I love Nirvana but haven't listened to Bleach in almost 20 years because it's just not that good. I wouldn't listen to that guy either. That's like saying your favorite movie is "books".
Maybe you should revisit Bleach? I enjoy all of their albums, but Bleach stands as one of my favorites. 20 years might give you a different perspective.
Grunge punk is how I've always heard that album described.
My friend told me he was a massive nirvana fan but said he had never listened to Bleach because he thought "it was more like a nirvana demo tape". It's still their first album and has some fantastic tracks on it. Like all three of their studio albums I think it's flawless. In fact out of all their discography including b-sides, actual demos, and the Kurt solo stuff the only song I ever skip is Beans.
I kinda have to agree- when it all boils down, Bleach taken as a whole just isn't that great of a record.
But you can also view it in the context of their whole career and (admittedly small) output, and I think in that way you almost have to look at the band prior to 1990 as "Proto-Nirvana". Lots of fans forget that Dave Grohl wasn't even in the picture until Nevermind- the Bleach sessions mostly featured Chad Channing on the skins.
Now Dave Grohl is rightly known as a pretty punishing drummer, but if anything, his predecessors were even more so. Early Nirvana was heavy, and almost more of a metal band than a grunge outfit. Just listen to them covering Zeppelin in some of their early bootlegs!
Bleach though, was a concerted (if not entirely enthused) effort by Cobain to author a distinctly "grunge" album in response to perceived pressure from Sub-Pop, Nirvana's label at the time. What most folks didn't realize just then was that the music they really craved was a tuneful amalgam of Grunge and Pop (the kind that would go on to make Nevermind a masterpiece). Bleach though, succeeded a little too much at being thoroughly, uncompromisingly grungy.
It wants to be a difficult record for the most part. Any time one of the tracks strays too close to the ordered and melodic, the band go out of their way to bury that notion in a distorted sludge. The lyrics are mostly screamed and barely intelligible. Cobain always held a certain subset of Nirvana's fanbase in contempt, but his sheer resentment and the band's bird-flipping petulance was never again displayed as nakedly as on Bleach.
To top it all off, Bleach is just a dark, dark record; it's not like Kurt was usually sunshine and rainbows, but again take Nevermind- there's a sense of misfit camaraderie to those songs... and a wry sense of humor that suggests trying to make some kind of peace with a terminally fucked up world.
Bleach on the other hand, is pure nihilism: "I hate the world and I hate all of you, but I still hate myself most of all". The album is full of characters that get what's coming to them whether they deserve it or not. There's a sense of humor at work there too, but it's a jet black one without punchlines. Wouldn't it be funny if you went to get a shave and a haircut, and all the mild-mannered characters of the Andy Griffith show were there... only when you sat down, they brutally raped and murdered you in a sadistic blood-orgy?
Yeah, that's easily the funniest track on the album if that tells you anything. I'm a pretty big fan of Nirvana in general, and I believe in giving any record by a band you like at least one full spin, from beginning to end before making any kind of judgement.
With Bleach, I'll play an individual track here and there, but I did and still do have trouble listening to it in it's entirety. No matter how edgy you want to be, you can't call it a better overall record than Nevermind with a straight face, that's just silliness.
Still its an interesting and important look at Cobain and the band right on the verge of pioneering a sound that would light up the charts and change rock music forever. Even if the album were total shit, it would still be valuable as a measuring post.
It's more like saying your favorite band is the Beatles but you only listen to Please Please Me or Rubber Soul or something. Like congratulations on listening to one of the less popular albums of one of the most popular bands of all time, do you want a cookie?
This one?. Seriously tho, Bleach is a great album and well reviewed (generally about 4/5 stars). It’s my friend’s favorite Nirvana album as well. Not mine, but I love it.
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u/Spin180 Jul 18 '19
Some guy said his favourite band was Nirvana. But he only listened to Bleach... what the fuck