Nirvana – ‘Bleach’
At the end of the 1980s, rock and roll was still dominated by hair metal. Although the amount of teased hair and platform boots strutting across MTV may have been fun, it was starting to look incredibly shallow to a good portion of rock fans who wanted something more authentic. Something interesting happened in the underground scene, though, and a young upstart band named Nirvana were already cutting their teeth on the album Bleach.
Hailing from Seattle, most of the album takes its cues from the horrible weather. Since it rains for over half of the year on that side of the US, the hazy atmosphere is reflected in Kurt Cobain’s writing style, with tracks like ‘Floyd the Barber’ sounding like they’re being played underwater sometimes. But this is permeated by moments of punchiness.
When going through the entire album, Nirvana are proud to wear their metal influences on their sleeve throughout, detuning their guitars to unheard-of levels for songs like ‘Blew’. That hazy atmosphere is often traded for straight-up metal riffs like on ‘Mr Moustache’, which could have easily felt in place on a thrash metal record from a few years before.
Metal is far from the only thing present on this record. Cobain was always a disciple of the indie side of rock ‘n’ roll, and the influence of bands like The Melvins and Sonic Youth is present throughout this album. On songs like ‘Paper Cuts’, Cobain almost seems to use the noise he’s creating as a weapon, bordering on stoner rock with a sluggish tempo all while moaning the group’s name as the rest of the band plods along.
Cobain is not alone in making these songs jump out of the speakers. Krist Novoselic’s work on the bass could be considered the second lead instrument on some of the songs. Since Cobain was never known for his insane proficiency behind the fretboard, Novoselic often carries the song along, either getting something guttural out of his four-string on ‘Sifting’ or taking the lead through most of the song ‘Love Buzz’, a Shocking Blue cover.
Behind the kit, Chad Channing also fills out the sound throughout most of the tunes. While something like ‘Negative Creep’ might be all over the place on the melodic front, Channing helps keep the song rooted to the ground most of the time. Outside of Nirvana’s knack for writing strange art rock, Channing was more about settling into a groove than making strange sounds for the hell of it.
Most of the songs on the record give off the feeling of listening to an exciting art project as Cobain sets out to test the limits of his songwriting and see where it goes. Throughout a song like ‘Negative Creep’, there are hardly any notes being played on the guitar as Cobain flies up and down the neck in drop-D tuning, creating a disorienting rhythm as he sings about being the titular creep.
When combing through Cobain’s lyrics, most of the subject matter is archaic. Deciding to focus on the sounds of words rather than the meaning, Cobain’s lyrics reflect his instrumental choices, having to do more with stringing together words in a collage to create a specific feeling. While it might not be easy to decipher what he is on about in a song like ‘Blew’, there’s still a bit of playful humour, like ending the chorus by finding another word that rhymes with ‘shame’.
When Cobain wants to, he can lull the listener into a state of dread in no time, like in the song ‘Floyd the Barber’. It might be easy to latch onto the riff at the centre of the tune, but the lyrics are quite sinister, knicking the name of the Barber from The Andy Griffith Show, only for him to sexually assault the singer towards the end of the song.
What’s most prevalent on this record is the sound of Cobain’s voice. While he sticks to his lower register throughout most of these songs, the first thing that leaps off the speakers is how singular an artist he can be with a guitar and a microphone. The song ‘School’ is a perfect example, with only two notes throughout its main riff and Cobain wailing in the chorus. For all the bands that were sick of hearing insanely high singers in hair metal bands, Cobain could still hang with the best of them when it came to shredding his larynx.
If there’s one “normal” song in the bunch, it’s the third track, ‘About a Girl’. Set to a midtempo groove, this is as laid back as this version of Nirvana would get, as Cobain sticks to open chords and talks about needing a friend in his life that he might want to take advantage of, find a confidante in or both at the same time. While the song might have some conflicted emotions in the lyrics, the vocal melody is pure pop, almost as if The Beatles had been born in the rainy city of Seattle and listened to The Melvins instead of Elvis.
Despite its strange moments, Bleach remains one of the pivotal moments in Nirvana’s catalogue and one of the first defining moments of the grunge movement. Kurt Cobain wouldn’t stay in this arthouse-rock sphere for long, taking the premise of ‘About a Girl’ and bringing it to the masses just a few years later. Nirvana may have had a long way to go before fully taking over the world, but they would never sound as green as they do on Bleach.
