In 1991, the whole music industry had at the time, been in a slump, hair metal was quickly dying out. It seemed as if not one band was really trying to write anything spectacular to save the entire scene. Enter Nirvana, a grunge rock band from Aberdeen, Washington, who exploded into the mainstream with the redhot album,
Nevermind. Every magazine that wrote music reviews praised this highly, but despite high praise from so many abundant sources, many fail to really bisect the musical quality of
Nevermind, instead they base their opinion on either the historic relevance of the album, or that it was something entirely new. Without a doubt, it did pull the music industry out of a major crisis, but the fact that many songs on here are filler is something constantly overlooked by the general public, even more so by the press. The entire portion of guitar riffs on the album is chunky, simple, and overly repetitive. At some points a person could feel as if they have been listening to rehashes of two or three good songs for the last forty-two minutes.
Not to say there isn’t anything that sticks out. The song
Breed, is obviously a great song upon first listen. When fast guitar riffing, and a fast, building snare beat open the song, followed by a fun bass groove that lasts the whole time, a person can tell this will be a standout for the album, even though it’s only the fourth track into the album. It is a shame Kurt’s voice is the most annoying on this song for the whole album. The sad fact is, with Kurt’s nasal voice providing irritating vocals that are accompanied by simple, chunky guitar riffs, this album can’t be enjoyable. He fails to ever really differentiate his voice from song to song. There are only a couple standouts for him; the grainy texture of his voice is bothersome on almost every single song.
Drain You is a fairly straightforward song like the rest of the album, but the infectious chorus will earn it repeated listens by the listener. Then of course
Smells Like Teen Spirit has enjoyable vocals The lyrics aren’t the best, but it’s one liners such as
“With the lights out, it’s less dangerous”, and
“I found it hard, it's hard to find. Oh well, whatever, nevermind” that make the song memorable. In fact, that’s actually how it is for the whole album, the lyrics aren’t great, but the numerous one liners are great.
“And I swear I don’t have a gun. No I don’t have a gun.”-Come As You Are
“We can have some more; nature is a whore. Bruises on the fruit; tender age in bloom.”-In Bloom
“Never met a wise man, if so it's a woman.”-Territorial Pissings
“It is now my duty to completely drain you.”-Drain You
“ I'm so ugly, but that's okay, 'cause so are you.”-Lithium
Krist Novoselic is a fairly decent bassist. His lines aren’t complicated, but they work in well with the guitar, and drums. Listen to
In Bloom, and you will hear some nice groovy lines laid out. It’s an infamous song that features a great performance from Kurt both on his guitar, and his voice. The simple riffing of that song is a hook in itself, something that doesn’t come easily on the record. Drummer Dave Grohl, more or less know known as front man in Foo Fighters, along with his relations to Queens of the Stone Age, and Probot, shows he knows how to handle himself behind the kit with fairly nice fills here, and there, along with simple drum beats on many songs that help to back up the bass, and guitar too. That’s the problem though; his performance doesn’t really show any true talent. They fail to truly impress.
Nevermind isn’t what it is said to be. For the most part, the music is uninspired, simple, and rather boring. It’s a love-hate album; some people will dig it up, but just as many people won’t. Some songs will hold your attention, but it gets so repetitive, that it’s not very useful for repeated listens.
Smells Like Teen Spirit,
In Bloom,
Come As You Are, and are all good songs, but nothing besides
Breed really succeeds in bettering those four. It’s a poor album, with mostly average, or poor songs, with a few good ones.
