The History of Nirvana and Nevermind Track by Track

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious podcast. I am here with my co host
<v Speaker 1>and friend of Age's mister Jason Colvin.
<v Speaker 2>It's upd I got my flannel ready, I got my
<v Speaker 2>ripped jeans.
<v Speaker 1>I'm still wearing my tight leather pants at the butt missing.
<v Speaker 1>So we are here today with a rerun episode. But
<v Speaker 1>it is kind of to tie in some stuff. So
<v Speaker 1>earlier in this summer we did the Summer of eighty four,
<v Speaker 1>and then last year we had done some stuff from
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety one, and then our last two episodes were
<v Speaker 1>Terminator one, which came out in eighty four, and Terminator two,
<v Speaker 1>which came out in ninety one. And so we're going
<v Speaker 1>to tie all of those things together by jumping into
<v Speaker 1>some awesome albums that came out in nineteen ninety one.
<v Speaker 2>That's right. The fall of ninety one was a major
<v Speaker 2>shift in the musical landscape. Yeah, and there's a lot
<v Speaker 2>of bands that I love that got destroyed in this shift.
<v Speaker 1>If you don't remember the time, the first episodes of
<v Speaker 1>Herman's Head and tim Mittoolman Taylor were coming around this time.
<v Speaker 1>It was back when we still love Tanya harding before
<v Speaker 1>she had sought out help to break some knees.
<v Speaker 2>Goal four. All of these things are going on.
<v Speaker 1>So there's all kinds of fascinating stuff going on in
<v Speaker 1>the world, and the music industry was about to change.
<v Speaker 2>And we're going to go through three albums. We got
<v Speaker 2>Metallica's Black Album, Guns and Roses came out with User
<v Speaker 2>Lusion one and Usual Lusion two.
<v Speaker 1>And all of that will be coming in about two weeks.
<v Speaker 1>Right for this episode and for next week's episodes, we
<v Speaker 1>are going to do a throwback or rerun of our
<v Speaker 1>Nirvana never Mind episode, which has become an extremely popular
<v Speaker 1>episode for us.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, one of our best.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And also we're going to revisit the one we
<v Speaker 1>had compete against it, which is Pearl Jam ten, both
<v Speaker 1>of which came out in the fall of nineteen ninety
<v Speaker 1>one at the same time as Metallic Is Black Album
<v Speaker 1>and Use Your Illusions one and two.
<v Speaker 2>There's some fascinating crossover between all of these bands too,
<v Speaker 2>like Nirvana hated Guns n' Roses and then Metallica hated
<v Speaker 2>Guns N' Roses.
<v Speaker 1>Right this tiny little month and a half space time,
<v Speaker 1>there were some amazing albums that came out so I
<v Speaker 1>hope that you will listen to our old episodes and
<v Speaker 1>then join us in a couple of weeks for the
<v Speaker 1>new ones.
<v Speaker 2>I can't wait to dive into black and Usual Vision
<v Speaker 2>one and two.
<v Speaker 1>But for today, here is Nirvana.
<v Speaker 2>Never mind, yeah, fun, All right, let's go throw ourselves
<v Speaker 2>into the marshy. Yeah, even though we're in our forties,
<v Speaker 2>we can still marsh Sure it can.
<v Speaker 1>Sure again, I'm gonna stage dive.
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna punch you just for fun.
<v Speaker 1>Did you were you ever? Did you ever experience a
<v Speaker 1>mutch bit? No? Oh yeah? Oh man, see this is again.
<v Speaker 1>You know we talked about in Raiders and Back to
<v Speaker 1>the Future, how the slight variation our age me two
<v Speaker 1>and a half years older than I am right, that
<v Speaker 1>slight variation can play a huge factor in certain, you know,
<v Speaker 1>spots in your life. You got to see Raiders and
<v Speaker 1>you have full recollection of it. I don't remember the
<v Speaker 1>first time I saw it. I have multiple memories of
<v Speaker 1>being involved in a mosh pit because in nineteen ninety
<v Speaker 1>one I was sixteen and you had gone to college.
<v Speaker 2>And so it was an entirely you know, it was Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that's for sure. Yeah, somebody bumps into me. I'm gonna
<v Speaker 2>have a problem. Yeah, hey man, what to do it?
<v Speaker 2>What's your problem?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Now, I was involved in several moss pits in
<v Speaker 1>my high school days.
<v Speaker 2>That's funny.
<v Speaker 1>Before we get going, I just want to point something out.
<v Speaker 1>We have been talking to each other now for a
<v Speaker 1>couple of years, face to face. And one of the
<v Speaker 1>reasons that I can do that is because you don't
<v Speaker 1>have nose hair. Have you been talking to people and
<v Speaker 1>like you can't even concentrate on what they're saying because
<v Speaker 1>of their nose hair.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, they like duck to you. It dangles, yes, it wiggles.
<v Speaker 1>It's a total distraction.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, And so let me let me say, if you
<v Speaker 2>are one of.
<v Speaker 1>Those guys, we have a product that is supporting the
<v Speaker 1>podcast that you need to check out. Is called the
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<v Speaker 2>It is an amazing product. It trims your nose hair.
<v Speaker 2>It's not embarrassing.
<v Speaker 1>You just stick it up there.
<v Speaker 2>It taskes care of it. You're not gonna look at
<v Speaker 2>people and bother them, right, And I'm one.
<v Speaker 1>Of those guys who's self conscious about my nose hair.
<v Speaker 1>So somebody that you're gonna see me and I'm gonna
<v Speaker 1>be like yanking them out and wincing in pain. Don't
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<v Speaker 2>So that's wonderful.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yes it is.
<v Speaker 2>So it's very good around sensitive areas, if you know
<v Speaker 2>what I'm saying.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. They have also an entire shave kit called the
<v Speaker 1>Ultra Smooth Package package. You get the idea.
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<v Speaker 1>and whack it perfect time. So do you? Okay, we
<v Speaker 1>didn't talked about what we're talking about to day. Let's
<v Speaker 1>talk about this, okay, all right, So today we are
<v Speaker 1>again broaching the subject of two bands that changed the paradigm.
<v Speaker 2>No doubt, there's absolutely no Doubt.
<v Speaker 1>Is not one of the bands. I like No Doubt
<v Speaker 1>a lot, but there do not speak Okay, no, not
<v Speaker 1>No Doubt Nirvana, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Yes, with their
<v Speaker 1>too what I would call debut albums. I mean, Nirvana
<v Speaker 1>had Bleach ten was definitely Pearl Jam's debut, but the
<v Speaker 1>albums that made them the household names.
<v Speaker 2>For sure, and they came out basically at the.
<v Speaker 1>Same time, Yeah, exact same time.
<v Speaker 2>Pro Pro Jam preceeded Nirvana by just a couple of weeks.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was. Pearl Jam came out in August of
<v Speaker 1>ninety one, and Nirvana's never Mind came out in September
<v Speaker 1>September nine, twenty fourth, Yes, ninety one, September twenty fourth. Now,
<v Speaker 1>the single Smells Like Teen Spirit was actually released a
<v Speaker 1>couple weeks before that, so it is even closer than that, right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>the awareness of Nirvana probably occurred before the awareness of
<v Speaker 1>Pearl Jam, and so that's why we're tackling them first
<v Speaker 1>and then tackling Pearl Jam next week.
<v Speaker 2>Right, So this week is Nirvana's never Mind. Yeah, let's
<v Speaker 2>just talk personally.
<v Speaker 1>Do you remember what you were doing, what was going
<v Speaker 1>on when you when you heard something off of Nirvana's
<v Speaker 1>never Mind.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so you and I have talked briefly about this.
<v Speaker 2>But in August of ninety one, I left for college.
<v Speaker 2>Right I graduated in high school. I'm a freshman at
<v Speaker 2>the University of Oklahoma, and I'm in the dorms. I
<v Speaker 2>don't have MTV. I've got the radio stations or whatever.
<v Speaker 2>But so Nirvana was kind of a slow burn for
<v Speaker 2>me because I didn't have access to it like I
<v Speaker 2>did when I was at home with cable.
<v Speaker 1>For never Mind, for smells like teen Spirit. I have
<v Speaker 1>a very specific memory. I don't remember what the field
<v Speaker 1>trip was that we were on, but we were coming home.
<v Speaker 1>I think it was it was like a three hour
<v Speaker 1>bus ride. Who were coming home and this girl who
<v Speaker 1>i'd been kind of looking at on the bus so
<v Speaker 1>I didn't really know that well, started talking to me
<v Speaker 1>and she's like, oh, have you heard this new song?
<v Speaker 1>And I was like, I think I've heard this before,
<v Speaker 1>and let me listen. So I'm listening to her headphones
<v Speaker 1>with her, and she's s getting toward the end of
<v Speaker 1>the song and she's like, it sounds like he's saying
<v Speaker 1>bloody nail, bloody nail at the end, and that was.
<v Speaker 1>You know, that's kind of Nirvana's thing that you just
<v Speaker 1>don't understand what they're saying half the time. And so
<v Speaker 1>even when I hear it today, I still I still
<v Speaker 1>can sing bloody Nail to the end of this song.
<v Speaker 1>That girl became a girlfriend for a while after that,
<v Speaker 1>So that was That's probably where that memory stacked.
<v Speaker 2>Give me that special feeling, well that it does. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I would argue that this album had more impact on
<v Speaker 2>pop culture and any other album since Driller.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, i'd say more so. I mean I would put
<v Speaker 1>it above Thriller. Wow. Yeah, I mean it was a big,
<v Speaker 1>big change, a big big change. They're close, but yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I would definitely say it had a huge impact, comparable
<v Speaker 1>at the very least. So it started off. The band
<v Speaker 1>started off back in eighty seven. Kurt Cobain had been
<v Speaker 1>grown up in a town called Aberdeen, Washington, which is
<v Speaker 1>near Seattle, like one hundred and so miles away, but
<v Speaker 1>couldn't really be further apart as far as psychology and
<v Speaker 1>the scene and all that. It was not a hip town, right,
<v Speaker 1>and he had what a lot of kids grew up
<v Speaker 1>with as we were kind of rough life. His parents
<v Speaker 1>got divorced he had some emotional issues that made it
<v Speaker 1>hard for him to stay at anybody's house. But as
<v Speaker 1>it turns out, those type of people connect, and he
<v Speaker 1>ended up finding a guy named Chris nova Selic, who
<v Speaker 1>was also an Aberdeen guy. Actually got introduced to Chris
<v Speaker 1>through his brother Robert. Kurt had overheard Robert's band playing upstairs.
<v Speaker 1>They were really loud. Kurt asked Robert what was going on,
<v Speaker 1>and he says, oh, that's my older brother, Chris. He's
<v Speaker 1>got a punk band, And so that piqued Kurt's interest
<v Speaker 1>because he had been playing music and it's you know,
<v Speaker 1>I listened to a thing whereas his guitar teacher is talking,
<v Speaker 1>and his guitar teacher just looks like, I mean, you're
<v Speaker 1>going to talk about Aberdeen being different. He looks like,
<v Speaker 1>you're you know, your dad's drinking buddy. But he's He
<v Speaker 1>told him, he's like, hey, if you want to you know,
<v Speaker 1>if you want to be big, if you want to
<v Speaker 1>be famous, you can't just do what other people are doing.
