Salami

This review was posted on my blog in september:

27th September 2011
As the new academic year begins, the populace of the world grudgingly heaving themselves back to another miserable year of toil; the music industry often delights in releasing new albums to help us through the next few weeks. Coldplay’s new album comes out next month, and I promise you I will do my best to review it for you. But for now, we have to be content with the high profile, digitally remastered “Nevermind” by Nirvana.

I’ll wager that record companies really love putting out remastered albums. Not only do they have to do absolutely no work, but also it is certain that the multitudinous legions of the fans of the band in question will be flocking in droves to buy them. It happened for Queen, and now with Nirvana. No true fan of theirs will be without it. They’d rather wander naked on to the pitch at the world cup final than admit they don’t have the remastered album.

So what is on offer? Using advanced digital remastering technology, every bite of information on their record has been meticulously scrutinised, every second of track sharpened, treble and bass balanced, EQ perfected and every last hint of sound detected and made distinct. Endeavours have been made to ensure the most flawless fidelity of every finest detail. Efforts have gone into ensuring that nothing affects the agonisingly precise balance of the music. Furthermore, a number of previously unreleased tracks have been included here, which you will learn more of presently.

So should you buy it? Is this album a relevant and important contribution to culture, or just a grossly overhyped package of artificial, meaningless rubbish being greedily milked for all it’s worth? Of every album in the nineties, Nevermind was indisputably the most overrated. It was hailed by every critic as “revolutionary”, changing the course of music and history in general. Rock and roll would never be the same.

Well, of course it wouldn’t. It had been destroyed forever in one fell swoop. If I sound harsh, it is with good reason. Nirvana had done nothing with this album other than fail to make the grade for genuine rock, and instead collapse into a clumsy style of post punk grunge which eventually resurfaced with the likes of Nickelback and Creed. The musical talent is minimal. For an example, I shall explore “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, a ridiculously overrated single that secured their fame and fortune. It can be classified as a distinctly boring song that seems processed to have appeal to almost everyone. The intro is a hurried, clumsy version of the intro to “Just”, and the chorus is preceded by the word “hello”, sixteen times. When the chorus does come, we have to put up with nonsense like “A mullato / an albino / my libido / a mosquito”. People love it because they don’t know what it means. I’ll explain what it means: it is hard to find a rhyme for “libido”, so they had to settle for “mosquito and “albino”. Critics couldn’t let out the secret that this is utter garbage, so they hail it as being “mysterious” and “powerful”. And it goes on. As I listen to it, I sink further back into my chair through intellectual boredom. There is nothing stimulating to listen to in this song. It is devoid of meaning. I might as well listen to a jet engine. It is as loud and powerful as their sound, and I would be affected in exactly the same way.

I could go on to insult “Lithium”, because its chorus consists of the word “Yeah”, roared gracelessly many times. I won’t though; because I have a soft spot for the riff, and it’s clearly a much better song. Sadly, that’s as good as it gets. The rest of the album coasts along the fine line of conspicuous mediocrity, made obvious by the self-conscious groaning of Kurt Cobain. I would explain why the rest of the album is so poor, but that would bore you and achieve nothing (like Nevermind).

Now, what has been achieved by the remastering? Certainly, the sound is a lot clearer. Since I’m feeling malicious, I shall point out that improving the quality of the sound doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of the music. Certainly in Nirvana’s case, all it has done is to make the poor quality music more obvious. Originally, it lurked behind a haze of crackling white noise, and was mistaken for a musical effect. Now, it is plain that they were just bad at their instruments, or a cleaning lady was hoovering in the adjacent recording studio and they were too scared to ask her to shut up.

For any Nirvana fan reading this wondering why the remastered sound seems to suck even more than before, I can explain that this is because all the flaws in the original recording have been exposed. Revealed are the inconsistencies for all to hear, leaving listeners bewildered, or deaf if they were too stupid to alter the volume before the chorus of “Lithium”.

And what about the new tracks? In the pompously titled “super deluxe edition”, (being highly misleading: it’s neither “super” nor “deluxe”), we are treated to the so called “Devonshire remixes”, which are rough ideas producer Butch Vig had for what the songs would eventually sound like. From what I can gather, these are either only negligibly different from the actual record, or sometimes even worse than the real thing. What could be more insulting than selling these “rough versions”, which are little more fuzzy versions of the popularly known ones? You couldn’t tell the difference if you heard it being played on the radio.

Then in the “Deluxe” edition, there’s “Aneurysm”, which is, for those who can’t remember, a B-side released with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” EP. The tuneless hollering is so bad that I could not make out any of what he was so upset about. His roaring really can get wearisome to listen too. Then there’s "Even in His Youth", which sounds almost exactly the same as “Aneurysm” but even less worthy of merit. Finally, there’s "Curmudgeon". I cannot convey how horrible this song is. The sheer rawness of the screaming, the rasping of Kurt’s guitar and the saturated production welled up into an ultimate cacophony of awful sound which was too much for me to bear to the end.

