Wednesday 27 December 2023

Today Is...Nirvana Day

My daughter came back from the Boxing Day sales with a Nirvana t-shirt to which i exclaimed that i didn't know she was a fan of them. Thinking that she must have heard me playing Smells Like Teen Spirit or Come As You Are at some point and liked the sound, she said she didn't know who they were and just liked the design.
Disappointingly, she hadn't finally woken up to the genius of Kurt and the gang, she screwed up her nose when i played her 'Heart Shaped Box' but then there are many kids walking around in t-shirts from bands of my era but have never heard the bands music.
Nirvana's Nevermind album was majestic and the singles from it almost perfect but the follow up 'In Utero' was disappointing, the first album 'Bleach' re-released in the aftermath of Nirvana's success was weak and the MTV unplugged album a huge mistake.
It seems that Nirvana just had enough decent material to ride the wave of greatness for a short time and then just ran out of steam and never got close to those dizzy heights again.
Nevermind was a classic album and Cobain, Grohl and Novoselic all deserve praise for it but Nirvana were not trailblazers in the way of The Sex Pistols or The Beatles or were consistently churning out chart hits year after year like Queen or ABBA.
They created an album that should rightly be celebrated but for me Nirvana punched seriously above their weight for a brief, brilliant period of time but that was all we were ever going to get from them but that said, i am confused how today's kids fail to appreciate the genius behind lyrics such as: 'A mulatto, An albino, A mosquito, My libido, Yeah'. Classic stuff.

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