On Nirvana, rage, Rage and Lost

Appropriately enough, considering my current Jack Shepard beard, I found myself driving home the other day while listening to Nirvana's “Scentless Apprentice,” similar to how Jack is driving in a season finale of Lost. Well, minus the being loaded on booze and Oxycontin part.

You might note that this is not normally a tune you hear on the radio, and if you've been in my car or seen the interior of my lovely white 1998 Corolla, you might note that I only have a tape deck. This is correct – One of the few tapes I have and have kept is Nirvana's From The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah.

This was released about two years after Cobain's death, and it isn't considered one of the band's stronger works. It is an odd mismash of live performances, and included tracks from Bleach to In Utero. While it is not as artistically strong as Nevermind or In Utero, as emotionally raw as Unplugged in New York or as rough and scratchy as Bleach, it is a nice sort of sampler platter of everything Nirvana has to offer. It is also the only "official" live, non-acoustic album they have, excluding the "new" Live at Reading, which was just released in November.

While I was re-listening to the album, I was struck by how aggressive and emotional Nirvana still sounds, while still having an ounce of harmony. In recent years, there has been a bit of a backlash against them for not being refined musicians. This kind of obscures the fact that Nirvana was never really about musicianship – It was all about aggression and emotion.

I think this is why they still hold up more to me than, say, Rage Against The Machine. In a previous post, I talked about how Nirvana wasn't really a band of my generation, and about how most of my friends didn't listen to Nirvana. I know this because I loved Nirvana, and outside of my friend Eric, my friends didn't. By this time, people had moved on to the far past (The Clash, The Pixies), the fringe (Fugazi, obscure local punk and hardcore bands that no longer exist), the classics (Skynard, Zeppelin, The Band) and the more alternative mainstream (Oasis). I was 7 when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Nevermind came out and 10 when Cobain died.

I loved Nirvana, and still do, because it personally resonates with me. I was a bit of a surly kid as I graduated from middle to high school, which my grades reflect – I stopped caring a lot, and stopped doing a lot of classwork. I was lucky in the sense that I'm sharp enough to still do well on or pass tests despite not studying. I straightened up in college, finishing it with a 3.2 GPA, but I'd estimate my high school GPA as about a full-point lower, in the low-2s. I never really dressed the punk part, although I might have made an inadvertent attempt because we were too poor at times for brand new clothes each school year.

I never got that "Nirvana" feeling from a kind-of-similar band, Rage Against The Machine. Both were about alienation, but Rage's political activism turned me off a bit. I honestly did not give an S about most of their causes; I just cared about the music. Nirvana didn't require thinking - It required yelling and screaming along. There is something cathartic about that.

Rage still had some great songs that I liked, primarily almost all of Evil Empire. That's still an album I love. However, I'd rather listen to any of the major Nirvana releases over it. Cobain was howling about pain on an individual level, which always strikes me as more personal than Rage's societal list of grievances.

Oh, and just wait for my future post, teasingly titled: The world's last Limp Bizkit fan.

Buy My Crap!

This post is a little light, but hey, you got plenty of content yesterday and Friday to sort through, so whatever! I might as well pimp the game I'm selling on eBay, which would be Guitar Hero 5. You can see the listing for it here. It doesn't come with the instruments, or the Van Halen game coming out soon.

You will also be glad to know that you don't have to worry about Courtney Love coming to your house and assaulting you for Kurt Cobain on vocals for inappropriate songs. That's because in my rock band, Election Fraud, he is on the drums. He was on bass before, but then I got Johnny Cash, so I moved Kurt to drums. Shirley Manson is my singer, and we all know how much more talented she is than the former frontman for Nirvana.

The image of Johnny Cash is taken from IGN here.

iTunes Running Diary – Monday, August 31

This week's artists.

First, a procedural thing. To better comply with Twitter, and my own schedule, I'm going to switch these to Monday night. Monday is the big music day on Twitter, and since this is generally one of my more popular and easy-to-do weekly features, it doesn't make much sense for me to bury the entries on Sunday nights.