<v Speaker 1>You have to be unique and do something different. He's like,
<v Speaker 1>my gosh. He took that to heart because he came
<v Speaker 1>back with songs with chords that didn't belong together. But anyway,
<v Speaker 1>Kurt bothered Chris for a while to get him to
<v Speaker 1>join a band, gave him the demo tape that he
<v Speaker 1>had made with a band that Kurt had started called
<v Speaker 1>Fecal Matter, and basically Chris just wasn't really interested and
<v Speaker 1>didn't listen for a few months, and then when he
<v Speaker 1>finally did listen, he's like, oh, okay, yeah, we could,
<v Speaker 1>we could do a band. Yeah, this would be all right.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not sure sure Nirvana gets as far if they're
<v Speaker 2>called Fecal Matter.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, no, I don't think so. And that's there are
<v Speaker 1>several interesting names that they tossed around. Fecal Matter was
<v Speaker 1>one of them, obviously, and they had started a group
<v Speaker 1>called the Sellouts, which was a Credence Clearwater Revival cover band.
<v Speaker 1>I just when I saw that the first time, I
<v Speaker 1>was like, Okay, that has to be a joke. There's
<v Speaker 1>no way. No. It turns out you can find recordings
<v Speaker 1>of covering Bad Moon righting, Wow, yeah, wow. Yeah. But
<v Speaker 1>Kurt decided on the name Nirvana because it sounded beautiful.
<v Speaker 1>You know. They were they were pursuing punk music, and
<v Speaker 1>they thought, I want to have something that's in contrast
<v Speaker 1>to punk. You know, they didn't want to be another
<v Speaker 1>punk group, and so they picked a name that was
<v Speaker 1>more I think.
<v Speaker 2>I think that was a huge factor in their success,
<v Speaker 2>absolutely truly. Though the name Nirvana is marketable, yeah, much
<v Speaker 2>more marketable than figal Matter the sellouts.
<v Speaker 1>Skid Row, though, was one of them that that name
<v Speaker 1>could be successful.
<v Speaker 2>Skid Row for a later podcast hopefully. Yeah, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I is just a great name.
<v Speaker 1>It really is. It is a great name. But then
<v Speaker 1>they start doing their own material. Kurt has a girlfriend
<v Speaker 1>that works while he stays at home and does his
<v Speaker 1>art and his music, so he gets it's a big
<v Speaker 1>amount of time to kind of develop his style. They
<v Speaker 1>have a few drummers that they have play, they have
<v Speaker 1>guys who sub in, and when they ultimately end up
<v Speaker 1>doing well enough that they've got their own material and
<v Speaker 1>decide to do an album, they sign with this kind
<v Speaker 1>of underground album label called Subpop. Subpop's got its own history,
<v Speaker 1>which I don't have time to completely go into, but
<v Speaker 1>it's it is an interesting history. But sub pop was
<v Speaker 1>just a couple of guys who went to these concerts
<v Speaker 1>of these bands in Seattle, and Seattle was this kind
<v Speaker 1>of unique situation where other bands really didn't go there
<v Speaker 1>to tour and there wasn't really outside influences coming in,
<v Speaker 1>so they kind of developed their own sound. And so
<v Speaker 1>you get bands like Sound Garden and mud Honey and
<v Speaker 1>the Melvins, and they all knew each other. Like half
<v Speaker 1>of the crowd at any given concert was going to
<v Speaker 1>be other band members come to see other guys play,
<v Speaker 1>and they're very supportive and had developed their own sound.
<v Speaker 1>So these guys from subpop here and they're like, well,
<v Speaker 1>let's just start our own record label and we'll do it.
<v Speaker 1>And it became kind of this cult ish. Hey, we're
<v Speaker 1>a member of the special club. We got some subpop albums.
<v Speaker 1>And then, in a move of marketing brilliance, they call
<v Speaker 1>a guy who's a journalist for one of the major
<v Speaker 1>music magazines in Europe and they say, hey, if you
<v Speaker 1>want to hear the Seattle scene, come on over, and
<v Speaker 1>they get the money together to fly him out there,
<v Speaker 1>give him the tour of the shows of the bands
<v Speaker 1>that they've got signed. He goes back and writes an
<v Speaker 1>article in his magazine and suddenly sub pop is the
<v Speaker 1>new coolest thing and the Seattle music is super exciting. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>with sub pop. Nirvana does their first album, which is
<v Speaker 1>called Bleach. On that album, they had a drummer named
<v Speaker 1>Chad Channing and he's not a bad drummer. But as
<v Speaker 1>our friend Arlen Bullard put it to me, if it
<v Speaker 1>wasn't for Dave grol Kirk Coban would be a barista
<v Speaker 1>in Seattle somewhere. I don't know if I'd get that far.
<v Speaker 1>But Chad Channing was good. He didn't have it. He
<v Speaker 1>didn't have a bad technique at all. He was a
<v Speaker 1>solid drummer, but he it was Adding Dave Girl to
<v Speaker 1>the band was a step of magic. Oh it's huge.
<v Speaker 2>So does Chad Channing lead one of the biggest rock
<v Speaker 2>bands in the world right now?
<v Speaker 1>Okay? Right?
<v Speaker 2>Dave Gold does, yes, okay.
<v Speaker 1>And Dave Girl was this guy from Virginia who had
<v Speaker 1>he's quit high school to start playing in bands. He
<v Speaker 1>was drumming in bands and moved out to California to
<v Speaker 1>be more involved in the scene. And after Bleach and
<v Speaker 1>the tour with that album, they kind of said to Chad, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you know, you're not really meeting our standards, and so
<v Speaker 1>they had a few they went through a few other
<v Speaker 1>substitute drummers, and while they're going through that process, they're
<v Speaker 1>not really finding something that they super clicked with. But
<v Speaker 1>then they go to a concert with the lead singer
<v Speaker 1>Buzz Osborne of the Melvins. Go to a concert of
<v Speaker 1>this band called Scream, which is a hardcore punk band,
<v Speaker 1>and the drummer is a guy named Dave Grohl. Wow,
<v Speaker 1>and as it turns out, and they're like, oh, this
<v Speaker 1>guy's awesome. But then he's with another band. And then
<v Speaker 1>two weeks later, Scream disbands and falls apart, and so
<v Speaker 1>the drummer for mud Honey, he gets a call from
<v Speaker 1>Dave who's like, hey, my band just disbanded. You have
<v Speaker 1>anybody that I can hook up with? And he says, ah,
<v Speaker 1>you know, the guys from Nirvana are looking for a drummer.
<v Speaker 1>Dave flies up, they get together, they play, and it's
<v Speaker 1>magic instantly.
<v Speaker 2>Whenever Kurt Cobain gets together with Butch Vig. Later he says,
<v Speaker 2>we've got the best drummer in the world, yep, and
<v Speaker 2>we're ready to go.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. He says he has perfect metronome timing and he
<v Speaker 1>hits really hard. Okay. So Bleach had come out in
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty nine and They were touring still with Chad
<v Speaker 1>Channing at that time, but they decided they wanted to
<v Speaker 1>do another album. Subpop says, hey, you know, why don't
<v Speaker 1>we do an EP or something like that, and they're
<v Speaker 1>not really excited about that, But what ends up happening
<v Speaker 1>is they released this release, a single called Slipper. Let's
<v Speaker 1>say he wanted to try to produce the most marketable candy.
<v Speaker 1>Basically lame as could be a song that he could,
<v Speaker 1>but that was the most had the most appeal to
<v Speaker 1>the public, and so that was that was what he did.
<v Speaker 1>They actually went to record that song during a recording
<v Speaker 1>session by a group called Tad, and Tad had a
<v Speaker 1>lunch break and the guys from Nirvana, including Chad Channing,
<v Speaker 1>come in and they use the equipment of the guys
<v Speaker 1>from Pad and John and Dino, who's the guy who
<v Speaker 1>recorded Bleach for them, does this song. They do it
<v Speaker 1>over the lunch like Pad's sitting there eating their sandwiches,
<v Speaker 1>and they're in there for less than an hour, recording
<v Speaker 1>the song as they're singing, and so once that comes out,
<v Speaker 1>the Subpop says, Okay, hey, we think you should for
<v Speaker 1>your next album. You should use butch Vig, who's this
<v Speaker 1>guy out of Madison, Wisconsin, and he's got his own
<v Speaker 1>studio called Smart Studios. The band's turing at that time,
<v Speaker 1>so they say, all right, we'll stop, we'll do an
<v Speaker 1>extended stay in Madison where we're going to have a
<v Speaker 1>show anyway, and we'll go in and we'll record our
<v Speaker 1>second album. And so they've got several songs on there
<v Speaker 1>that are similar to the songs that end up on Nevermind,
<v Speaker 1>and one of them last, one of them makes it
<v Speaker 1>all the way through. But had they had a week
<v Speaker 1>to record, and about five days in, Kurt Cobain totally
<v Speaker 1>kills his voice singing lithium and said they can't really
<v Speaker 1>go on. Jonathan from Subpop flies out there and he's like,
<v Speaker 1>this sounds good. We'll come back in a few weeks
<v Speaker 1>and re record, right, and then they leave on their
<v Speaker 1>tour and butch Vig doesn't hear anything for the time.
<v Speaker 2>Butch Vig was like expecting them to come back, and
<v Speaker 2>all of a sudden, it's like, well where are they.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I haven't heard from.
<v Speaker 2>Him, but I did want to say this is I
<v Speaker 2>think very fortuitous for the band, because this is still
<v Speaker 2>too early I mean, nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety
<v Speaker 2>hair bands are still ruling the day. Yeah, and the
<v Speaker 2>world has not really tired of that yet. So let's
<v Speaker 2>talk about that for a second, offah, because we're talking
<v Speaker 2>about a revolution here, right, right. So what was going
<v Speaker 2>on at the time that these albums were released?
<v Speaker 1>Right?
<v Speaker 2>Oh?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So September of ninety one, you had the top charts,
<v Speaker 1>had albums like color Meba, Marky, Mark, Boys to Men,
<v Speaker 1>Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Yeah, and the heavy.
<v Speaker 2>Hitting Garth Brooks.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the heavy hitting songs, like the metal songs that ever,
<v Speaker 1>I mean you had. It had completely changed the days.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we talked previously about Van Halen and def
<v Speaker 1>Leppard changing the way that music looked like. They made
<v Speaker 1>hard rock accessible to the general audience, right, and then
<v Speaker 1>it became what everybody wanted, and everybody was listening to
<v Speaker 1>hard rock, and the people who wanted more listening to
<v Speaker 1>heavy metal, and you had these bands like Motley Crue.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, def Lappard, Bonjovizing, Cinderella, Poison.
<v Speaker 1>Right, and so they aren't. It becomes a bigger and
<v Speaker 1>bigger thing. People more and more, and so then what
<v Speaker 1>became at first, a revolution becomes mainstream and you've got
<v Speaker 1>guys dressed in black leather, right, motorcycles around at strip clubs,
<v Speaker 1>and you're just like, this is this is where we
<v Speaker 1>are now right well for sure, And so what we
<v Speaker 1>have with never Mind is a reaction to that. Now
<v Speaker 1>a whole lot of the guys who end up being
<v Speaker 1>huge players in the here it comes, here's the word
<v Speaker 1>and ready for it.