I could go into some of the previously unreleased tracks, such as “Verse Chorus Verse” (being the worst of all these), but I think that if they were deemed unworthy for inclusion even by Nirvana themselves, this indicates how bad they must be. And I was right. I honestly couldn’t find within myself any appreciation for this song, or any of the others I listened to which were previously unreleased. They were included later in other albums, such as “Dive”, the opening song for “Incesticide”. This makes it even worse, since it proves that there’s nothing new here worth talking about, save the live performances.

If you are offended, let me reassure you that I don’t hate Nirvana. “Man Who Sold The World” was a beautiful song, and I can honestly say I love it. What I don’t like is the way the media drool over “Nevermind” and squeeze all the money they can get out of it. It wasn’t good by any stretch of imagination, so let’s just forget about it.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

I hope you have found this edifying. I certainly haven’t. Please feel more than welcome to email me if you think that I am mistaken, as your opinions are of inexpressible value to me. I do love a good dose of hate mail, it always makes me chuckle.

RMR

Mighty Salami--

Thanks for the write-up. I just reviewed "Nevermind" on this site as well. In terms of the re-master, I personally don't see any value in it. Some records are better off being raw, than being glossy. As an example of this, I've been hunting for an original used copy of the Rolling Stones' "Exlie" on vinyl for a while, but everything I can find is remastered (even in vinyl format). What made that album legendary was its rawness. I do want to make it clear that I'm not comparing "Exile" to "Nevermind" in terms of music. They are not even on the same rating system, but I do think there is some value in the rawness of "Nevermind."

I'm not a huge Nirvana fan either, but I will defend them a bit. A prominent metal radio and TV show host recently called Nirvana "the most overrated band ever" on twitter, and as a music fan, I hear this quite a bit, but people often fail to explain what they mean by overrated. I don't think I've ever heard (even from die-hard Nirvana fans) that they were the best group of musicians ever, but they did bring that style of music (grunge or whatever you want to call it) to the mainstream, and because they brought it to the mainstream, they changed the type of popular music in the 90's, and that's impressive... whether you like the band or not. For me, I can enjoy a little Nirvana when it's playing, but it's completely forgettable once it's off. I scored the original release 7 out of 10, and I stand behind that rating, but if it weren't for the impact that Nirvana had on mainstream music in the 90's, I would have scored the album much lower.

Again, I'm not on any kind of death march to defend Nirvana, as they are not even on my list of favorite bands, but I think people need to recognize that they did make an impact.

Lastly, I'm with you-- I have no interest in the remasters.

__________________
RMR
My music reivew site: RMR Music Reviews

Salami

Thanks for the feedback! You are of course, absolutely right about the influence on popular music; I won't contest the fact that they were one the most influential rock bands of the decade. And to be honest, a lot of their stuff is very good indeed and I wouldn't mind some of their more obscure tracks getting a bit of extra airplay, rather than "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ad nausiam. And yes, "Exile" is much better without the glossy touch.

Your review was excellent; it got to the point immediately, you gave it an honest seven out of ten and there was an air of professional criticism about it that I admire. I spent ages listening to the damn remixes which put me in a bad mood, and hence the angry review.

LDT

s_k

That's a David Bowie song mate .
I also think that's one of the best Nirvana Songs by the way. And I don't even like Bowie at all . They did something right.

__________________
Click here to see my collection

SATCHMO

At the time of it's release, Nevermind was probably the most polished, best produced "alternative" album , (I'm choosing to actually call it alternative, because grunge as a term hadn't quite made it into the cultural zeitgeist just yet). It was released on Geffen Records, which at the time was a big deal. Very few fringe acts were hitting major labels, so the idea of Nevermind needing to be remastered is ludicrous, considering also that the production should be a bit on the low-fi side.

The new remaster is just a way for the bean counters at DGC to squeeze every last drop out of Kurt Cobain's enigmatic legacy (sarcasm) and bank on a new generation of fans catching grunge's retro rebound.

Salami

Of course. A lot of the appeal of the album is because, according to Rolling Stone, it was a "feedback bonfire". The worst thing to do is to try and get rid of it, which is essentially what this remaster has achieved.

Odyshape

I just listened to it. I don't really see the big deal everything is just more trebly to me. I personally don't like it. I find it a lot more grating and gives a bit of listeners fatigue.

Salami

They've really overdone the EQ, haven't they?

I agree with SACHMO on this: the remaster is a final attempt to wring some more cash out of Kobain's corpse by doing nothing of any real value.
Ok, SACHMO didn't actually say that, but I thought what he said was correct too.

And your Santa hat looks adorable, by the way!

Odyshape

Definitely it is like the 20th anniversary or what ever so it makes sense that they are trying to make more money. They even started making a Kurt Cobain signature Jazzmaster guitar model made to look like his custom one. Its even fake scratched and "reliced" which I think is pretty dorky.

Salami

Oh please. When they start pulling this kind of stunt, it becomes clear that music is no longer their intention. It's just yet another attempt to get our money.