, it had served as the perfect release from the
truncated existence he suffered -- like so many other small-town teens --
growing up. On the other, Cobain learned quicker than most that dedicating
oneself wholeheartedly to perpetuating punk's rock-till-you-drop mythos
has become a creative dead end. "Blew," "Bleach's" claustrophobic
lead-off track, acknowledges musically that microcosm's low ceiling; Krist
Novoselic's nimble, rumbling bass line is all that keeps the punch-drunk
melody from taking a spill. Add lyrics such as "If you wouldn't mind,
I would like to breathe," and "Bleach's" status as the ultimate
high school anti-party LP is secure.
The "Blew" EP (Tupelo, U.K., 1989) adds "Stain" and
"Been a Son," tangible proof of the performance chemistry developing
between Cobain and Novoselic. On "Been a Son," particularly, the
guitar and bass wend their furious path together, generating a pop energy
slowed only by Chad Channing's perfunctory drumming. "Sliver,"
the next single for Sub Pop, written with Mudhoney drummer Dan Peters, was
the first generous glimpse of the band's knack for melding Beatlesque melodies
with a brisk, noise-tinged groove.
The band's concern that it sounded too slick notwithstanding, 1991's "Nevermind"
(DGC) is Nirvana's stylistic breakthrough -- a masterwork. The additions
of Dave Grohl, the rare drummer who can pound and swing simultaneously,
and producer Butch Vig somehow galvanized a revolutionary sound. (Grohl's
rapid-fire attacks on "Breed" and "Territorial Pissings"
are evidence alone that Nirvana had settled upon its optimum lineup.) And
the lyrics are remarkably coherent, considering Cobain's tendency to slight
their significance. By isolating and heightening each musical element in
its repertoire -- from the way the chorus kicks into overdrive on "Smells
Like Teen Spirit" to the multitextured guitar parts on "Polly"
and "Lithium" to the delicately whispered vocal on "Something
in the Way" -- Nirvana and Vig proved that raw, punk-inspired rock
could have a lush grandeur all its own.
"Nevermind" is a discourse on the erotic lure of the profane,
related in the most forthright, unprofaned terms possible. On "Drain
You," two infants mewl and puke their way through the finer points
of baby politics; on "Come As You Are," Cobain welcomes old enemies
with the oddly censorious "And I swear that I don't have a gun."
The songs "Stay Away," "On a Plain" and "Something
in the Way" form a trilogy about a soul in retreat: The first lashes
out at the cool patrol; the second rivals the Who's "The Real Me"
as a mythic tale of adolescent insolubility; the third finds that same soul,
spent and splattered in bodily fluids. "But it's OK to eat fish,"
moans Cobain, a Pisces. " 'Cause they haven't any feelings."
The sprinkling of extra tracks that filled subsequent single releases are
of comparable quality. The "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single, specifically,
is a must-have for the pure-punk "Even in His Youth" and the quintessential
rendering of "Aneurysm" -- Nirvana's ingeniously deflated history
of rock, from "The Twist" to arena rock, via Johnny Rotten.
"In Utero" (DGC, 1993) reads like a map on which all trails lead
back to the womb, a prelude to "Nevermind." The concentric cries
of "Heart-Shaped Box" -- from fetus, heart and locked closet --
link infantilism and adulthood as brilliantly as any in rock's history.
Critics might credibly contend that too many of "In Utero's" songs
whine about the fury fame hath wrought (the jaded lyrics of the otherwise
powerful "Serve the Servants" could accompany the music of a hundred
and one dinosaur bands), but at its best, "In Utero" transcends
circumstance.
In retrospect, one of "In Utero's" most startling revelations
is the maturation of one of rock's great trios. "Scentless Apprentice"
finds Novoselic deftly scaling his fretboard alongside Grohl's raunchy Zeppelin-esque
beat, freeing Cobain to dapple the musical canvas with stunning gales of
noise. His vocals, too, are wonderfully stylized, occasionally slurred or
delivered in a fake English accent. "Dumb" could be a midcareer
Beatles hit, albeit tanked up on codeine.
Sure, it's tempting to presage Cobain's suicide in the necrophilic lyrics
of "Milk It," though heavy-metal homage is a better guess. But
don't try chalking up the unadulterated bile of "Rape Me" to pretense;
Cobain's chillingly screamed coda is so candid that it's downright embarrassing:
Listeners can't help but be disarmed by the sheer nakedness of Cobain's
emotional display.
"Verse Chorus Verse," an "In Utero" outtake available
(uncredited) on Arista's 1993 "No Alternative" benefit album,
belies its perfunctory title with a hauntingly original melody. The arch
"I Hate Myself and I Want to Die" -- strangely misplaced on Geffen's
1994 "The Beavis and Butt-head Experience" compilation -- reveals
a looser, more swaggering Nirvana hitting a rather astonishing new stride.
In November 1992, Cobain laid down a guitar track to accompany William S.
Burroughs' reading, The "Priest" They Called Him (Tim Kerr). The
nine-minute tale of a junkie clergyman who administers himself the "immaculate
fix," it's a religion-as-drug analogy as affecting as it is cliched.
Perhaps a fitting farewell to a band that outwardly came to embody the very
rock traditions it once railed against, even as it jetted a screaming rocket
to the future whose smoldering fuselage will bear examining by music fans
well into the next century.
Copyright 1997 by Rolling Stone