<v Speaker 2>Grunge grunge grunge.
<v Speaker 1>Scene are guys who started off as metal players, but
<v Speaker 1>of course they did because that was the most popular music.
<v Speaker 1>And if you're in a band, you're gonna play music
<v Speaker 1>that styles that are popular. I mean, the idea is
<v Speaker 1>to do things that people want to listen to.
<v Speaker 2>So Fall of ninety one, for me, this is just
<v Speaker 2>post doctor feel Good, which for me, I love the
<v Speaker 2>album huge fan, And this is in the gap between
<v Speaker 2>Hysteria and Adrenalized right, No deaf Leppard, right, and we're
<v Speaker 2>still waiting for Guns and Roses Fall record right, Use
<v Speaker 2>Your Illusion, which does come out I think in October
<v Speaker 2>of ninety one, so it's just down the road a
<v Speaker 2>little bit. But there's this kind of gap and when
<v Speaker 2>those guys are gone and when they return, it's different.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, it is a. It is A. I said
<v Speaker 1>it before, I'll say again. It's pair. I'm shift because
<v Speaker 1>you look at those guys in the leather outfits with
<v Speaker 1>the big implanted girls and the big hair sprayed hair,
<v Speaker 1>and then all of a sudden, you got these guys
<v Speaker 1>with dirty, unwashed hair, dirty unwashed clothes, torn jeans, flannel shirts,
<v Speaker 1>and they are a completely different scene. And it's something
<v Speaker 1>that a whole generation of people were like, Yes, these
<v Speaker 1>are my people. So they recorded Bleach in thirty hours.
<v Speaker 1>It ends up being this kind of underground thing. Dave
<v Speaker 1>Grohl had heard it and was excited when they finally
<v Speaker 1>called him to be a member of the band. And
<v Speaker 1>they released Sliver, which is getting them more fame, and
<v Speaker 1>then they say, okay, we want to do a full album,
<v Speaker 1>and so Subpop sends them out to Madison they are
<v Speaker 1>recording with Butch Vig. When they come back, Subpop is
<v Speaker 1>having trouble and honestly, they're a new record label by
<v Speaker 1>two guys who've never made records before, so they didn't
<v Speaker 1>they just didn't know what they were doing right. But
<v Speaker 1>they had been so good at recognizing talent that major
<v Speaker 1>record labels were starting to court them to go, hey,
<v Speaker 1>how would you like to become a subsidiary of us?
<v Speaker 1>And so what happens is the guys from Nirvana go,
<v Speaker 1>why would we want to be with a label that
<v Speaker 1>is a subsidiary of a major label instead of just
<v Speaker 1>going to the major label ourselves. So when they sign
<v Speaker 1>with the major record label, you know, they have their
<v Speaker 1>own producers they want to use. But the guys are
<v Speaker 1>uncomfortable with this, and they're like, you know, we're this
<v Speaker 1>is our first time doing a big one of these things,
<v Speaker 1>and we really don't want to get pushed around. We'd
<v Speaker 1>really like you to call Butch Wig back and have
<v Speaker 1>him record for us.
<v Speaker 2>I heard Chris talk about this, and he said that
<v Speaker 2>they were comfortable with Butch because he was patient.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and so the record labels can see they say, okay, yeah, well,
<v Speaker 1>we'll let Butch Big be the producer on this one.
<v Speaker 1>He at least familiar with the music that's going to
<v Speaker 1>go on it. But we don't want it to be
<v Speaker 1>over there at Smart Studios want him to come out
<v Speaker 1>here to California, and so they end up going to
<v Speaker 1>this place called sound City. Sound City is a hole
<v Speaker 1>in the wall in the industrial district of Van Nuys, California,
<v Speaker 1>right where some of the greatest albums in history have
<v Speaker 1>been recorded. You've got Fleetwood Mac, You've got Tom Petty,
<v Speaker 1>You've got the Neil.
<v Speaker 2>Young Fleetwood Max Rumors album was recorded.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean they. You know, you walk into this
<v Speaker 1>place that looks like someplace where you be buying spare parts,
<v Speaker 1>and there are gold albums on the wall as you
<v Speaker 1>walk in, and there is a great by the way,
<v Speaker 1>there's a great documentary on this one that was directed
<v Speaker 1>by our friend Dave Grohl, because when sound City ultimately
<v Speaker 1>ended up shutting down, Dave's like, I'm going to go
<v Speaker 1>buy that soundboard. It had what was called the Nave soundboard,
<v Speaker 1>which was the big reason that everybody thinks that these
<v Speaker 1>albums were so well received is how good it sounded
<v Speaker 1>in the studio and from this soundboard that they have
<v Speaker 1>the needs need soundboard. So when it closed down, Dave
<v Speaker 1>girls like, I want that soundboard. I will buy it,
<v Speaker 1>and so he made a whole movie about sound City
<v Speaker 1>and then the process of getting the soundboard and moving
<v Speaker 1>it to his own personal studio. Cool. When they were
<v Speaker 1>going to end up recording in California for the major
<v Speaker 1>record label. The date kept getting pushed back and kept
<v Speaker 1>getting pushed back, and they were so excited to go.
<v Speaker 1>I had been practicing hard. They ended up having to
<v Speaker 1>do shows. Just imagine this when you think about the
<v Speaker 1>sales of the album they followed. They had to do
<v Speaker 1>extra shows just to get enough gas money to drive
<v Speaker 1>down to California and record it.
<v Speaker 2>It's incredible. It's incredible, And once again, I think the
<v Speaker 2>pushback of the date is very fortuitous for the band
<v Speaker 2>because the world was not ready yet, not quite yet.
<v Speaker 1>Maybe not.
<v Speaker 2>This album costs about sixty five thousand dollars to make. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>that sounds right, which is I mean you compare that
<v Speaker 2>to what Hysteria costs. Yeah, Hysteria costs five million dollars
<v Speaker 2>to make, sixty five grand to make this album. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and then you base that on what it sold. I
<v Speaker 2>mean right, It's it's incredible. David Gevin company only expected
<v Speaker 2>to sell about two or fifty thousand copies of this
<v Speaker 2>album total.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they only when they when they first produced the
<v Speaker 1>albums and this was albums, tape CDs, everything, they only
<v Speaker 1>produced about fifty thousand of them. It's well, and you
<v Speaker 1>know The first song was supposed to the first song
<v Speaker 1>off the album was supposed to be Teen Spirit, but
<v Speaker 1>was because they expected it to be kind of laying
<v Speaker 1>a base foundation and then they're going to release the
<v Speaker 1>Come As You Are and that was going to be
<v Speaker 1>the big one. They had no idea that no idea
<v Speaker 1>smells like teen Spirit.
<v Speaker 2>Hey, this is us. Get ready because we've got this
<v Speaker 2>other song called come as you Are. It's gonna be.
<v Speaker 1>Great, right. But interestingly, when they first started, the album
<v Speaker 1>wasn't going to be called never Mind.
<v Speaker 2>This album was originally supposed to be called Sheep, as in,
<v Speaker 2>people who buy this are sheep.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so they we're just going to say this. They
<v Speaker 1>had a definite idea about how they wanted this album
<v Speaker 1>to sound, and it wasn't like this album defines us
<v Speaker 1>as a band. They understood they had to build the
<v Speaker 1>following first, and so their objective was to make children's songs, right,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, that's that is literally, Dave Grohl says, children's songs.
<v Speaker 1>They wanted to keep it as simple as possible, and
<v Speaker 1>they wanted to have a melody to it, and their
<v Speaker 1>formula was perfect.
<v Speaker 2>It was perfect. And I'll say this, you know Kurt
<v Speaker 2>Cobain talks about this, and we can get into this
<v Speaker 2>later about his actual opinion of this album, but he
<v Speaker 2>had an ability to write Beatle like hooks for this album. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>even though he loved punk, his talent really lied in
<v Speaker 2>making pop songs.
<v Speaker 1>Right. He had grown up listening to the Beatles. He
<v Speaker 1>had musicians in his family who would give him Beatles
<v Speaker 1>albums as presence, and so he loved the Beatles, specifically
<v Speaker 1>loved John Lennon. But what he does is he takes
<v Speaker 1>this dissonant punk. He writes these very hooky melodies to
<v Speaker 1>make I mean, his vision is to make this as
<v Speaker 1>palatable as possible to the masses. And so you get
<v Speaker 1>these poppy melodies plus these heavy, roaring guitars and these
<v Speaker 1>really hard drums, and you get the punk, kind of dysfunctional,
<v Speaker 1>tormented lyrics.
<v Speaker 2>It's a great, great mixture. Okay, before we go into
<v Speaker 2>the songs, we want to talk about the album cover
<v Speaker 2>real quick.
<v Speaker 1>Sure.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's kind of controversial.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but and it's also one of the most recognizable
<v Speaker 1>album colure. It is history, and that's I was thinking
<v Speaker 1>about that as I started looking at that particular aspect.
<v Speaker 1>You don't get that anymore. I mean, people don't go
<v Speaker 1>to the record store anymore, you don't flip through albums,
<v Speaker 1>you don't have posters of album covers on your wall anymore.
<v Speaker 1>It is it's dead, all right.
<v Speaker 2>So let's talk about the album cover. Okay, for those
<v Speaker 2>of you haven't seen it recently, it's a baby, like
<v Speaker 2>a couple of months old baby who's actually swimming. Little boy.
<v Speaker 2>You can see his little pepe and he's swimming after
<v Speaker 2>a dollar bill that's on a hook.
<v Speaker 1>Right. The record label wanted to do something to cover
<v Speaker 1>up or remove the penis, and Kurt Cobain was like, no, no,
<v Speaker 1>And if you decide to cover it up, I want
<v Speaker 1>it to be with a sticker that says, if you're
<v Speaker 1>offended by this, you're probably a closet pedophilia.
<v Speaker 2>Listen, I know for sure the Walmart in my hometown
<v Speaker 2>put the price sticker on it. I am not kidding you.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, oh my word.
<v Speaker 2>So little boys pepee was covered up by thirteen ninety
<v Speaker 2>nine Walmart.
<v Speaker 1>It's twenty eight years old.
<v Speaker 2>Now, it's crazy. Why Babe zoom zizas.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so you know we're going to jump into the
<v Speaker 1>album here and we'll talk about things as we go through.
<v Speaker 1>But tell me what happened when we decided to do
<v Speaker 1>this episode and you started listening to Nevermind.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So for me, before this episode started, I was
<v Speaker 2>obviously super familiar with smells like teen Spirit. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>knew Lithium, my New End Bloom, all the singles, all
<v Speaker 2>the singles, right, I knew Come as You Are, But
<v Speaker 2>I had not listened to the album. And part of
<v Speaker 2>the joy of doing this podcast, we really do do
<v Speaker 2>a deep dive and we do our research and we
<v Speaker 2>get into it and I listened to it, and this
<v Speaker 2>album is really, really good. I enjoyed it getting to
<v Speaker 2>know it. It makes me so happy, you know, It's
<v Speaker 2>it's one of the fun parts of the things we
<v Speaker 2>do here.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Absolutely, As I had that experience with Pyromania, I
<v Speaker 1>did not expect to enjoy it at all, and I
<v Speaker 1>ended up being surprisingly surprised and liked it even better
<v Speaker 1>than than Hysteria, which I had grown up with.
