So why is Nirvana’s Bleach on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I’ll tell the tale of how I first became aware of a band called Nirvana in a differentThere was a point in my life when I wasn’t aware of Nirvana, and then something clicked for me after seeing the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video on an MTV Buzz Bin segment that aired when I was in high school.
This was of course the pre-Internet, pre-Spotify, and pre-streaming music-era, so as far as I knew for a while, Nevermind was the only album that Nirvana had released up until that point (also keeping in mind that I was a goofy high school kid growing up out in the strip mall bespotted suburbs of Long Island, New York).
At some point, I accessed a cassette tape of this other album – an entire album! – that Nirvana had released, their debut album, called Bleach.
The first two tracks are heavy and in fact “Floyd the Barber” may have been one of the heaviest songs I had ever heard up to that point in my life. I can’t quite recall what I thought of it at the time, but I find it sublimely heavy these days, punk and metal amalgamated into one, Chad Channing’s thundering drums somehow recorded exquisitely on an album that impossibly cost about $600 to produce.
* A kid named Dave Grohl would go on to replace Channing on drums between the recording of Bleach and Nevermind.
And by exquisitely, I mean those drums sound soul crushing.
Then amazingly, like some dark wizardry conjured by that 22-year-old named Kurt Cobain, the chorus leavens the mood just enough, with guitar work summoned from something out of a bummed out yet brilliant Jimmy Page session.
And that’s all before we get to the third track, “About A Girl.”
I recall reading that Cobain listened to a Beatles record over and over again – Meet the Beatles! (#213 of best 1,000 albums ever) in fact, early pre-psychedelic Beatles – before becoming inspired to write “About A Girl.”
In any event, I find the song to be fascinating and endlessly listenable in multiple ways. It stands out wholly and completely from the rest of Bleach, an album that can be a challenging listen to those who are not fully acclimated to its dark and unique metal/punk tones.
By contrast, “About A Girl” is as catchy as any bubblegum pop song you can think of, but it’s also melancholy and driving and beautiful all at once. It also shows off an ambition and range on the band’s debut album that would play out over Nirvana’s relatively short yet prolific career.
If you’re a fan of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, I’ll again recommend Heavier Than Heaven, by Charles R. Cross, a deeply researched and well written biography of Cobain’s life that also documents the rise and fall of one of America’s greatest bands.
One thing I picked up from the book is that “Love Buzz” – a cover of a song originally recorded by a Dutch band called Shocking Blue – was a song that Nirvana leaned heavily on during its early live show days.
The version on Bleach again makes Nirvana stand out from other hard rock and “grunge” bands of the era, with its strikingly strange, kind of Eastern-tinged guitar hook backed by Krist Novoselic’s confident bass groove.
Once you achieve Nirvana superfan status, it’s a fun game to parse out the various influences Kurt and crew pull into their songs. Example: underneath the abrasive hood of “Scoff,” dig the new wave and ‘70s guitar rock influences that lace through a lot of the band’s early material.
When you are fully acclimated to Bleach’s darker vibes, songs like “Big Cheese” and “School” will melt your brain in the best kind of way.
And “Negative Creep” might be the most blessedly crushing of them all.
Some stats & info about Nirvana – Bleach
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Indie Rock, Punk Rock, Grunge, Alternative Rock, Seattle Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 3.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Bleach released? 1989
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #73 out of 1,000
Nirvana’s Bleach on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Nirvana’s Bleach that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
I’ll take advantage while you hang me out to dry, but I can’t see you every night – free.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.