Posted on by o.sisinni

Nirvana: Bleach

Prompt: Find a negative, wrong-headed review of an album you love and make it right.

First off, I hate to be that guy. You know, the one that’s always at someone else’s party who feels some sort of need to smugly butt themselves into a conversation you’re having in an attempt to overstep your clearly well-formed opinion. It can be about anything–you’re having a conversation about Clerks, and they have to assert that Dogma is actually an “underrated Smith in his best form,” for example–but it’s probably far worse when it’s about music. But here I am, shamelessly being that guy to the chagrin of party goers the world over. My snobby, unpopular opinion? Bleach is my favorite album from Nirvana, and I’d argue that it’s the best work in their ephemeral, 5-year-long recording career.

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The funny thing about Bleach, an album recorded for $600 in 1989, is that it only became subject to the scrutiny of the mainstream critical ear after Nevermind exploded onto the scene. Because of this, Bleach has often been reviewed through the prism of the band’s breakout album, instead of as a self-standing creation with its own context. The album is described by critics across the board as being inconsistent, less focused, and sounding like an immature band still working on its direction. And thus, its place in the Nirvana discography is often dismissed, and relegated to the category of “a record for the die-hards.”

The reality is that Bleach is 11 blaring tracks that fail to hold back, and never make a single attempt to be cool. It is unapologetic in scope, its riffs are dirty and gritty, and if calling the album sloppy or unfocused are fair critiques, it is only because it radiates the unfocused sloppiness of blunt anger. The album is raw, relentless and driving, bathing the listener in all of the feedback and fuzz sewn into it. There is not a record out there that so perfectly encapsulates the ferocity of post-pubescent angst.

Though the album clocks in at just over a 30-minute run time, Kurt Cobain effortlessly navigates a multitude of topics, perhaps relying more on the absolutely wrenching vocal performance he exerts throughout the tracks than on overt lyricism. “Negative Creep,” a tune written with a fervid self-loathing, is a good example. The song features only four distinct lines of text that border on absurdist, but when performed with an ululating Cobain on vocals the exact mood of the piece–a nihilistic ode to the anti-social–is clear. While the album certainly slouches toward what the post-1992 world of grunge would become, it also exists in a space heavily influenced by the DIY hardcore and metal groups of the time. “Floyd the Barber,” a track led by a very simple riff of two power chords followed by three driving, echoing bass drum hits could be right at home alongside the simple, droning title track from Black Flag’s My War.

Though Cobain claimed to have written much of the lyrical material of Bleach the night before the songs were recorded and even made the point of saying that none of the lyrics on the record were particularly dear to him, it is nonetheless a highly personal series of songs. Perhaps this is due to the short time the songs saw between writing and recording–Cobain wrote down his feelings immediately as they came to him, and had no time to veil them. The result is a raw look at topics from Cobain’s contempt for the macho (“Mr. Moustache”) to his complex love relationship (“About a Girl”). One particularly personal track, “Paper Cuts,” whose primal drum opening–courtesy of a pre-Dave Grohl, Chad Channing–builds like a suspense film, stratifies itself into layers of discomfort and dissonance, and offers a visceral look into Cobain’s complex family dynamic, the likes of which we are hardly privy to again.

The album in all its gut-busting  glory reaches a fever pitch on “Love Buzz,” a cover of the 1969 song by the Dutch band Shocking Blue, that doubles as a not-so-subtle love note to Melvins frontman, Buzz Osborne. With this track, the album reveals itself as the perfect blend of unbridled musical chaos and moments of quiet control.

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” was a song for a generation. Nevermind was an album for all time. This album is hardly that. There’s some serious authorial self-loathing and anger issues the listener must contend with. However, it’s likely a more unfiltered look into the naked psyche of a man whose mind was as dazzlingly inventive as it was disturbingly fractured. Bleach is likely not timeless, and it is certainly not universal. Yet in all its ragged edges, it reveals an emotional depth to those who can relate to its aesthetic jaggedness perhaps more than Nevermind–with all its anthemic brilliance–ever could. It’s an album for the aimless twenty-somethings, the negative creeps, and maybe, all those smug “that guy” types you hope to avoid running into at your next party.

Posted on by o.sisinni

Dancing about Architecture; or, Death to the Dull

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I love the living, breathing paradox that is all things punk. I play bass (read: I play guitar so terribly I was Survivor-style voted off the instrument) in a punk band. I’d even go as far to say that I play in a bad punk band. So, arguably–the trope goes–I play bass in an “authentic” punk band in that my technique is garbage, our sound is downstroke-driven primal, and I chew through picks the way that my dog chews through every screen door we’ve ever had. This idea of authenticity is, of course, ridiculous. Everything starts to get muddled when we start considering that bad punk is more authentic than good punk, authentic is “better,” and good punk is ostensibly “bad.” Throw in the fact that we’re playing in a musical style whose swan song really should have come about with the first power chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and (even more concerning) that the genre is so obsessively concerned with “poseurs” and submits to an ouroboros of the bona fides–eating itself away into oblivion–and you’re dealing with a beautiful hodgepodge of contradictions as expansive as it is limiting. Despite all of its paradoxes, its burnouts, and its tenderhearted but naive ambition, it still seems to exist in some state just fiercely trucking on, blind to all its faults. Point is, although there’s a huge part of me that likes indulging in blaring nasty distorted noise at a level way past human decency, there’s a part that is drawn to punk because it both delivers a hard credo and gives you license to do whatever want under its crusty, threadbare umbrella. It allows me to carve out my own space between shades of gray.

If you’ve ever done a quick search on the Internet for “writing about music,” you’d have a difficult time avoiding this nugget of supposed wisdom:

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”

The quote is nebulous in origin, but as pervasive as a perennial garden weed. Despite its persistence, it is a quote I can imagine only exists because of the incredibly dull sort of people who like to maintain that the current crop of musicians are far worse than the ones of their own generation.

But why is it so aggravatingly narrow-minded? First, to argue that we can’t dance about architecture assumes that either ballet or buildings can’t be greater than the sum of their own parts, and that something so intangible and fluid could never hope to create a dialogue with something as substantial as a concrete structure. You could maybe try to argue that architects and dancers had no business talking to each other if each one was able to grow up in a bubble– totally isolated from one another–free from any shared experience aside from the mystical “divine” spark of inspiration. But the reality is we live in a world where paintings are not just paintings, songs can “save lives,” and works don’t just have the ability to exist outside themselves; but they may need to in order to make any sense. Like punk, you’re blocking meaningful thought if you’re asserting that your art has to be “totally authentic,” and completely isolated from other media and experiences.  Anyway, the case can be made that you can write about music, and furthermore, that exploring an art form through a different medium is not a futile pursuit.

And I guess that brings it back to me. I’m here to try to do just that—not simply to hone my writing skills, but also to create some dialogue with some works, works for which I have an overwhelming, nerd-like love, and hopefully works about which I have something meaningful to say. I’m guessing that by the end of this, you’ll have something meaningful to say about them as well.