<v Speaker 2>That's incredible, And when we compare these two, it'll be
<v Speaker 2>interesting to see where both of uslide. But I found
<v Speaker 2>most of this album very, very listenable, very I mean,
<v Speaker 2>it's hard, it's edgy, it's guitar, raging guitar and screaming
<v Speaker 2>lyrics yep, but not screaming. I mean he sings them.
<v Speaker 2>It's just no, there's.
<v Speaker 1>A lot of yeah. So the guy from one of
<v Speaker 1>the guys from Sonic Youth described his voice as toxic glue,
<v Speaker 1>which is really I mean, it's just it's like his
<v Speaker 1>voice captures you, but it's it's so gravelly and rough
<v Speaker 1>and then it's sweet at times in the right moments.
<v Speaker 1>Dave Girl said, it sounds like you're boiling nails.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, it's so it's got so much emotion
<v Speaker 2>into it.
<v Speaker 1>Huh.
<v Speaker 2>That pulls me in.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Whenever I listen to like, people are like, I hate it.
<v Speaker 2>I turned off, can't stand it. This is not that.
<v Speaker 1>No, this is the melody You're the Sheep. It's hard
<v Speaker 1>seeing I'm the sheep too, totally the sheep on this
<v Speaker 1>We are the Sheep. I had never listened to this
<v Speaker 1>album beginning to end.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I owned ten.
<v Speaker 1>Ten was something that was I mean, that's been a
<v Speaker 1>part of my life for nearly thirty years now, but
<v Speaker 1>never mind, I knew the singles. Had never listened to
<v Speaker 1>the album, had that same experience that you did, where
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, okay, let's put on the headphones and see
<v Speaker 1>how this goes. And four measures into the song, I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>holy crap, but didn't realize how good this was. And
<v Speaker 1>then five songs in, I'm like, holy crap, this is unstoppable.
<v Speaker 1>This is amazing. It is truly an amazing album. And
<v Speaker 1>for anybody who's listening who hasn't done that, who hasn't said, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'm just gonna sit down and listen to this album
<v Speaker 1>from beginning to end.
<v Speaker 2>Do it now?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well not now, wait till we're done, then go
<v Speaker 1>do it.
<v Speaker 2>I would say that this is more of a shocker
<v Speaker 2>with me knowing us, knowing you and knowing me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was surprised.
<v Speaker 2>I wasn't expected to like it as much as I did.
<v Speaker 1>Here we go, we're jumping in.
<v Speaker 2>Let's do it.
<v Speaker 1>Let's jump in with both feet, and of course save
<v Speaker 1>the best for first. Smells Like Teen Spirit?
<v Speaker 2>All right, Smells Like Teen Spirit was released. It's the
<v Speaker 2>first single off the album.
<v Speaker 1>Yes.
<v Speaker 2>The single was released August twenty seventh, nineteen ninety one.
<v Speaker 2>And like we had talked about earlier, this was an
<v Speaker 2>unexpected success, right right, They really thought that Come as
<v Speaker 2>You Are was going to be their big mainstream hit.
<v Speaker 2>This is often marked as the spot that grunge went mainstream.
<v Speaker 2>So let's talk about the song for a second.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>When it starts, yes, I mean, just the great guitar
<v Speaker 2>right there, and then lean guitar, the drums just blow up,
<v Speaker 2>yes and yeah, and then as we're singing, he's talking
<v Speaker 2>about stuff I don't really understand.
<v Speaker 1>Before you get even to the words, you have that boom,
<v Speaker 1>the boom of the drums and then the boom of
<v Speaker 1>the guitar that comes in, which you're just like, holy cow.
<v Speaker 1>Because you if you've listened to him from sub sub pop,
<v Speaker 1>if you've listened to him from Bleach, and you hear
<v Speaker 1>this kind of raspy, change the chain kind of guitar,
<v Speaker 1>you're like, okay, ready for another underground sound and then
<v Speaker 1>boom boom, and you were like, what am I? What
<v Speaker 1>am I listening to? And so this this goes to
<v Speaker 1>the fourth member of the band, butch Vig absolutely this
<v Speaker 1>is absolutely his baby and his contribution. I mean, yes,
<v Speaker 1>it's a great song, but they had this idea of
<v Speaker 1>how they wanted it, and they wanted it bare bones
<v Speaker 1>and butch Big was like okay, and then commenced tricking
<v Speaker 1>them into playing multiple tracks so that he could put
<v Speaker 1>it all together into a sound like no one's heard before.
<v Speaker 2>You talk about double tracking, because before I study this,
<v Speaker 2>I didn't really know what that was.
<v Speaker 1>So double tracking is basically with vocals, it's you sing,
<v Speaker 1>You sing the vocals, and then you sing the vocals again,
<v Speaker 1>and your voice because even though it you know, it's
<v Speaker 1>still your voice, you're not ever singing it the same
<v Speaker 1>way exactly twice. So it creates this chorus effect on
<v Speaker 1>your voice. And so with that particular aspect, Butch Vig
<v Speaker 1>would be like, Okay, Kurt, we're going to do a
<v Speaker 1>double track. Listen. Churs like, I don't really like it
<v Speaker 1>just being one. He's like John Lennon did it, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'll do it. And he appealed to this, I mean
<v Speaker 1>because he's I mean, all of these songs I can
<v Speaker 1>hear now, knowing his love for the Beatles, I can
<v Speaker 1>listen and go, okay, yeah, I can actually hear some
<v Speaker 1>of the those melodies that a lot of style of
<v Speaker 1>the Beatles finds its way in and the bands that
<v Speaker 1>you're yelling you're talking about yell into the microphone and
<v Speaker 1>the ra those guys were reacting to the Beatles. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>they're they're still like trying to get away from that.
<v Speaker 1>But Kurt embraced it. And Butch, who is a pop
<v Speaker 1>guy anyway. By the way, Butch fig is also a
<v Speaker 1>member of the band Garbage, which as a song figures
<v Speaker 1>heavily in Captain Marvel as does the Nirvana soon as
<v Speaker 1>you Are Yeah yeah. Before he does that, he's recording nevermind,
<v Speaker 1>convinces Kurt to double his voice.
<v Speaker 3>It's too bad acotagers.
<v Speaker 1>And he was great at double tracking. He would just
<v Speaker 1>run down to take into another taken. They always locked
<v Speaker 1>up really really well.
<v Speaker 2>I'm a scater, not bad.
<v Speaker 1>And then figures out, hey, Dave can actually sing some
<v Speaker 1>harmonies here, and he can, he can do a course, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and their voices sound really good together, right right, And
<v Speaker 1>so he's like, okay, this sounds good, but hey, if
<v Speaker 1>doubled Kurt's voice right as well? Double right, And so
<v Speaker 1>that's how you get this really around. You know, you
<v Speaker 1>you're hearing it and you just think this is a
<v Speaker 1>raw But as it turns out, a little bit of
<v Speaker 1>production is not a bad thing. Then what happens with
<v Speaker 1>the guitars is he he records Kurt and he just
<v Speaker 1>lies to him. He's like, yeah, that that didn't come through, right,
<v Speaker 1>There's something wrong with the soundboard something, And so Kurt
<v Speaker 1>plays it on not only multiple times, but on multiple
<v Speaker 1>different guitars with different effects pedals, and Butch weaves all
<v Speaker 1>of those things together so beautifully. It's just it's amazing.
<v Speaker 2>Let me just say this. I'm not a producer, okay,
<v Speaker 2>and really I'm not even a musician. But I listened
<v Speaker 2>to Bleach, Yes, I listened to Nevermind. Yes, Butch Vig
<v Speaker 2>is hugely.
<v Speaker 1>Impactful on this album, no question about it. It's kind
<v Speaker 1>of like the Mutt laying effect.
<v Speaker 2>It is like the fourth member of the band.
<v Speaker 1>He really is.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I got something for you. I think this is
<v Speaker 2>gold nugget.
<v Speaker 1>You're ready? Yeah? All right.
<v Speaker 2>So the song title is smells like teen Spirit, which
<v Speaker 2>is never said anywhere in the lyrics in the entire song. No,
<v Speaker 2>just the title teen Spirit smells none of it in
<v Speaker 2>there of it? Okay, So where does it come from?
<v Speaker 2>This is a great story. Kurt came up with the
<v Speaker 2>title when a friend of his name Kathleen Hannah, who
<v Speaker 2>actually was the lead singer for the band Bikini Kill,
<v Speaker 2>wrote on his wall like graffitied his wall, Kurt smells
<v Speaker 2>like teen Spirit. What she was referring to was the
<v Speaker 2>fact that Kurt Cobain smelt like the deodorant teen Spirit,
<v Speaker 2>which his girlfriend Toby Vale at the time.
<v Speaker 1>Who was also in Bikini Kill. Yes, she's a guitarist drummer.
<v Speaker 2>So this is a reference to the fact that he
<v Speaker 2>was rolling around with his girlfriend, but he came off
<v Speaker 2>smelling like a deodorant dick, this Keen Spirit deodorant. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and Kurt was completely unaware of this until after the
<v Speaker 2>single was released.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, and that incredible story it is. It's fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>So you and I talked off air. This song is
<v Speaker 2>the coming together of three perfect things. And we use
<v Speaker 2>the word perfect a lot. But it had excellent production. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>it was a great song. Killer vocalization on this song. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>And then the video is off the charts good.
<v Speaker 1>It is fantastic. And the video was directed by a
<v Speaker 1>guy named Sam Bayer, and he literally was at the
<v Speaker 1>bottom of the list of guys at the record label
<v Speaker 1>was suggesting to direct the video. The way he puts
<v Speaker 1>it is my demo reel was really bad, and that's
<v Speaker 1>probably why I got the job, because they wanted somebody
<v Speaker 1>who didn't make it look like a corporate video, and
<v Speaker 1>that's what they got.
<v Speaker 2>So here's the story behind that. They shot this video
<v Speaker 2>on August seventeenth, nineteen ninety one. Two days before that,
<v Speaker 2>they had played at a club called the Roxy in Hollywood, right,
<v Speaker 2>and they passed out flyers and said, Hey, two days
<v Speaker 2>from now, we're going to be shooting a video. We
<v Speaker 2>want all of you guys to come. So these are
<v Speaker 2>all the people that were at that concert. Ye showed
<v Speaker 2>up and proceeded to trash the place.
<v Speaker 1>Well, what happened was Sam Bayer is yelling at everybody
<v Speaker 1>with this megaphone, trying to get a good production. He
<v Speaker 1>makes them sit still for hours, like I had the
<v Speaker 1>I get to be an extra part in one in
<v Speaker 1>a movie and we had to sit there while he
<v Speaker 1>did take after take after I can see how that
<v Speaker 1>could get a little boring. U huh, right, And so
<v Speaker 1>add on to that that I wasn't nineteen years old,
<v Speaker 1>and it wasn't in August at the peak heat season.
<v Speaker 1>So they're frustrated and there and they're punk rock fans.