And secondly, to test out the new iTunes and my new computer, I used the Genius application. It is supposed to create a playlist from a song of your choice by analyzing your library and deciding your other tastes. I used it on a past iTunes diary song, "Chelsea Dagger" by The Fratellis, and the playlist it suggested was pretty decent.

- "Everything Is Average Nowadays" by The Kaiser Chiefs. I don't really have any idea of how popular the Chiefs are. As far as I know, my friend DJ (who appropriately loves music) is the only other person who listens to them.

They play "kind-of" rock-ish songs; I'm not entirely sure how to describe them. They fit in that nebulous category with Modest Mouse, The Killers and TV On The Radio, in that they aren't quite hard rock or alternative, but they're not emo or techno or anything like that. Has there been a good category for these bands yet?

- "Live Forever" by Oasis. When I was in high school, I didn't really appreciate Oasis that much. In reflection, I think it was because a couple songs - "Wonderwall" and "Don't Look Back In Anger" especially - were played incessantly on the local radio stations.

While by any stretch of the imagination they aren't The Beatles, the band they seemingly emulate, their deeper tracks are quite enjoyable. "Live Forever" would be one example, as would Guitar Hero and Rock Band track "Some Might Say." Even their title track, "Morning Glory," is good because it wasn't over-exposed with radio play.

- "Lithium" by Nirvana. This one seems a little out-of-place with the rest of the playlist, but hey, maybe that's the idea? It does seem the song with "hardest edge."

Although I fondly remember Nirvana from my youth, I was also way too young to really appreciate / understand it. For example, I had no idea what *this* song was about, and because I was about 8, I couldn't really relate with the angst of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Despite that though, I could still recognize that it was a really great song, which I didn't realize with Led Zeppelin at the same period of my life.

Because of this, it does make me question the "backlash" that Nirvana has gotten in recent years. Yeah, the music is kind of simplistic, but if it still made 8-year-old me stop and realize it was something special, then it has to have some redeeming value.

- "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" by Cage The Elephant. I'm not really sure where this band came from, but man, they sure are catchy. Yet, they still have a bit of an edge to them. The two local stations I listen to - 95.5 WBRU and 94.1 WHJY - both play them, even they are alternative, college and modern rock, and hard rock and hair rock, respectively.

They also have more than just this song, as a second single, "Back Against The Wall", is just as catchy. I think both songs should be retroactively placed on the There Will Be Blood soundtrack, but that's just me.

- "Heroes" by David Bowie. Genius actually spit out two Bowie songs for my playlist, but that could be because I have like 30 or so in my iTunes library.

Nonetheless, this is a great song, and it even has a pretty good cover by Bob Dylan's son. I do prefer the Bowie version though, because it seems less preachy. I could be saying that because the cover was a tie-in to the horrible Godzilla movie with Matthew Broderick...

- "Pump It Up" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. This is the final song on the playlist of 25, and it seems like a 1980s version of the artsier, modern rock also on the list.

Not surprisingly, this is another suggestion from Rock Band, since I'm not the biggest Costello fan in the world. The only other song I have from him is "Radio Radio," and mostly because of the SNL connection.

The full list picked by Genius: "Pinball Wizard" by The Who. "Dashboard" by Modest Mouse. "Wolf Life Me" by TV On The Radio. "Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)" by Lostprophets. "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" by Ida Maria. "Do What You Want" by okgo. "Troublemaker" by Weezer. "Reptilia" by The Strokes. "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie. "Daylight" by Matt and Kim. "Heinrich Maneuver" by Interpol. "You Don't Know Me" by Ben Folds. "Sunshine Of Your Love" by Cream. "The Angry Mob" by The Kaiser Chiefs. "The WAND" by The Flaming Lips. "Do The Panic" by Phantom Planet. "Cannonball" by The Breeders. "Train In Vain (Stand By Me)" by The Clash.

