Thirty years after the bands debut album, we look back at their entire catalogue.
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Like Elvis, the Beatles, andEasy Riderbefore them,Nirvana instantly inverted the status quo.
For a few years, corporate rock had to pretend to be college rock.
The band remains a gateway for new listeners, a bridge between generations and extremes.
Cut your teeth on the Beatles and Nirvana can quickly usher you toward Flipper and the Melvins.
The most effective tool is entertainment.
In 2019, Nirvana still feels eerily powerful, cathartic, and prescient.
So without further ado, heres our ranking of every Nirvana song, from worst to best.
Mexican Seafood,Teriyaki Asthma(1989)
Another entry for a comp on Seattles C/Z Records label.
But its still repugnant.
Strip is unfocused and, most damning, drained of emotion.
They say write what you know, which means Kurt knewa lotabout masturbation.
Juvenile as it was, it continued to pop up in the bands live sets well into theNevermindera.
It sounds like it.
Yet for all their aptitude for finding new emotional nuances in their covers, this one falls flat.
Nirvana toggles between clean toned and fuzzed out, unable to kick into a higher gear.
So Kurt Cobain wrote in hisJournals.
Yes, classic 70s rock hangs over Nirvana but just as vital were Greg Sage and the Wipers.
Hes not wrong: The grinding gears of Big Long Now evoke Black Flag dirges like Nothing Left Inside.
Theres a righteous amount of screaming here against a fun, if derivative, punk chord progression.
Its a high-energy if frivolous throwaway, and one wonders what a full song would have been like instead.
But few Nirvana songs slash like its cutting refrain, Daddy was ashamed.
Zeno was fond of using paradoxes to illuminate his teachings, none more perplexing than hisArrow paradox.
But outside of covers and Peel Sessions spontaneity, this love didnt always manifest in his own songwriting.
And it allowed Cobain a chance for a self-dig: The King of Illiterature is directed at himself.
I Hate Myself and Want to Die,The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience(1993)
Its a joke.
Its a suicide note.
Its the title of our new album.
We knew people wouldnt get it; theyd take it too seriously, he toldRolling Stone.
It was totally satirical, making fun of ourselves.
Or, as Cobain put it, We could write that song in our sleep.
Cobain even tried his hand at writing a Vaselines song with the guileless Been a Son.
The most charming song of the batch was a hushed number called Color Pictures of a Marigold.
The next year, it reappeared on the B side of Heart-Shaped Box, its title shortened to Marigold.
Its the first time Grohl played front man, with Novoselic on bass and no Cobain.
Instead theres what sounds like a chair being dragged across the floor.
Its funny to imagine the milquetoast Mayberry characters as sadists, yet the claustrophobic small-town terror feels earned.
Thats a lot for one song to handle, and Cobains anger feels ineffectively scattershot.
But Nirvanas cover emanates from a decidedly mossier parallel universe.
you might hear him affect an odd European accent on my heart, mixing it with some primal howls.
Polly remains singular among Diamond-certified rock-album tracks.
37, 36, 35.
Yet these threeUnpluggedcovers are captivating.
Leave it to Cobain to plumb these depths and find the dissatisfaction stored within.
In the parable, Cobain saw plenty of parallels with himself and Love.
Lithium,Nevermind(1991)
Cobains contempt for born-again-Christian mentality is evident almost anywhere you look.
TheNevermindliner notes, for instance: The second coming came in last and out of the closet.
Its an exquisite example of the bands ability to whisper and combust in an instant.
But its just withering and sarcastic enough to tuck in a sincerely devastating kiss-off to his father.
30, 29, 28.
With its repurposed Killing Joke riff (or is it aDamned riff?
It also has the best single-syllable ending: She saaaaid … duh.
And it did topBillboards Mainstream Rock Tracks chart when it finally saw daylight.
Scentless Apprentice,In Utero(1993)
If only books on tape sounded like this.
The lone Nirvana song for which all three members received writing credits, its ever-ascending guitar riff still electrifies.
And Cobains scream of Go away is as raw as a newborns primordial cry.
Yet it also masters them, tucking an acute sense of abuse and dysfunction into the seemingly simple lines.
Its one of Cobains most concise and acerbic verse-chorus-verse songs.
And I sat down for like half an hour and wrote the lyrics, and then we recorded it.
It should have been a lot rawer … Ill admit I like Cheap Trick.
Death / Violence / Excitement goes one blood-boiling scream, thrilling and nihilistic at once.
Its a faithful cover, yet Nirvanas version subtly but emphatically changes the songs emphasis.
You have this great searching, this great need to find out who you really are.
In demo form, it comes across as a jangly, bright lost song from R.E.M.sOut of Time.
The song captures Cobain and all of his contradictions sweetness and scorched earth, innocent and forever damned.
This is a great record; its just totally uncompromising, Cobain raves.
Its a bunch of drumbeats, Johnny Rotten yelling over it all, but it works somehow.
Milk It refines a Cobain theme to a whetted tip, wherein intimacy is inherently equated with parasitic relationships.
What other song could make corporate rock suddenly and laughably have to pretend it was alternative rock?
What other song sent the band to the soaring heights of fame and weighed it down like an albatross?
What other song could topple the King of Pop while also inspiring a Weird Al comeback?
Who else could make an antiperspirant into an anthem?
With its burnished-steel groove, Dive leaves you steamrolled and galvanized.
Or even a song that turns crashing on your girlfriends couch into high romance.
To put a jangly R.E.M.
Regardless, that steely hook indicts whoever sings along with that chorus next.
Its an example of Cobains ability to convey unbridled anguish and futile rage in just 15 words.
Its something that I hold really sacred to me, he told Azerrad.
Lead Belly is one of the most important things in my life.
caps the performance with an intensity that still haunts.
I decided I wanted to write the most ridiculous pop song that I had ever written, he confessed.
Cobain never replied to the gift but soon found himself amid Loves heart-shaped-box collection.
Heart-Shaped Box gets to the,ahem,heart of the final Nirvana album.
The chorus turns into an exorcism, proving that love is the drug.
It has no clear-cut chorus, instead stretching a bridge into something that resembles one.
And Cobainsscreamat the climax razes everything in its path.
That utterance of I likeyewwww is equal parts sweetheart crush and psychotic obsession.
Cobains genius lies in voicing these extremes so that each sensation hits all at once.
Then Drain You fills you up once again.