<v Speaker 2>Right, These are not sit down and be straight, no
<v Speaker 2>chris as.
<v Speaker 1>So at some point, some point Kurtz says, why don't
<v Speaker 1>you just let them go wild? And that is exactly
<v Speaker 1>what happens. So the girls in the anarchy cheerleader suits
<v Speaker 1>with the tattoos, Kurt's idea, the goofy janitor dancing along
<v Speaker 1>with Kurt's idea, and then when he says let's just
<v Speaker 1>let them, you guys want to mash, let's mosh and
<v Speaker 1>they start playing and those kids go crazy. They literally
<v Speaker 1>started tearing up the set. They destroyed it.
<v Speaker 2>In the video, you can see Kurt gets like involved
<v Speaker 2>in and he pushed and oh yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So there's a couple of live videos out there that
<v Speaker 1>you can see. One is of the first time that
<v Speaker 1>they played smells Like Teen Spirit and Public, and it's
<v Speaker 1>my favorite part. The lyrics aren't exactly the same, it's
<v Speaker 1>definitely not that full sound that you get from the recording.
<v Speaker 1>But my favorite part is Kurt Cobain is saying.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, this is a this is a song called.
<v Speaker 1>Smells Like Teen Spirit, and somebody in their crowd he
<v Speaker 1>goes free.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, oh I got that guy goes to every single
<v Speaker 2>concert yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And so before another video, before they had become the
<v Speaker 1>big things that they were, they're still you know, still
<v Speaker 1>playing for decent sized groups of people, but it wasn't
<v Speaker 1>stadium size. Is a video where they're playing on in
<v Speaker 1>this bar. There's this bouncer you know that's in charge
<v Speaker 1>of crowd control, that is literally on the stage with them,
<v Speaker 1>like kneeling down on one knee, just glaring at all
<v Speaker 1>of these kids, moshing, just ready to punch out whoever
<v Speaker 1>tries to come on stage. And if you watch their videos,
<v Speaker 1>they didn't give a crap if people came on this stage.
<v Speaker 1>He was expected. Yeah, I mean guys would get up there,
<v Speaker 1>dance around, jump in the crowd. Yeah, I mean playing,
<v Speaker 1>just playing, and but they would get involved too, and Kurt,
<v Speaker 1>like many musicians, would stage dive. And so in this
<v Speaker 1>video there's this heavy metal looking security guard guy glaring
<v Speaker 1>at the crowd. Kurt body dives with his guitar into
<v Speaker 1>the crowd. He's play in a little bit, but anyway,
<v Speaker 1>as they start to push Kurt back up onto the stage,
<v Speaker 1>he starts to palm his face trying to push him away,
<v Speaker 1>which makes Kurt matt who then hits this guy in
<v Speaker 1>the head with the butt of his guitar. So of course,
<v Speaker 1>as soon as he's back on stage, this guy is
<v Speaker 1>popping him in the face and he's going down, and
<v Speaker 1>you see Dave Grohl jump out from behind the drums
<v Speaker 1>to break up the fight. But it is to me
<v Speaker 1>it was the defining video of Hey heavy Metal, screw You.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>In two thousand and four, Rolling Stone named it the
<v Speaker 2>ninth greatest five hundred songs of all time. It reached
<v Speaker 2>number six on the US Hot one hundred and still
<v Speaker 2>today they're only top ten hit.
<v Speaker 1>And they thought it might sell fifty thousand. This album
<v Speaker 1>came out in September. By January of ninety two, it
<v Speaker 1>knocked Michael Jackson out of the top spot.
<v Speaker 2>I know that that was insane for an album that
<v Speaker 2>costs sixty five grand I don't know what dangerous cost
<v Speaker 2>to make, but to knock the king of pop, the
<v Speaker 2>iconic artist of that generation, out of the top spot. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>three guys from nowhere Washington, right, it's incredible. I did
<v Speaker 2>want to mention this. When he presented this song to
<v Speaker 2>his bandmates, Yeah, Chris called it ridiculous.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, they hated it, and he said, okay, let's do it,
<v Speaker 1>and they stood and they.
<v Speaker 2>He made him play for like an hour and a half,
<v Speaker 2>same song, again and again and again, but slowly. Chris
<v Speaker 2>played the riff slower and kind of molded that a
<v Speaker 2>little bit.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>They've changed the drums just to touch yep. And so
<v Speaker 2>this is the only song on never Mind to credit
<v Speaker 2>all three band members as the writers.
<v Speaker 1>Right well, that one in the hidden track.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, I can't wait to talk about that one.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, what is this song? So at this point I
<v Speaker 1>think that we have to talk about weird al Yankov. Yes.
<v Speaker 1>So the guys played for Saturday Night Live nineties early nineties.
<v Speaker 1>So Victoria Jackson is still on Saturday Night Live and
<v Speaker 1>she comes into their dressing room and she's like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>my friend, where all Yankovic wants to do a parody
<v Speaker 1>of your song? Is that okay? And they're like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you know the Chris Novaceelic also plays the accordion, and
<v Speaker 1>so he was like, oh, I love I love Weird Yankovic.
<v Speaker 1>Of course we could do.
<v Speaker 2>That's how you know you've hit it big?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, okay, okay, so next are we done?
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if we can never fully be done
<v Speaker 2>with smells like teens.
<v Speaker 1>I'm starting to smell a little bit like teen spirit myself.
<v Speaker 1>All right, So here we get to song number two,
<v Speaker 1>which is about us. Okay, yeah, so in Bloom In
<v Speaker 1>Bloom is song number two, and he wrote this song
<v Speaker 1>about people who don't understand the underground music scene, which,
<v Speaker 1>you know, you got to think, how did he know
<v Speaker 1>what was going to happen before the album was released. Well,
<v Speaker 1>he wrote this after Bleach came out. They started seeing
<v Speaker 1>a little bit of success with Bleach, and suddenly they're
<v Speaker 1>going to their concerts and there's all these extra people,
<v Speaker 1>like they've oversold whatever small venue. You know, they were
<v Speaker 1>playing to three hundred people rooms at the time, and
<v Speaker 1>then all of a sudden there's people standing in lines.
<v Speaker 1>And so this song is about all of those guys,
<v Speaker 1>those posers, if you.
<v Speaker 2>Will, who like their pretty songs.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, who liked their pretty songs and like to sing
<v Speaker 1>it a long but don't know what it means. Don't
<v Speaker 1>know what it means.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, this song is awesome if it's not routine Spirit.
<v Speaker 2>This is the best song the alb.
<v Speaker 1>I love it. This is a fantastic song and the
<v Speaker 1>video is hilarious. Yeah it is.
<v Speaker 2>Kurt mentioned that everybody was taking them to dagam seriously. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>they wanted to show their sense of humor.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>And so they have this sort of Ed Sullivan like right.
<v Speaker 1>And do you know who the guy who Nirvana?
<v Speaker 2>Do you know that guy Llewellen from People's Court?
<v Speaker 1>Nice? Hello, I'm Doug Lewellen, and welcome to the People's Court.
<v Speaker 2>He's the guy who bugs everybody when they come out. Hey,
<v Speaker 2>what do you think the judge thought? I thought he
<v Speaker 2>was terrible.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they want to show everybody they had a sense
<v Speaker 1>of humor, so they dressed up like the Beach Boys
<v Speaker 1>and some Ed Sullivan show.
<v Speaker 2>Cute where.
<v Speaker 1>This was actually the second video for this song. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know if you knew this. They had a different
<v Speaker 1>video because this was one of the ones that came
<v Speaker 1>from the sub pop days, and it was them like
<v Speaker 1>walking around in the city and Chris Novaselk had like
<v Speaker 1>I don't know whether he had a bet with himself
<v Speaker 1>or somebody else, but basically it was like punishment to himself.
<v Speaker 1>He had played so poorly at one of their shows
<v Speaker 1>that he shaved his head and so he's walking around
<v Speaker 1>in this video with no hair and they're trying to
<v Speaker 1>intercut it with concert footage where he has here it
<v Speaker 1>made any sense. So I'm really glad that they did
<v Speaker 1>this crazy video, and they had shot they shot three
<v Speaker 1>different versions of the video, some with them in dresses,
<v Speaker 1>and they had planned to do like this kind of
<v Speaker 1>sneak one out and put another video in just to
<v Speaker 1>throw people off. But what they ended up doing was
<v Speaker 1>just splicing all of those videos together.
<v Speaker 2>Videos great, it's funny, but it's it's spout and the
<v Speaker 2>song is awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, awesome song.
<v Speaker 2>This song was their fourth single, released November thirtieth, nineteen
<v Speaker 2>ninety two. Second track, fourth single, Okay, So I hesitate
<v Speaker 2>to do this. I hesitate to look at the lyrics
<v Speaker 2>and try to offer some sort of interpretation because Kurt
<v Speaker 2>Cobain said, you know, he's talking about all of the
<v Speaker 2>ideas about the lyrics, and they hated doing interviews right,
<v Speaker 2>and didn't want to talk about.
<v Speaker 1>The meaning of their songs. They just wanted the songs
<v Speaker 1>speak for themselves. He finally gets fed up and he's like,
<v Speaker 1>why in the heck do journalists insist on coming up
<v Speaker 1>with a second rate Freudian evaluation of my lyrics when
<v Speaker 1>ninety percent of the time they've transcribed them incorrectly. So
<v Speaker 1>I hesitate to do what I'm about to do. But
<v Speaker 1>just in my opinion, in addition to being about obviously
<v Speaker 1>about the guys who didn't understand their music who were
<v Speaker 1>the adopters. But you know that I know is frustrating
<v Speaker 1>for him. The song starts off with sell the kids
<v Speaker 1>for food. Whether it changes moods, Spring is here again,
<v Speaker 1>reproductive glands, and I think it's just kind of again.
<v Speaker 1>You can put whatever spin on you want to, but
<v Speaker 1>to me sounds like, hey, let's have another kid. We
<v Speaker 1>won't really care as parents. We're just gonna, you know,
<v Speaker 1>have another kid because our you know, the springs here
<v Speaker 1>and we're gonna have some kids and they end up
<v Speaker 1>being these jack offs that come to the concert.
<v Speaker 2>Dave Grohl actually mentioned this too. I was gonna tell
<v Speaker 2>you this quote, he said, just seeing Kurt write the
<v Speaker 2>lyrics to a song five minutes before he first sings them, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you just kind of find a little bit hard to
<v Speaker 2>believe that the song has a lot to say about something.
<v Speaker 2>You need syllables to fill the space, or you need
<v Speaker 2>the rhymes. That's it.
<v Speaker 1>The way that Kurt wrote music was melody comes first.
<v Speaker 1>Music is first, then lyrics after, and not only in
<v Speaker 1>chronological order, but in order of importance. The melody was
<v Speaker 1>the most important thing to him, and then he would yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he'd sit down and write the lyrics five minutes before.
<v Speaker 1>But we're talking about an affected guy, a guy with
<v Speaker 1>some demons, for sure, and I think this was his
<v Speaker 1>very simple way to exercise the demons, to put pen
<v Speaker 1>to paper for these songs in Bloom.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, great, five star, great songs.
<v Speaker 1>All right, all right.