David Bowie is the F-ing S

After a lot of careful thought – about 20 minutes – I've decided that if I could trade my musical career (none) with any successful artist's, it would be David Bowie. He was unquestionably cool during his musical peak, and he still is cool now, which is why shows like The Venture Brothers can cast him as the leader of the Guild of Calamitous Intent and get away with it.

In fact, David Bowie has so many hits that you probably don't realize how many hits he has. Here are hit singles and songs I've heard on mainstream radio, that you've probably also heard and never realized he did:

“Dancing in the Street.” “Modern Love.” “Blue Jean.” “Let's Dance.” “Under Pressure.” “Heroes.” “Fame.” “Golden Years.” “Knock on Wood.” “Sound and Vision.” “Young Americans.” “All the Young Dudes.” “The Man Who Sold The World.” “Changes.” “Life on Mars?” “Suffragette City.” “Rebel Rebel.” “Space Oddity.” “Starman.” “The Jean Genie.” “Never Get Old.”

That is 20 songs right there, and if some of those are debatable to you, just replace them with your personal favorites that I left out, like “Ziggy Stardust” and “Diamond Dogs.” Quite simply, you will be hard-pressed to name other bands with such a vast, expansive repertoire. Other bands or artists that I at least considered swapping places with:

- The Beatles. Like David Bowie, The Beatles have a slew of hits. However, I'm kind of narrow in my thinking; I want to trade places with just one person. And since I'm somewhat vain and egotistical, I'm not sure if I'd want to split credit like Lennon and McCartney do. Even George Harrison has at least one insanely catchy solo pop ditty.

As a result, the Beatles almost feel like an unintentional superband. McCartney is still cranking out hits by his lonesome and Lennon was a supernova once he left the group.

- Queen, Weezer and the Beastie Boys. Because they're all made up of multiple members, I have to lessen their accomplishments ever so slightly. Queen's Freddy Mercury was the closest competitor to Bowie's crown, except that I like Bowie's overall catalog a bit better. (This also overlooks that Freddy Mercury died of AIDS and liked boys.)

Queen has a lot of F'ed out, overplayed pop rock shmaltz that hasn't held up well to me. I'm specifically referring to “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions,” which are always played 50 million times at any sort of sporting event.

Some of Queen's best work is also, well, downright odd. “Fat Bottom Girls” and “Bicycle Rice” are incredibly catchy tunes, but they're somewhat like Weezer (another band I mentioned in this paragrah) in that the songs won't really appeal to all audiences. They feel a bit too much like nerd rock.

The same applies to the best of Weezer's arsenal, for which the term “nerd rock” was coined, after all. I love all of their songs, from the Pinkerton tracks “El Scorcho” and “Falling For You” to the obvious pop bait like “Pork and Beans,” “Buddy Holly” and “Keep Fishin'”.

- Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Sublime and The Doors / Jim Morrison. All of them are great, and all of them are dead, which I'm not really into. Overlooking this aspect, their premature deaths prevent them from possibly joining either the preceding or proceeding groupings...

- Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots. If we were doing this list after initial albums, based on potential, then both these bands would rank highly, much like Ben Grieve would after his stellar debut for the Oakland Athletics in 1998. Unfortunately, Pearl Jam kept making weird, artsy records instead of doing good alternative rock, and Stone Temple Pilots fizzled out as Scott Weiland got hooked on heroin.

- Beck, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. Awesome artists, except that they're not that varied or commercial successful. If I want something besides industrial from NIN, I'm shit outta luck.

- KISS and The Eagles. The opposite of Beck and Radiohead, both these bands are hugely commercially successful, but not really that deep or critically acclaimed.

- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, Queens of the Stone Age, Interpol, Girl Talk and The White Stripes. All these are somewhat new bands that have had some great releases, but do they have staying power? Can they change styles and stay fresh and still stay commercial and critically awesome?