Nirvana, Nevermind
It was the soundtrack to the film License to Drive. That’s where it all started for me. INXS’ “New Sensation,” Billy Ocean’s “Get Outta My Dreams and Into My Car,” a cover of “Drive My Car,” and surely other gems cobbled together to soundtrack a zany-night-on-the-town comedy starring the Coreys and a young Heather Graham. It was the first time I remember buying a cassette tape outside of my families’ collection. Waned on my dad’s record crates of Neil Young, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan, I was not used to looking for music on my own, but the sounds from the movie were intriguing. The License to Drive soundtrack was filled lots of familiar songs covered by unfamiliar artists and it was not too far from what I heard on the radio.
Cut to the 1989 Batman soundtrack by Prince and an Aerosmith cassette and you can see the fairly barren, bland music collection of a young man. I barely had time to get my mind blown by the onslaught of Guns n’ Roses dual Use Your Illusion platters dubbed to cassette before I started seeing the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video on MTV. I don’t remember loving it so much the first time out, but eventually I bought the Nevermind cassette at Musicland at the mall and it became a favorite on my walkman. I listened to it sitting around at home or in the car or where ever. I started mowing lawn for some people down the street and the job would take about as long as one run through either Nevermind or Dr. Dre’s The Chronic.
Nirvana was a very visible band. At the time, MTV was a constant force in pushing music through videos and you would see interviews every hour on MTV news with your favorite singers or rappers. Every Sunday night would bring an episode of 120 Minutes, which may even be guest hosted or feature a performance by your favorite bands. And post-Nevermind, they created a show dedicated to the weirdo-rock that the kids were buying and called it Alternative Nation. Today, every band has a website, a facebook page, a twitter account, and videos of their first performance all the way through to last nights concert on YouTube, but, in 1991, it was really amazing to see Nirvana play three songs live at MTV’s dark soundstage or stay up late to see them play two songs on Saturday Night Live or just read an interview in Rolling Stone. That was visible for the time.
I can draw a straight line from Nirvana’s Nevermind to Pearl Jam’s Ten to Sonic Youth’s Dirty to Beck’s Mellow Gold to the Beastie Boys Check Your Head to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Pavement, Talking Heads, Cibo Matto, Alex Chilton, Pixies, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Elvis Costello, Mike Watt, Black Flag, Pussy Galore, the Jesus Lizard, Ornette Coleman, and then the spiral moving out to anything and every thing that the world of music has to offer.The key that opened the door for me and for many people my age was Nirvana. We had barely poked our heads into popular music when this sound emerged that took the ideas of rock, cut it to pieces and set it on fire, saving only the most basic elements to reassemble into their own irony soaked, rock sans excess, barely intelligible rock of a different mineral songs. They were a breed apart. Our biggest rock stars didn’t talk about groupies, hotel room destruction, expensive cars, Satan, or drug-fueled religious visions that made them strive to create. They talked about deconstructing rock, the male gaze, absurdist humor, irony, punk rock, and “slick production.” But they also made heavy rock songs that sounded great when you played them loud and shouted along with every line. They convinced us that it was worthwhile to listen to a fifteen minute long feedback jam crammed at the end of an album and that metal was massively uncool and that a rock star didn’t need to have long hair. If you were young enough to think these were new ideas then this was a great revelation.
So Nevermind was where most of us began with Nirvana and then we had to backtrack and find Bleach and then, later, learn about mail order or giving a weirdo at the record store your phone number to seek out the Hoarmoaning EP imported from Japan or the “Puss” b/w “Oh, the Guilt” split single with the Jesus Lizard. A fan had to scour the singles section at your local store to find those sweet, sweet b-sides from the Lithium CD5 that your friends hadn’t heard yet. Nirvana taught a generation how to be music collectors in a few short steps.
Then there was a collection of rare stuff, another album, a TV special with acoustic instruments, and the definitive end of the band.
After the end, there was merchandise. Books, retrospectives, live albums, an unfinished song, box sets, DVDs, anniversary editions, video game characters, and licensing songs to whomever had the cash to spend on their movie or commercial or whatever. Nirvana was like having a very close, intense, but brief friendship in your formative years. When it ends, you still have to hear everyone talk about that person every few months then years, but it’s never the same and it’ll never come back.
I don’t want to talk about shorter cycles of nostalgia or repackaging and reselling the same product in a different box, but I think it’s safe to say that a band that had the sense of humor that Nirvana did would have seen something ironic about their anniversary and deluxe edition releases. These bones have been picked clean of all their meat and then the bones have been resold. It would be nice if we could occasionally remember something without actually having to reenact the whole experience by buying it yet another time.
Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need to get back to making fun of the Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration.