<v Speaker 2>The next track, third track on the album, is called
<v Speaker 2>Come As You Are. So their second single, Come As
<v Speaker 2>You Are, released March second, nineteen ninety two.
<v Speaker 1>So this song comes in with this watery sound and guitar,
<v Speaker 1>very fluid sounds. That's not the heavy hitting I mean,
<v Speaker 1>we've had Smells eighteen Spirit and in Bloom just blowing
<v Speaker 1>up in your face. And then this one is a
<v Speaker 1>much softer, smoother, different sound.
<v Speaker 2>It starts off slow and then it builds.
<v Speaker 1>It's a slow, burned build. The heavy comes in, but
<v Speaker 1>it takes much longer than the first two songs.
<v Speaker 2>You know, we talked about this off the air, but
<v Speaker 2>this song is featured in the movie Captain Marvel. And
<v Speaker 2>I've told you that sometimes when you listen to it
<v Speaker 2>your car or through the television or something, you don't
<v Speaker 2>really feel the power of the song. Yeah, when I
<v Speaker 2>was sitting the movie theater, I felt the power.
<v Speaker 1>Of this song. Right, there's an idea. Maybe we should
<v Speaker 1>start something where we just play music videos at the
<v Speaker 1>movie theater for two hours and let the sound system
<v Speaker 1>like be like a rock concert.
<v Speaker 2>How awesome it was great, man, I blew my head up.
<v Speaker 1>So this song. They were hesitant to release this song,
<v Speaker 1>and it was this was the one that they were
<v Speaker 1>counting on to bring them to fame. It just turned
<v Speaker 1>out that smells like teen Spirit actually brought them to fame.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I was going to mention this to you. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>this song, the beginning of this song is very similar
<v Speaker 2>to a song called Eighties by the Killing Joke.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, let's listen to that real quick.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, Okay, that's really close to that one.
<v Speaker 2>That's close.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And so the band Killing Joke was pretty upset
<v Speaker 1>about this.
<v Speaker 2>They were clearly they thought Nirvana handled it poorly and
<v Speaker 2>they were mad. And when you listen to it, it's
<v Speaker 2>pretty undeniable.
<v Speaker 1>So they probably were hesitant to finally copyright infringement because
<v Speaker 1>they also stole the intro music. There's a band called
<v Speaker 1>The Damned who had a song called Life Goes On
<v Speaker 1>And here's what that song sounds like.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, man, that is incredibly close.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah wow.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Kurt Cobain could have got this motto from the
<v Speaker 2>More Hotel in Aberdeen, Washington. So the motto for this
<v Speaker 2>hotel that he stayed at sometimes when he got kicked
<v Speaker 2>out of his house was come as you are.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. You know, there's a couple of stories that go
<v Speaker 1>along with this album that I want I want to tell.
<v Speaker 1>The first one is his mom's story. So before this
<v Speaker 1>album is released, he comes back to that and we
<v Speaker 1>you know, if you want to look at his history,
<v Speaker 1>he was in and out of his mom's house, his
<v Speaker 1>dad's house, his grandparents' house, friend's houses. But you know
<v Speaker 1>that he's gone on, he's become a man now, he's
<v Speaker 1>in his twenties. But he comes back and stays with
<v Speaker 1>mom for a while before this album is released, and
<v Speaker 1>she says, So he comes down that morning in his
<v Speaker 1>tidy whities and he says, hey, I got the tape
<v Speaker 1>of our new album. You want to hear it, and
<v Speaker 1>she says, yeah, turn it up, because she likes her
<v Speaker 1>music loud, and so he starts playing it for her
<v Speaker 1>and she starts crying, not out of proudness but out
<v Speaker 1>of fear, and she says, you better hold on because
<v Speaker 1>this is going to change everything.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, that's an incredible story.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Butch Vig, Now, so before before he recorded Nevermind,
<v Speaker 1>he had done gish with the Smashing Pumpkins, which is
<v Speaker 1>not a small a small thing. I mean, he'd done
<v Speaker 1>hundreds of things, but I mean he's he's friends with
<v Speaker 1>Billy Corgan. And so after they finally mix and master
<v Speaker 1>the album, uh, he's got a tape of it too,
<v Speaker 1>and he's having a barbecue at his house right Billy
<v Speaker 1>Corgan's in the backyard et a hot dog or whatever
<v Speaker 1>those guys eat. So anyway, he takes the tape and
<v Speaker 1>he puts it in this crappy little boombox and sets
<v Speaker 1>it on the table and his play and goes over
<v Speaker 1>and starts cooking again, and he says, all of a sudden,
<v Speaker 1>he realizes that nobody's talking. And he looks around and
<v Speaker 1>everybody has migrated over to the table and are just
<v Speaker 1>sitting around this crappy little boombox entranced and they listen
<v Speaker 1>to the whole album. It ends, tape clicks, a few
<v Speaker 1>seconds pass and someone says, can you play it again?
<v Speaker 3>Wow?
<v Speaker 2>That's incredible man. Yeah. This reached number thirty two on
<v Speaker 2>the Hot one hundred stayed on the chart for eight weeks.
<v Speaker 2>In twenty eleven, Rolling Stone named it the four hundred
<v Speaker 2>and eighteenth greatest song of all time.
<v Speaker 1>So the video for Come As You Are is much
<v Speaker 1>more surreal, different than their other videos, same director as
<v Speaker 1>several of them, but it along with that kind of
<v Speaker 1>watery guitar, they have this effect where there's water coming
<v Speaker 1>down in front of it, and then Kurt is like
<v Speaker 1>swinging from a chandeliers. Water's falling on him. The watery
<v Speaker 1>effect is kind of clear to everybody, but it was
<v Speaker 1>another great video. And then Aberdeen, the guy's hometown. Now
<v Speaker 1>the introduction sign where it says Welcome to Aberdeen. Underneath
<v Speaker 1>that it now says come as you Are.
<v Speaker 2>That is cool. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, all right,
<v Speaker 2>moving on to the next song. This song is called
<v Speaker 2>Breed Bad Gom.
<v Speaker 1>The song probably rap.
<v Speaker 2>This song is good and it rips off with a bang.
<v Speaker 1>It Oh my gosh, that's a good song.
<v Speaker 2>This song was actually written in nineteen eighty nine and
<v Speaker 2>recorded in April of nineteen ninety with subpop.
<v Speaker 1>But that's the subpop version is not what made it onto.
<v Speaker 2>No, No, they updated it for this one.
<v Speaker 1>So this song was originally called Emodium after the anti
<v Speaker 1>diarrheal version.
<v Speaker 2>They were touring with our buddies Tad.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Tad, that's right, and the lead singer Tad will
<v Speaker 1>tell me issue. So they decided to write a song
<v Speaker 1>called Emodium, but I'm glad they changed it. Breed is
<v Speaker 1>a much better better title to this song. This one.
<v Speaker 1>You know, we talk about the anthem for the apathetic.
<v Speaker 1>This is apathy at it's clearest, right. I don't care,
<v Speaker 1>I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I
<v Speaker 1>don't care if it's cold.
<v Speaker 2>Good song, not great, but very enjoyable and solid, solid,
<v Speaker 2>solid track.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So yeah, this is one of those ones that
<v Speaker 1>was a good new discovery for me because I hadn't
<v Speaker 1>had the album before. This is one that I was like,
<v Speaker 1>holy crap, this is really good. I was surprised they
<v Speaker 1>didn't have this as a as a single. Honestly, I
<v Speaker 1>thought this was amazing. Deserving of a single.
<v Speaker 2>But it was really good, really solid.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah all right.
<v Speaker 2>Next song, very popular song released July thirteenth, nineteen ninety two, Lithium.
<v Speaker 3>I'm So happy got to day my friends in mind.
<v Speaker 1>So lithium was this drug that they used to true
<v Speaker 1>manic depression before, like prozac and stuff, and so I
<v Speaker 1>think this kind of went along with some experiences that
<v Speaker 1>Kurt had had in his past. Obviously, mental illness is
<v Speaker 1>certainly a big factor there.
<v Speaker 2>God good song, very very popular song. This was the
<v Speaker 2>tenth most played song in the decade according to Mainstream
<v Speaker 2>rock Radio one hundred and twenty three thousand times during
<v Speaker 2>the nineties. Really really good song though.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, So this song is about a guy who
<v Speaker 1>is dealing with suicidal thoughts finds religion and that saves
<v Speaker 1>him from the suicidal thoughts, right, which goes along with
<v Speaker 1>that whole mental health thing. What plays a part in
<v Speaker 1>the song is some of Kurt's own experiences. This one
<v Speaker 1>was one that he actually wrote the song from beginning
<v Speaker 1>to end. It wasn't pieces of poetry or written five
<v Speaker 1>minutes before. He had this song when they were doing
<v Speaker 1>their sessions with which vig Over at Smart studios before
<v Speaker 1>they before they ended up in California, and this was
<v Speaker 1>the one that tore up his voice. This is also
<v Speaker 1>the one that caused the rift between him and Chad Channing,
<v Speaker 1>which led to them getting rid of him because he
<v Speaker 1>couldn't get Chad to get the drum right.
<v Speaker 2>This sounds awesome, man. Yeah, he makes that. He takes
<v Speaker 2>the word yeah and turns it into a fist pumping
<v Speaker 2>scream your head off, but yet perfectly great chorus, great melody.
<v Speaker 2>It just sounds really good.
<v Speaker 1>It's one of those hooky melodies for sure. Yeah. Absolutely,
<v Speaker 1>And I found God, you know that concept. He actually
<v Speaker 1>had stayed with a friend who was a Christian. Kurt
<v Speaker 1>Cobain accepted Christ at that time and was a Christian
<v Speaker 1>for a time, but you know, later on was he
<v Speaker 1>Christianity was not for him. He renounced it. But he said,
<v Speaker 1>you know, if other people need God to be saved,
<v Speaker 1>then didn't they need it?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, here's his quote that I thought thought that was
<v Speaker 2>interesting too. Lithium is a song about a guy who
<v Speaker 2>turns to religion after his girlfriend dies. It soothes him
<v Speaker 2>much like a dose of actual lithium. I've always felt
<v Speaker 2>that some people should have religion in their lives. That's fine.
<v Speaker 2>If it's going to save them, it's okay. And the
<v Speaker 2>person in Lithium needed.
<v Speaker 1>So after Lithium we have Holly. Holly wants a Cracker.
<v Speaker 1>I think go se That alls Polly was another one
<v Speaker 1>of those songs that I had heard before, but when
<v Speaker 1>I listened to it again, I was like, this is dark. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this is creepy, and I'm listening to it and I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>this is an interesting perspective and I'm kind of thinking
<v Speaker 1>of this as an imaginary story. And then I was
<v Speaker 1>today's years old when I learned this is based on
<v Speaker 1>a real event.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the guy kidnapped a girl after a punk rock
<v Speaker 1>concert whose name was Polly's fourteen yeah, fourteen year years old,
<v Speaker 1>and he kept her captive. All things that come up
<v Speaker 1>in the song. But the thing that really spoke to
<v Speaker 1>Kurt about the song was that she decided to come
<v Speaker 1>on to him and to you identify with him as
<v Speaker 1>a person in order to set herself up for escape,
<v Speaker 1>and that was how she got away from him and
<v Speaker 1>how he ultimately got caught. Chris said that Kurt, really
<v Speaker 1>that really stuck out to him, which I may be
<v Speaker 1>over analyzing a bit here, But isn't that kind of
<v Speaker 1>what they did with this album? Like they had their
<v Speaker 1>punk grunge sound that was underground sound, but they made
<v Speaker 1>an album that the masses could identify with so that
<v Speaker 1>they would be adopted and be able to do what
<v Speaker 1>they want.
