I don’t think there’s any question: no band is selling more shirts these days than Nirvana. Now, I’m not going to attempt to explain this phenomenon, least of all to imply that bands should expect 33-year delays, or time-releases, for gluts in their merch sales. Suffice it to say that a litany of people are connecting with their music, these days, with its loud, abrasive sound and its quick, expedited and instantly gratifying approach to song structure (to juxtapose them starkly with metal bands who write four-minute ambient intros to songs, that is).
Nirvana was my favorite band in high school and college — I loved Nevermind but was a total In Utero junkie, partly for its border-line-Satanic devotion to the tritone interval (“Milk it”; “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”; etc.). The older I get, to be honest, the more I just think Kurt Cobain was an a**hole, and that Sonic Youth towers above them in musical acoomplishments, for being an influence thereon, and also for expanding what alt-rock bands can do with structure. In addition, the Youth wrote great, catchy pop songs as well, particularly later in their career, like “Bull in the Heather”; “Unwind”; “The Empty Page”; “Turquoise Boy” and “The Neutral.”
One thing I’d like to touch on, anyway, ahead of the obvious facts that “Lithium” is likely the coolest song of all time and “Heart-Shaped Box” is arguably the darkest radio hit in history, in terms of music and also lyrics, is the sheer magnanimity of their accomplishments in cover versions. I’m not kidding — I’m even a huge Meat Puppets fan and I don’t even LIKE their second album. Nirvana was able to cull not one, not two, but three cuts from this LP and turn them all into fine wine, more or less, for their unplugged album. The scouting and visionary element in Cobain is thoroughly undeniable on this one. And to take an old delta blues boy in Leadbelly and turn his “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” into an invincible alt-rock anthem is equally impressive, as are the Vaselines covers of “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam” on the unplugged album and “Son of a Gun” on Incesticide.
Nirvana made pop music, essentially, albeit pop music that was really loud, and didn’t really expand song structure to too much of an extent, preferring the formerly sovereign Beatles verse/chorus format as their omnipresent songwriting platform. This being said, at the end of the day, they did blend Melvis hard-rock with succinct song blueprint better than anyone in history, more than likely, and so my blood doesn’t boil when I see a Nirvana shirt on a 17-year-old girl, on a 50-year-old black lady, the way it might with some other bands. And here’s where I threaten to dissolve into a**hole mode so I’ll just leave you with this playlist.
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