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Nirvana's best song debate.


Towelie

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Geffen thinks everything is suicidal. They sign all the most professional bands.

I'm not sure if they thought In Utero was career suicide because Kurt went self parody for the money. Rape Me is the same riff as Teen Spirit.

It's not as commercial as Nevermind but it's rocktastic compared to Incesticide.

Penny Royal Tea could have been a bigger hit. It's the Better of In Utero.

The more I think about it, I'd put Pennroyal Tea as one of their best. Just a great, well done song.

Easiest song in the fuckin world to play on guitar as well.

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Geffen thinks everything is suicidal. They sign all the most professional bands.

I'm not sure if they thought In Utero was career suicide because Kurt went self parody for the money. Rape Me is the same riff as Teen Spirit.

It's not as commercial as Nevermind but it's rocktastic compared to Incesticide.

Penny Royal Tea could have been a bigger hit. It's the Better of In Utero.

The more I think about it, I'd put Pennroyal Tea as one of their best. Just a great, well done song.

Heart shaped box, Pennyroyal tea, All Apoligise, Rape Me - not bad singles really.

Heart shaped box video was quite interesting too.

The whole thing is a masterpiece. Can't believe people say he wasn't good. In Utero is out of this world.

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I'm not sure if they thought In Utero was career suicide because Kurt went self parody for the money.

It's a classic now cuz we've listened to it to death but like...listening to the solo on Serve the Servants i can see how an uninitiated record company suit might go 'this is just a load of racket, he's on a pisstake'. Those sorts of people are very insecure and they don't take kindly to the idea that they're having the piss taken out of them.

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I'm not sure if they thought In Utero was career suicide because Kurt went self parody for the money.

It's a classic now cuz we've listened to it to death but like...listening to the solo on Serve the Servants i can see how an uninitiated record company suit might go 'this is just a load of racket, he's on a pisstake'. Those sorts of people are very insecure and they don't take kindly to the idea that they're having the piss taken out of them.

Yeah I remember them saying how, the band liked the album, then got thrown for a loop when they took it to the company and they hated it. They were waiting on Nevermind pt.2. I bet it did fuck with their head though. You know the first two songs they were thinking, well this isn't radio ready at all. Then you get Heart Shaped Box and they start thinking, ok that's more like it, then they get to Rape Me and probably started looking at each other like wtf is he yelling rape me? I'd be willing to bet that first time the suits listened to it, they probably didn't make it past track 7 or so before they were freaking out.

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There's no Come as You Are or In Bloom. But there is Pennyroyal Tea and All Apoligises.

It's definitely a more caustic album. So much of the commercial aspect of an album is the production.

Probably switch Pennyroyal tea and Scentless would help. And move Apologises forward.

Serve the Servants

Heart shaped box

Pennyroyal Tea

All Apolgises

Dumb

Frances Farmer

Edited by wasted
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And to think it was a song that almost didn't make the album.

Songs like this, Come As You Are, Pennroyal Tea, All Apologies, Sappy, kind of showed the potential of a really great songwriter inside Kurt.

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Frances Farmer too, that really harsh twangey fuckin' out of tune sound to that line running through it, it's actually, structurally speaking, very typical, very pop etc it's just presented in that harsh kinda way which, upon initial listen, these guys probably balked at. Back in those days record company guys were these fuckin' ponytail-but-short-at-the-front hair cut wearing weasels that made their bones pimping Michael Bolton to housewives whoose vibrator batteries have run out.

Kurt had that pop songwriting ability from the jump, he was just slightly embarassed about it. Embarassed by both his profficency at it and his knack for it i think. Which is madness if you think about it, fuck me, if I could knock out pop tunes on tap I'd be fuckin' minted right now.

Edited by Len B'stard
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Frances Farmer too, that really harsh twangey fuckin' out of tune sound to that line running through it, it's actually, structurally speaking, very typical, very pop etc it's just presented in that harsh kinda way which, upon initial listen, these guys probably balked at. Back in those days record company guys were these fuckin' ponytail-but-short-at-the-front hair cut wearing weasels that made their bones pimping Michael Bolton to housewives whoose vibrator batteries have run out.

Kurt had that pop songwriting ability from the jump, he was just slightly embarassed about it. Embarassed by both his profficency at it and his knack for it i think. Which is madness if you think about it, fuck me, if I could knock out pop tunes on tap I'd be fuckin' minted right now.

