"Nevermind", by Nirvana

Nirvana! One of the most popular bands of all time, specially during the 90's, when their popularity was monstrous big, and even though they dissolved almost 24 years ago, they are still very popular.
The band was in active between 1987 and 1994, year when their vocalist, Kurt Cobain, killed himself. The most recognizable line-up consists on vocalist and guitarrist Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl (who is now the frontman of Foo Fighters). During their brief existence as a band, they released three studio albums, but today we will talk about their second album: Nevermind.

Nevermind was released on 24th September 1991 and was the first Nirvana album with Dave Grohl as the band's drummer (Nirvana had so many drummers before Grohl it almost looked like they were collecting drummers) and had four singles: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, Lithium and In Bloom.
Before the album was released, the expectations were not high at all, but after the relase of the single Smells Like Teen Spirit, which is still today considered as one of the songs that defined 90's music, the expectations grew and the album eventually became a big success, charting as nº1 in January 1992 (surpassing the long-time leader Dangerous, by Michael Jackson) on Billboard Hot 200 and it never left the chart ever since then (as of 5th March 2018, it is in 162nd, which is outstanding, considering it is now a 26 year-old record).

Now, to my personal review: Nevermind has 12 tracks and it had a couple changes considering their first album, Bleach, but not too many. The singles are very different from Bleach, but they have a lot of songs, like Breed, Territorial Pissings and On a Plain that could be easily be on Bleach. They basically continued to invest in Grunge, but didn't invest as much in Noise Rock, partially abandoning the Noise Rock/Grunge mix that characterized Bleach and investing on a not-so-noisy Grunge like it is seen in Smells Like Teen Spirit and even starting to dig into Acoustic Rock in tracks like Polly and Something In The Way. It was a nice change and it somehow came to mainstream attention, even though Grunge was not the radio's wave at all. The lyrics are typically Grunge: Most of them don't make a lot of sense (like Kurt himself said in an interview back in 1993: "I don't intentionally write meaningful stuff"), but those that make sense address topics where Kurt Cobain (who writes, like, 99% of Nirvana's lyrics) criticizes mainstream music and talks about the people who listen to Nirvana but only know their most well-known songs (now quoting the chorus of In Bloom: "Hey - he's the one/who likes all our pretty songs/and he likes to sing along/and he likes to shoot his gun/But he knows not what it means/knows not what it means when I say:/He's the one/who likes all our pretty songs/and he likes to sing along/and he likes to shoot his gun/But he knows not what it means/knows not what it means/when I say ah...") or his feelings of self-hate (Lithium is the greatest example of that). But usually Nirvana's lyrics only make sense when reading separate sentences, because if you put the lyrics of a whole track, it is not even a puzzle, because the pieces do not make a puzzle together, it's just a really big mess with 1001 different meanings, BUT there is an exception: Something In The Way. This "last track" (I used parenthesis because it is an Outro for the album, yeah, but then, after 10 minutes of complete silence, you can hear the hidden track: Endless, Nameless) has lyrics that talk about the time when Kurt Cobain lived under a bridge. This one actually makes sense as a whole.