<v Speaker 2>Nice. Nice, I see what you're doing there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well interesting it seems.
<v Speaker 2>To be this song dates all the way back to
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty eight.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so there's a mistake in this song that they
<v Speaker 1>left in Kirk comes into early. When they listen to
<v Speaker 1>it again, they're like, I kind of like that. You've
<v Speaker 1>you've heard Jason talk about accidental drip, and accidental drip
<v Speaker 1>is something that I've talked to him about, but I
<v Speaker 1>don't know that we've ever talked about it in an episode.
<v Speaker 1>But the accidental drip is when you are painting a
<v Speaker 1>picture and the picture isn't quite right, and then a
<v Speaker 1>piece of paint or a drop of paint falls off
<v Speaker 1>the brush and hits the canvas, and suddenly the picture
<v Speaker 1>comes to life just from that accidental drip. And so
<v Speaker 1>that this is one of those accidental drip moments.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So that wraps up side one of never mind
<v Speaker 2>and we've talked. I mean, I mentioned a couple of
<v Speaker 2>weeks ago in our episode on Hysteria that I thought
<v Speaker 2>the side one of Hysteria was the best side of
<v Speaker 2>any album that we had covered up to that point.
<v Speaker 2>This competes with that. I mean, you've got teen Spirit,
<v Speaker 2>you've got in Bloom, you've got come as you Are,
<v Speaker 2>breed Lithium and Pollie. So hit stop on your tape player,
<v Speaker 2>kick it out, flip it over. Now we're going to
<v Speaker 2>decide to Okay, this song, the first song inside two
<v Speaker 2>is a song called Territorial Pissing.
<v Speaker 1>Yes. And here's the point in the podcast where Jason
<v Speaker 1>and I take different positions.
<v Speaker 2>This song is garbage.
<v Speaker 1>Oh no, it is so good.
<v Speaker 2>It is crap.
<v Speaker 1>If you've got if you've got a song that defines
<v Speaker 1>what the attitude and the aggression and the nastiness that
<v Speaker 1>Nirvana brought to the rock music scene, that is this song.
<v Speaker 1>Oh it's so good. I love it. I love it.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, this is where I become the old man. As
<v Speaker 2>soon as they start singing that out of tune, I'm like, no, no, no,
<v Speaker 2>this is definitely not pop production right here. No, this
<v Speaker 2>is full on punk, which is not to my liking.
<v Speaker 1>Right, I can't say whether it's full on punk or
<v Speaker 1>not because I've never been a punk guy. Well, this
<v Speaker 1>is definitely If I was going to say this is
<v Speaker 1>the punkiest song on there, yeah, I would say this
<v Speaker 1>is it.
<v Speaker 2>This is not the worst song on the album. The
<v Speaker 2>song sucks. It is not the worst song on the album.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, all right, Yeah, keep going. Gotta find a way,
<v Speaker 1>a better.
<v Speaker 2>Way for as good as I enjoy his voice and
<v Speaker 2>how he strains it kind of leans on it in
<v Speaker 2>teen spirit stuff like that. Yeah, it breaks on him
<v Speaker 2>on this one, and it's no good to me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because he's not doing that. He's not doing your
<v Speaker 1>hooky melody in this one. There's true melody. Just because
<v Speaker 1>you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you. I had
<v Speaker 1>to think about that line for a long time. So
<v Speaker 1>this was not obviously not a single forum. I think
<v Speaker 1>this is probably one that their fans love, but probably
<v Speaker 1>not for the masses.
<v Speaker 2>We do agree, Yes, this is the type word the
<v Speaker 2>guy next to you punches you in the face just
<v Speaker 2>because he's joying the concert. Yeah, I do not care
<v Speaker 2>for that. Please, Can we move on to the next song?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? We can move on all right.
<v Speaker 2>Next song is called Drain You No the says I'm
<v Speaker 2>not you.
<v Speaker 1>This is another one. This one comes from his relationship
<v Speaker 1>with Toby Vail yep, and the song starts off with
<v Speaker 1>one baby says to another, I'm lucky to have met you,
<v Speaker 1>and that was something that she used to say to him.
<v Speaker 1>But then shortly thereafter, it's my duty now to drain
<v Speaker 1>you because that's kind of how he felt the breakup went.
<v Speaker 1>But it's a good one. I like it.
<v Speaker 2>It's a good song. It's a good song. Kurk Obank
<v Speaker 2>claimed that this song was the equal or better than
<v Speaker 2>teen Spirit.
<v Speaker 1>It does have that kind of pop hook to it
<v Speaker 1>to me, it's it's got a very Allison Chains feel
<v Speaker 1>to it, the way that the harmonies are going, and
<v Speaker 1>the chorus sounds a lot like Jerry Cantrell and Lane
<v Speaker 1>Staley to me. But it's just my thought. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know that I would say it's as good as well.
<v Speaker 2>No way, no way, I'm going against the Kurt on
<v Speaker 2>this one. Dave Grohl actually compared this one to Bohemian Rhapsody.
<v Speaker 2>He's kind of a goofball, right, But I gotta disagree
<v Speaker 2>with both of them. This is a good song. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but there is no way it's as good as Teen Spirit.
<v Speaker 1>They're a little more proud of it than we are,
<v Speaker 1>I think. Okay, so next song on the album is
<v Speaker 1>Lounge Act. Another good song. Okay, So when I was
<v Speaker 1>a kid, I used to lay in bed and when
<v Speaker 1>I couldn't go to sleep, I would play with my
<v Speaker 1>voice and it sounded like that's what the beginning of
<v Speaker 1>this song is. And then you go into this really big.
<v Speaker 2>Oathmallo.
<v Speaker 1>This is probably the poppyist to me, this is the
<v Speaker 1>poppyist sounding song on the album.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure, it's got the same it's just solid guitars.
<v Speaker 2>It's a head bobber. It's a good song.
<v Speaker 1>I like it. Yeah, not the best song on the album,
<v Speaker 1>just it's a song that you cruise on through.
<v Speaker 2>This is actually the tenth most favorite song by Nirvana
<v Speaker 2>fans really, according to Rolling Stone.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, well it's a head it's yeah. I was gonna
<v Speaker 1>say it's hooky. I got it, but didn't like it.
<v Speaker 1>Didn't blow my screwed up.
<v Speaker 2>Next one song called stay Away.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I'm not a fan.
<v Speaker 2>I didn't like it. Really didn't like this.
<v Speaker 1>One all right, So just in case you might have
<v Speaker 1>forgotten whether Dave Girl can hit the drums hard or not.
<v Speaker 1>This song answers that question.
<v Speaker 2>That's true, fast and hard.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this is speedy, less hooky, but.
<v Speaker 2>And all these songs you can sing along to.
<v Speaker 1>This is a song where this is another one of
<v Speaker 1>the songs. I'm like, Okay, this is good. This is
<v Speaker 1>not one that I remembered, but definitely a good song
<v Speaker 1>to listen to. I don't have a whole lot to
<v Speaker 1>say about it.
<v Speaker 2>It's okay, it's all right, okay, all right. Next song
<v Speaker 2>is called on a plane Stop.
<v Speaker 3>Words, got so scrapped it up, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So this one, to me, this is this is
<v Speaker 1>what I'm dissatisfied with because to me, this one almost
<v Speaker 1>sounds like the bands that came out after Nirvana that
<v Speaker 1>were trying to sound like Nirvana. That's what this one
<v Speaker 1>sounds like to me.
<v Speaker 2>It is interesting. This one has a little bit of
<v Speaker 2>the you know, that's stuff that you don't really expect
<v Speaker 2>Nirvana to do.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this one is not mine. This is not in
<v Speaker 1>my top Nirvana songs at all.
<v Speaker 2>I like it. I mean, it's good, it's catchy, it's
<v Speaker 2>a pop song, it's a pop song.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Now, they had a version of it on Unplugged,
<v Speaker 1>which was completely different. I'm a plane plain, I'm on
<v Speaker 1>the plaine. I mean, obviously Unplugged has a lot of
<v Speaker 1>different you don't have your distortion of your guitar, but
<v Speaker 1>they've got a cello playing on that one, and I
<v Speaker 1>enjoyed that one more natural sounding song. But this is
<v Speaker 1>one that Kurt Cobain later on would say he wasn't
<v Speaker 1>happy with how it turned out on the album.
<v Speaker 2>I do think it'll be interesting once we get done
<v Speaker 2>with these songs. To talk about his response to the album.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he said, the way we play it live, and
<v Speaker 1>it's funny because they I mean, he wrote the lyrics
<v Speaker 1>for the song like five minutes before the song was recorded,
<v Speaker 1>and so they didn't play it live until after they
<v Speaker 1>had already done the recording. But he said he liked
<v Speaker 1>the way they played it live better, had a raw
<v Speaker 1>or sound to it.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, man, butch Vig puts out good pop songs.
<v Speaker 2>I can and he made them superstars.
<v Speaker 1>Dude. I will not and not say anything bad about
<v Speaker 1>butch Vig with this. Just this particular song is a
<v Speaker 1>little overproduced for the songs on this album. It's still
<v Speaker 1>a Nirvana song, it's still kicks butt, but it's just
<v Speaker 1>not my favorite. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So let's talk about the best song on side too, Okay.
<v Speaker 2>And that song is called Something in the Way.
<v Speaker 1>So this one is beautiful. I love it.
<v Speaker 2>It's it's gorgeous.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And there's a Beatles song that's got the lyrics
<v Speaker 1>Something in the Way as well, Bridge Topes Strong. But
<v Speaker 1>this is this was a unique songs all around.
<v Speaker 2>When I listened to this song, to me, I listened
<v Speaker 2>to this song, and you put Madonna's song Secret next
<v Speaker 2>to it, I think it sounds very similar.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, we can we can put that to the test.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, things haven't been the same since you came into.
<v Speaker 2>The this song. When they were they were working in
<v Speaker 2>the studio and Kurt was not satisfied with how the
<v Speaker 2>recording was going. Yeah, and so he went to the
<v Speaker 2>control room and he told Butch, He's like, this is
<v Speaker 2>the way it needs to be.
<v Speaker 1>Sound.
<v Speaker 2>He's like almost like a whisper.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. He lays down like he's on the couch. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he's lay down on the couch. He's got a five
<v Speaker 1>string guitar.
<v Speaker 2>Butch says, Okay, dude, hold on a second, just stay
<v Speaker 2>right there, don't move, and he goes and gets a
<v Speaker 2>microphone and he tells everybody, okay, everybody quiet. He said,
<v Speaker 2>go for it. Yeah, in the control room on the
<v Speaker 2>couch right, And that's how.