About a Girl. That's an early glimpse of...this guy could write some really great songs if he tried.

But that shit about how Frances Farmer was very typical and pop, just presented a different way, that's true for a lot of his stuff. Like how you mentioned Pennroyal Tea was so easy to play on guitar. He had a real talent for taking something that might not be complex, and turning it into a really good, different type of song. Hell the riff from Teen Spirit isn't all that and still sounds groovy.

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Frances Farmer too, that really harsh twangey fuckin' out of tune sound to that line running through it, it's actually, structurally speaking, very typical, very pop etc it's just presented in that harsh kinda way which, upon initial listen, these guys probably balked at. Back in those days record company guys were these fuckin' ponytail-but-short-at-the-front hair cut wearing weasels that made their bones pimping Michael Bolton to housewives whoose vibrator batteries have run out.

Kurt had that pop songwriting ability from the jump, he was just slightly embarassed about it. Embarassed by both his profficency at it and his knack for it i think. Which is madness if you think about it, fuck me, if I could knock out pop tunes on tap I'd be fuckin' minted right now.

About a Girl. That's an early glimpse of...this guy could write some really great songs if he tried.

But that shit about how Frances Farmer was very typical and pop, just presented a different way, that's true for a lot of his stuff. Like how you mentioned Pennroyal Tea was so easy to play on guitar. He had a real talent for taking something that might not be complex, and turning it into a really good, different type of song. Hell the riff from Teen Spirit isn't all that and still sounds groovy.

Yeah, Nirvana also employed that loud quiet loud dynamic of The Pixies which means that even if the shit is simple it will come off blistering.

Another thing that people don't mention is the pace of Nirvana songs. Some of the most effective songs of theirs are very very well paced. People began to associate energy with playing fast throughout a lot of the 80s but Nirvana kinda dragged that back. Songs like Lithium, Teen Spirit would come across a helluva lot less effective if they weren't so well paced.

Nevermind as an album in general owes a fair bit to Nevermind the Bollocks (there's a hint in the title, one is a more crude English working class way of saying roughly the same thing). Production-wise they are very similar, extremely over-dubbed, very tightly wound, well produced pop album, which is what Nevermind is really. And The Pistols had that too, that understanding of pace and tempo. Every single punk band that came afterwards was obssessed with speed and I'm discrediting that stuff either, it's a whole discipline in and of itself, to be able to play like The Ramones or Minor Threat, it ain't easy and...as i say, it's a whole other discipline but what people missed was when you pace a song at a moderate pace and make it extra-fuckin' loud it comes off seriously powerful. Pistols songs just like most Nirvana songs are not really raging fast but they have the same effect due to how well-balanced the dynamic is.

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Yeah In Utero wasn't as much of a glossy rock album as Nevermind. You can sort of see accountants and lawyers playing Nevermind in their cars in LA. like its the new AFD.

In Utero sounds a lot more like Kurt felt. Like really raw Dylan meets Cohen.

But stil Nevermind falls off after 3 songs. Lithium isn't less disconcerting than Pennyroyal Tea.

Maybe later on Lounge Act and On a Plain pick it up more than Very Ape and Milk it.

It's just a lot heavier and darker, like really desperate stuff.

But I think Pistols goes back to early Beatles/Chuck Berry. Nevermind and UYI tapped into that caustic guitar sound over fast drums. The rthymn section is rattling.

Edited by wasted
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But it was Courtney who was Frances Farmer and then they called their daughter Frances.

There was a version of Frances Farmer with Kurt and Courtney playing.

People forget about Hole. Those eay records were fire.

There's actually part on Bollocks which Nirvana copied a lot. It's like when the vocals drums and everything stops other than the guitar. Maybe EMI.

Edited by wasted
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

God!

I think every song of Nirvana is good, but if I had a choice, I'd choose Endless, Nameless, Stay Away, Gallons of rubbing alcohol flow through the strip and of course Pennyroyal tea, as a katharsis, I think so. I love that noise, that voice and the guitar - it always puts me in a good mood, I'm more creative.

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I think a bigger deal has been made about The Pixies than they deserve because of one song Nirvana did. There's way more going on in Nirvana's bag of influences, but it just points out there was a lot of music going on in the late 80s-early 90s that the mainstream listeners weren't paying attention to.

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