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