<v Speaker 1>They captured it. They use that as the core of
<v Speaker 1>the song afterwards, and so then Dave Grohl and Chris
<v Speaker 1>nova Selik have to record to something that wasn't on
<v Speaker 1>a click track like this is the They're just going
<v Speaker 1>by how Kurt felt the rhythm was going. So this
<v Speaker 1>is this is a very soulful, spiritual kind of song,
<v Speaker 1>and the lyrics are kind of a you know, a
<v Speaker 1>guy under a bridge with no place else to go,
<v Speaker 1>talking to the animals. It's you know, there was a
<v Speaker 1>like people kind of talked about, oh, did he really
<v Speaker 1>live under a bridge now? But this again kind of
<v Speaker 1>captures that feeling of isolation and of not knowing where
<v Speaker 1>you belong. That guys my age were feeling like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>we were in the nineties. We're sixteen, seventeen years old,
<v Speaker 1>and we just don't know what the point of everything is, right,
<v Speaker 1>And so this is one of those songs that kind
<v Speaker 1>of captured that feeling.
<v Speaker 2>They brought in a guy to play cello on this song.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Not many Nirvana songs you hear a cello on, Not
<v Speaker 2>on this album, that's true.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but it's so soulful and sweet. I love it.
<v Speaker 1>Whenever they were recording Dave and Chris's parts, Kurt kept
<v Speaker 1>sitting behind Dave going no quieter.
<v Speaker 2>I love this song. And this, to me is a
<v Speaker 2>heavy hitter up there with Come as You Are and Liium. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's really, really, really good.
<v Speaker 1>It's beautiful. It is. It is the most beautiful on
<v Speaker 1>the album for sure. All Right, Okay, we done, and
<v Speaker 1>we have the secret trap. Yeah, okay, hold on, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>that's enough of that. Yeah, okay, that's not a song.
<v Speaker 2>That's not a song.
<v Speaker 1>No, so they I mean, this is like something where
<v Speaker 1>they were just jamming, and this is a jam session
<v Speaker 1>and this is just them.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, Okay, this is what I heard about
<v Speaker 2>this song. They were trying. They were working on lithium, yes,
<v Speaker 2>and they were having some difficulty making it work. And
<v Speaker 2>then this is just an improv jam session and it's
<v Speaker 2>frustration and I'm mad, and they just kind of went
<v Speaker 2>with it. Butch Big left the tape recording and he
<v Speaker 2>picked it up. Now, then they should have thrown it
<v Speaker 2>in the trash.
<v Speaker 1>Right. Well, the guy who the guy who did the Master,
<v Speaker 1>who Masters, is saying he came in, like everybody was
<v Speaker 1>supposed to meet at a certain time, and he came
<v Speaker 1>in to do the Master and nobody was there. So
<v Speaker 1>he was like, all right, well, I guess I go
<v Speaker 1>ahead and get started working. And so he made this
<v Speaker 1>whole master, which, if you don't know what that is,
<v Speaker 1>that's creating the one piece that all of the other
<v Speaker 1>pieces come from. Right before digital really became big, you
<v Speaker 1>had to have a master to go back to so
<v Speaker 1>that you could get the cleanest sound. So he's putting
<v Speaker 1>all of these things in the Master, and here's Endless Nameless,
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, okay, that obviously is not supposed to
<v Speaker 1>go on the album.
<v Speaker 2>Right, that is so horrible. I can tell without even
<v Speaker 2>ask anybody that doesn't belong here.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, his name was Howie Weinberg. And so he leaves
<v Speaker 1>that off and they printed twenty thousand album CDs and
<v Speaker 1>tapes without it, Yeah, without it, And then Kirk Cobains
<v Speaker 1>finally listens to one of them and he's like, wait
<v Speaker 1>a minute, where's Endless nameless, and so they were like,
<v Speaker 1>we told you that had to be all there, and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, okay, yeah, I thought that was a joke.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah exactly.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's I don't know what that is.
<v Speaker 2>So they got really mad and they actually made them
<v Speaker 2>reprint the album with that on there. It was it
<v Speaker 2>was it's a secret track. Yeah right, yeah, it comes
<v Speaker 2>all the way after Something in the Way. Something in
<v Speaker 2>the Way. Now weird Al actually has a version of
<v Speaker 2>this simplest nameless. Yes, oh no, it's called bite Me. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>it's a secret track. I can't remember what record is on.
<v Speaker 2>It's got to be on the one that smells like
<v Speaker 2>gott to be and it's called bite Me.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, we'll find that. So when they first when all
<v Speaker 1>these songs were done and they had recorded them all
<v Speaker 1>butch Vig tried to do the mixed for him and
<v Speaker 1>they were neither he nor the band was happy with it.
<v Speaker 1>So they brought in this guy called Andy Wallace who
<v Speaker 1>had co produced Seasons in the Abyss by Slayer, which
<v Speaker 1>they loved, and unfortunately, you know, the band, even though
<v Speaker 1>they said they loved the mixes, they would later on say, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>we didn't really like the way that that sounded, you know,
<v Speaker 1>Kirk Cobain said it sounded closer to Motley Crue than
<v Speaker 1>a punk rock record.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he's a little bit embarrassed at the production of
<v Speaker 2>this one.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>I mean punk as a definition as a genre is
<v Speaker 2>not produced. It's just like, right, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's Yeah. If you want a song that it's
<v Speaker 1>going to appeal to the masses, if you want to
<v Speaker 1>achieve what you said, your goal is, you want your
<v Speaker 1>art to mean something, So you want it to appeal
<v Speaker 1>as to as many people as possible so that you
<v Speaker 1>can get their attention. You don't produce a punk album right, right.
<v Speaker 2>Once again, we've talked about this how some movie stars
<v Speaker 2>don't watch their movies, right And for me, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I understand creating art as you want it to be, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>but this was so impactful to me that they should
<v Speaker 2>love this.
<v Speaker 1>Album, right, And you know, it's it's kind of again
<v Speaker 1>being in that situation where people are obsessing about it
<v Speaker 1>and constantly talking to you about it and constantly asking
<v Speaker 1>you questions that I can see how it would wear
<v Speaker 1>on you after a while. But Kurt Cobain would say, actually,
<v Speaker 1>I still really enjoyed playing Smells like teen Spirit. It
<v Speaker 1>just became such a thing that it almost became embarrassing
<v Speaker 1>to play because of how obsessive people were about it.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 2>I did hear Chris talk about talk about Nevermind? Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>like a twenty year later retrospective. Yes, he says, the
<v Speaker 2>best thing I've ever been associated with. Yeah, So it's
<v Speaker 2>that makes me feel good. I love I thoroughly enjoyed it, sure,
<v Speaker 2>and the fact that he thoroughly enjoys it does make
<v Speaker 2>me feel better.
<v Speaker 1>Right, I'm sure that everybody listening to this knows what
<v Speaker 1>the history is. They produce other albums, and then in
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety four, Kurt Cobain commits suicide at his home
<v Speaker 1>in Washington, And there's lots of stories there that we're
<v Speaker 1>not going to get away too at this time. But
<v Speaker 1>you know, kind of in doing this and looking at this,
<v Speaker 1>I almost like, if I'm watching this as a movie,
<v Speaker 1>I don't see any other ending except that he can't
<v Speaker 1>grow old. He has to be eternally youthful. He has
<v Speaker 1>to be twenty seven forever, because you can't be the
<v Speaker 1>voice of the generation. You can't change the music the
<v Speaker 1>way that he did and continue on and still have
<v Speaker 1>the impact I don't know, so he was. I read
<v Speaker 1>this about Michael Stipe of RAM. They were planning an
<v Speaker 1>album together. Kurt Cobain and Michael Stipe were planning to
<v Speaker 1>do an album together that would have been completely different
<v Speaker 1>than anything they had done before, clean, bringing in orchestra
<v Speaker 1>style music. And I can't even I mean, can you
<v Speaker 1>just imagine Kirk Cobain with an orchestra or with strings
<v Speaker 1>behind him with very clean But we never got that.
<v Speaker 2>Sadly, sadly, yeah, sadly, I remember when that happened. That
<v Speaker 2>was I mean, people held candlelight vigils and were crying
<v Speaker 2>and shocked. And if you grew up in the nineties,
<v Speaker 2>this sky was your John Lennon.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, for some folks for sure.
<v Speaker 2>So do we want to talk a little bit about
<v Speaker 2>the impact of the album? For me, it's interesting because
<v Speaker 2>it's had this huge, huge impact. It wasn't the best
<v Speaker 2>selling album of nineteen ninety two, okay. In fact, according
<v Speaker 2>to who you look at, it was beat out by
<v Speaker 2>at least three albums by Garth Brooks, an album by
<v Speaker 2>Criss Cross, and an album by Billy Ray Cyrus.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my, well, again, you have folks who buy in
<v Speaker 1>at certain points, you have the early adopters, you've got
<v Speaker 1>the masses, and then you've got the tag alongs or
<v Speaker 1>the late adopters, And yeah, I can see this was
<v Speaker 1>not a thing. Like I mean, a lot of our
<v Speaker 1>listening audience, like if they came in with Van Halen,
<v Speaker 1>I bet a lot of those guys are like, I
<v Speaker 1>want to listen to something about Nirvana, right because it
<v Speaker 1>was it was a revolution against that style of music. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>for sure, I love them both, so I'm good with it.
<v Speaker 2>The staying power, though, is really the y is the
<v Speaker 2>factor here, because I mean Criss Cross Gone, Billy By
<v Speaker 2>Cyrus Gone, Yeah, I mean Garth Brooks.
<v Speaker 1>Those Garth Brooks albums are kind of iconic. But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but yeah, let me if you haven't, if you haven't
<v Speaker 1>listened to this album from beginning to end, if you
<v Speaker 1>kind of wrote off a proper Grammer, if you wrote
<v Speaker 1>off Nirvana back in the nineties, take a listen again, sincerely,
<v Speaker 1>listen with an open mind, and I think you'll be impressed.
<v Speaker 2>We talked about it. Both of us sort of rediscovered
<v Speaker 2>this album and it's impressive. Yeah, it's impressive.
<v Speaker 1>And so next week we're going to move on to
<v Speaker 1>another impressive album that came out at the same time,
<v Speaker 1>which I have a whole different experience with. And I'm
<v Speaker 1>excited to talk about that one. You talked about waiting
<v Speaker 1>thirty five years. I've been waiting nearly thirty years to
<v Speaker 1>talk about this one for sure.
<v Speaker 2>Great, Yeah, I can't wait.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So next week we'll talk about Pearl Jams ten.
<v Speaker 1>Stay tuned for that one, and you will hear our
<v Speaker 1>final judgment as to which of the grunge albums are
<v Speaker 1>of the best. Stay tuned for that. And if please
<v Speaker 1>subscribe now, you know all you have to do. If
<v Speaker 1>you're on your phone, you scroll down on your phone.
<v Speaker 1>There's a little subscribe button. Hit that button right now,
<v Speaker 1>and then you won't miss that next episode when it
<v Speaker 1>comes out.
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for listening. I hope that some of our
<v Speaker 2>Van Helen and def Leopard guys have stuck around for
<v Speaker 2>this one. Yeah, thank you for doing that. Do we
<v Speaker 2>sure appreciate you. Thank you so much for listening.
<v Speaker 1>See you next week, See you next week.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.