When grunge hit the air waves in 1991, I was only six years old
\nand more concerned with watching cartoons on Saturday then keeping
\nup with the explosion of alternative rock. As such, the hugely
\nsuccessful release of
\nNevermind<\/i> passed me by. Flash forward to 2004, as the
\nnineteen-year-old version of me decided to give a listen to what
\nhas been deemed one of the best and most influential rock releases
\nof the 90’s.<\/p>\n
I can definitely see where the “influential” aspect comes in. In
\nterms of style and songwriting,
\nNevermind<\/i> is a definite foundation for most of the rock that
\nwould come out of the 90’s. for better or worse. Loud, distorted
\nguitars, raging, sometime screaming vocals, and lyrics that range
\nfrom the pessimistic, to the positive, and to the apathetic. It is
\nthe latter that most impressed me. The words Cobain crafts
\nperfectly encapsulate the Generation X mindset, of isolation,
\nnon-conformity, and yes, depression.<\/p>\n
I’ve given you some good news, and here is some more.
\nNevermind<\/i> at times is very, very good. There is some strong
\nmaterial, as evidenced by the classic single, “Smells Like Teen
\nSpirit.” This song should be placed in the Smithsonian, as one of
\nthose tracks that defines a genre, combining all the elements of
\ngrunge into an effective, and indeed catchy piece of work. The band
\nalso finds success when they tone it down, as in the acoustic
\ntracks “Polly” and the album closer, “Something In The Way.”
\n“Polly” is a song that captivated me from the first listen, for
\nreasons I don’t know. There is something haunting in the
\nperformance of Cobain that keeps me interested.<\/p>\n
What about the rest of the material you ask? After the halfway
\npoint of the album, I started to lose interest. The legend of this
\nalbum led me to believe I was in for a mind-blowing experience, but
\nit was not too be. Simple put, most of the songs on Nevermind sound
\nthe same. Cobain was a very talented lyricist, but the same could
\nnot be said of his skill with a guitar. The rest of the band failed
\nto impress, except for bassist Chris Novoselic, whose ability to
\nshift from McCartney-esque melodic type playing to heavy metal-type
\nplaying gained my respect. Overall, unfortunately, these are simple
\nsongs the get by because of the solid leadership and words of
\nCobain, and the work of Novoselic.<\/p>\n
\nNevermind<\/i> rocks like any other album, but not in the way it
\nshould. The whole idea of grunge was that it was “not clean.”
\nDistortion, sloppy guitar work, anger expressed through music. Here
\nis the paradox of
\nNevermind<\/i>; it is too well-produced. While there are some
\nsongs the band offers up to dispel this notion, such as
\n“Territorial Pissings,” the rest of the album sounds too much like
\nwhat Nirvana did not want to be. There are some quite decent
\nharmonies to be found, e.g. “In Bloom,” and they sound nice, but
\nthey go against the notion of what
\nNevermind<\/i> should sound like.<\/p>\n
\nNevermind<\/i> is considered to have that “sacred cow” status of
\nthe great albums, which made it tough to review this album. I’m
\naware of what people think of it, and I know what this album did to
\nthe music industry, and realize its significance, but with the
\npassing of time and the tragic death of Cobain, its actual quality
\nmay have been exaggerated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":24952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5680],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38155","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-nirvana","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38155"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38155"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}