1252. Nirvana / Bleach. 1989. 3/5

In another one of those ‘school bands made good’ stories, vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bass guitarist Krist Novaselic met when they were at high school together. Their band, and the lineup, went through a number of changes over their initial period together. In fact, they started out as a Creedence Clearwater Revival covers band, with Cobain on drums and Novaselic on guitar and vocals. Eventually they began to write their own songs, and rotating through drummers like spinning tops, almost as many as different bands names that they played under. Some of their names included Skid Row, Ted Ed Fred, Pen Cap Chew, and Bliss, before they finally settled on the name Nirvana. Around this time, having collated a football team full of former drummers, Cobain and Novaselic were introduced to Chad Channing, who became their next, and longest serving to that point in time, full time drummer.
After six months of playing together, the band recorded their first single release for the Seattle independent record label Sub Pop. It was a cover of the song “Love Buzz” by the band Shocking Blue, a Dutch band from the late 1960’s. Following this, the band practiced for two to three weeks in preparation for recording a full-length album, even though Sub Pop had only requested an EP. The band went back into the studio in the final week of December in 1988, to record their debut album, with the main sessions taking place at Reciprocal Recording Studios in Seattle, with local producer Jack Endino. Combined with three tracks that had been written and recorded in January 1988, these came together to form what would become Nirvana’s debut studio album, titled “Bleach”.

As mentioned in the first part of the episode, three of the album's songs were recorded during a previous session at Reciprocal Studios in January 1988. These recordings all featured Dale Crover on drums, who was the drummer from the band The Melvins. The band did try to re-record them with Channing but eventually decided to just release those original versions. Those tracks all have a similar vibe as well, but the most obvious one is ”Paper Cuts” which is difficult to take for several reasons, but one of the main ones for me is the amazing similarity in a 16 bar snatch of the song, on two occasions, that sounds almost exactly like the song “Angry Chair” by Alice in Chains. Of course, this song came before that song, so it begs the question – was the Alice in Chains song a direct rip off of this? Or is it just an amazing coincidence? That’s for you to work out I guess, but it is uncanny just how similar the music and vocals sound between the two. I also know which is the better song. “Downer” only appeared as a bonus track, while the other song was “Floyd the Barber”, whose lyrics are somewhat strangled while the riff and drumbeat retain the same medium throughout. An early example on the album of less lyrics and more repetition.
In the back half of the album, you have songs such as “Scoff” which continue in this tradition of five or six lines of lyrics that still fill four minutes of the song through constant rotation. “Swap Meet” also does this, and with the less refined way that Kurt sings in only to keys all the way through the song. And the closing track “Sifting” repeats this style once again.
Elsewhere, “Blew” opens the album on a positive note with Cobain’s warbling guitar and early grungy guitar riff. The band’s first single, the cover track “Love Buzz”, also found its way onto the album, and is an immediate obvious different track from those written by the band. It is almost a freeform psychedelic journey, with those changing qualities from the rest of the album. There is a lot of buzz coming out of the speakers on this track.
The upbeat songs for me generally come across the best. “Negative Creep” is one of them, though the lyrics again aren’t anything to write home about, pretty much four lines repeated ad nauseum. The same goes for “School”, a song from the same lyrical song book, with the music banged out for Cobain to sing over. It mightn’t be imaginative, but again here the riff chords and drum lines are excellent and enjoyable to listen to. And “Mr Moustache” is perhaps the best of them all, finally breaking out into a faster tempo, allowing the guitar to speak, and Kurt actually sounding like he wants to break into a more energetic vocal line.
The star attraction of the album is “About a Girl”, with almost no distortion, the drums perfectly played and recorded, and Cobain’s best clear vocal melody. It is still difficult to comprehend that this song comes from the same band and the same recording sessions, so different is it from pretty much every other song on the album.

While I did pick this up on CD at some point following the demise of the band in the mid-1990's, my best guess is that it was after the demise of Cobain, and a point at which I had played both “Nevermind” and “In Utero” to death and went back to find this album as a stop gap. I was also eventually gifted this on vinyl by a work colleague, who had a still shrink wrapped second edition vinyl on the Sub Pop label, unopened and unplayed, which he claimed he would never listen to because he didn’t have a turntable. So that was an absolute bonus. Cheers Trent.
One of the problems with re-listening to this album over the past couple of weeks has been that at the same time I have been listening to an album that was released just five days after this, one that got a far greater exposure around the world, one which I knew a lot more of on its entry point to the world, and is a far superior release in every way, shape and form. And that episode is coming up next, on Music from a Lifetime. Stay tuned!
The other major problem that this album always holds, is that there are very few people who could honestly say that they knew of this album, and had heard this album, prior to the release of the band’s follow up effort, the slightly better known “Nevermind”. Indeed, if you meet one of these people who say they DID know of “Bleach” before hearing “Nevermind”, I’d suggest you make them take a lie-detector test. So, it is easy for people’s thoughts on TIS album to be swayed by what they thought of the sophomore effort.
And to be perfectly honest, I have never really been a fan of “Bleach”. There are a few songs here that I enjoy, but for the most part, the songwriting and performance is light years better on the next album and trying to judge this album having listened to “Nevermind” for so long before that, always made this a difficult job. Especially as it really has none of the spark and energy that that album has.
So did this have much going for it? Honestly, no. It cannot be compared to the other albums the band released. It is a perfectly reasonable debut album, one that probably offered a glimpse into what could possibly occur in the future. For me though, it's an album that I might put on for a couple of songs. And that’s about it.