My favourite tracks of the record are Smells Like Teen Spirit (yeah, I mean it) and Something In The Way.
Even though Smells Like Teen Spirit is their mass hit, the song that was playing on MTV so many times back in 1991 and 1992 that made Nirvana get sick of the song and they even refused to play it in many, many shows and when they were forced to sing it, they would troll people by imitating Morrissey's voice or in any other way. I don't blame them, I'd get sick of it, too. But now that it is not played as many times on the radio as it used to, you can listen to it without getting sick too easily (but still, it annoys me when people say they love Nirvana and then they only know 5 songs in the max. Also, Smells Like Teen Spirit got so popular it has one of the most played guitar riffs of all time). I love the instrumental of this song, but I feel forced to underline the guitar, which is legendary, specially from the beginning of the song to the chorus. It mixes the voice and the other instruments pretty well, showing a feel of great anger. The lyrics, even though they don't have any true meaning, they show anger as well. Even though I can't understand SHIT about the meaning, I can see the feeling of anger in there and it is transmitted through Kurt Cobain's voice. Such feeling makes me feel forced to put the song on max volume and let myself get consumed by it. The title, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", has a meaning (Kathleen Hanna, vocalist of Bikini Kill and Kurt's friend, wrote "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" on his wall), but the title has a non-intencional meaning that makes sense, considering the song. It may be pure teenage anger. That's the vibe that the title and the song itself gives me. Teenage anger.
About Something In The Way: this is, in my opinion, one of the best Acoustic Rock songs ever made. The lyrics are about living under a bridge and they were written by Kurt Cobain during the time he was homeless and living under a bridge. It also has a really a slow-timing rhythm, which gave Krist and Dave difficulties on writing their part of the song. Actually, Dave Grohl even said once that the slow-timing rhythm of the track made the writing of his part really difficult and he was forced to repress his natural inclination to pound on the drums, but his part actually sounded pretty good in there. Also, like this wasn't good enough, they added Kirk Canning, who played the cello on the track. The cello gives the track a hopeless feeling, mixing well with the topic addressed: Being a homeless man living under a bridge, hopeless.

My less favourite track of the record is Come As You Are. I find it one of the most overrated Nirvana songs and I don't get how is it the second most popular Nirvana single. I think it doesn't show Nirvana's talent as a band, as they did a weird mix of Grunge with Acoustic Rock in there. The lyrics are the usual, with no intentional meaning and the song was a mess in the bad way. The bass is not bad at all, but it is super repetitive, the drums are pretty poor and in some parts of the song you can barely hear Grohl playing and the guitar solo comes out of nowhere and I find it quite horrible. The voice was actually fine there, considering the kind of song it was, but the track is way too overrated and I don't like it.
Also, I am not really fond with the album Bleach, and I think I mentioned that there are songs on Nevermind that could easily be featured on Bleach. Those songs are: Breed, Territorial Pissings, Stay Away, On a Plain and Endless, Nameless. I will not consider these songs exactly bad songs, because I actually get why people like them (but this is about my opinion, not people's, so yeah). I am basically not fond with the Noisy Rock/Grunge mix, but I like to listen to it when I am having a rage attack, ready to break a window with my bare hands. It is a good genre for that kind of feeling. When I'm calm, I find these songs way too noisy. I mean, Endless, Nameless is such a chaos! When I listen to it I just remember the videos I viewed when Nirvana destroyed their material on stage. Now, Smells Like Teen Spirit, on the other hand,  reminds me of rage, but I can listen to it while I'm calm, but these Noisy Rock/Grunge-mix songs are the type of songs that I am only able to listen to when I am pissed off. The disorganized guitar, Dave Grohl pounding on the drums almost like if he was hitting them randomly, like "Now this one, and this one! And imma hit that, and that, and bang! There you go!". The bass is pretty nice, listenable, and the vocals are basically Kurt Cobain screaming and fucking his voice up. I get why people like it, I really do, but I am personally not fond with it.

After this review, I am ready to give you the final score of the album. Ready? You're sure?
Well... 14/20.
Why though? Well, this record is mostly good, there are some songs that are actually excellent, but most of them are not something TOO special and there are a decent number of tracks I am not really fond with, and there's one song that I found horrible. I find 14 a fair score, but I think Nirvana never really showed their full talent until the release of In Utero, which is possibly one of my favourite records of all time and certainly my favourite Nirvana release. Also, from what we can hear from the single You Know You're Right and demos like Do Re Mi and Poison's Gone, I think their fourth album would end up being even better. Kurt Cobain's suicide was a disaster to music, because he was 27 and still had a lot to show us, and I think he was about to show the best of himself as a musician, together with Dave Grohl, who was gaining relevance in Nirvana and ended up showing up the best of himself in Foo Fighters. I think this record is not even close from what they were capable of, and that makes me sad, because we were not able to see that work. And so, my final score is really 14.

What do you think? Do you agree with me? Comment below and I will gladly reply to you!