Live! Tonight! POLLed Out!!: The ILM Nirvana poll voting thread (Poll #69) - Voting open until Friday 6th November

http://www.sticker-dealer.de/shop_cfg/Sticker/nirvana_smileys_stickers.jpg

Please send me a list of your 20 favourite Nirvana songs (ranked top to bottom, please don't number them) - points will be allocated in the usual fashion.

Optional part: Please also name your favourite Nirvana album (this can be a comp or one of the live albums if you like).

Here's a list of Nirvana songs to refer to, anything from here is eligible (it looks pretty comprehensive):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_recorded_by_Nirvana

Send your ballots to ilmnirvanapoll AT gmail dot com, please include your username.

Polling will stay open until midnight GMT on Friday 6th November 2015.

Happy voting!

A couple of other things:

I'll be combining votes for different versions of the same song but I'll mention in the results if people have specified a particular recording.

If you want to vote for the song from the No Alternative compilation, please list it as 'Sappy' rather than 'Verse Chorus Verse' to avoid confusion with the other 'Verse Chorus Verse'...

sweet - voted. it's gotta be Dumb. or Do Re Mi

psyched!

I'll put my ballot together over the next few days, and consider the poll an absolute success if 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' places outside the Top 10.

You know I quite liked "You know you're right" at first, but when I worked out that 'they' had basically edited it into pieces to manufacture a chorus and 'structure' and that Kurt would have been furious..

Source?

https://thepastisunwritten.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/upside-down.jpg

if 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' places outside the Top 10.

I know ILM is challopsy, but I'd be surprised if it's not in the top 3.

don't think teen spirit is in my top 3 songs on nevermind

I don't care what songs come where in the final results as long as In Bloom misses the cut entirely.

u mad

I'm guessing ILX will skew In Utero > Nevermind and give the top slot to idk Serve the Servants.

I still call muddy banks my favorite nirvana album even if I always skip teen spirit

Sometimes I skip halfway into Spank Thru after I get a good chuckle. The way he sings this:

"I can't explain just why we lost it from the start
living without you girl you'll only break my heart ..."

Also the country vibe. Im all lols

Yeah, I know what you mean, it's the way he sings "heart"!

Anyway, fuck it, ballot sent. That was surprisingly easy!

listening to Nirvana for me now has almost become too complicated

Then listen to Spank Thru and get a good chuckle

You know I quite liked "You know you're right" at first, but when I worked out that 'they' had basically edited it into pieces to manufacture a chorus and 'structure' and that Kurt would have been furious..

― Mark G, Friday, October 23, 2015 5:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah, they played it live in chicago in 1993 and recorded it top to bottom in january 1994. it was definitely mixed to sound like a 2002 puddle of mudd single, but structurally it's not 'edited' at all.

The song sounds near enough as Hole performed it for MTV Unplugged.

in this thread are we throwing up bits and bobs that we like?

if so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trMiURBVd30

this thread should be an all out sensory assault imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoJ7J_uZTIE

http://bolrealty.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/1800-Sq-Ft-Aptt-Unitech-Fresco-Nirvana-Country-Sector-50-Gurgaon-.jpg

Bleach > Nevermind > In Utero imo

^ otm

Stop. There is something missing there. Now it's complete:

Unplugged > Bleach > Nevermind > In Utero

they had a few really solid tracks on some compilations, i hope don't get forgotten.

if i had to stan for one of them, it would be this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BE1KRj5iiM

Anyone here ever fortunate enough to see them live?

December 1993, Birmingham AL. I was sick to death of Nirvana at that point and was really there to see The Breeders, but stayed for Nirvana's set and it remains one of the most awesome shows I've ever seen.

In Utero > Bleach > Nevermind.

best song on incesticide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0IC1uQjHMY

I was sick to death of Nirvana at that point

JF, if Kurt had lived, how long d'ya think Nirvana had left before they became viewed as an irrelevance and were either pushed back into the realm of being a cult band with a large dedicated following or they split up? It just seems to me that some people, Kurt included, were getting fed up with Nirvana even by early 1994?

I don't recall anyone being fed up. After the coma there was a lot of concern, however.

People loved him and that band. And they were only big for 2 1/2 years. It was like a lightning bolt. It has been said so many times but he really did change everything. The dude's effect on the culture was seismic.

I don't know the ages of everyone posting in this thread, but the Nirvana boom happened between the ages of 17-20 for me and it was everywhere all the time and, even though I was really into them at the start, it/they became an omnipresent nuisance by the time I finally saw them live. I wonder how I'd regard the band now if I'd not seen that show—which changed everything for me—a few months before his death.

Gonna throw it out there - Cobain peaked as a songwriter in 1991.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but some of the tracks on In Utero were actually written around the same time as Nevermind weren't they?

Are Foo Fighters tracks eligible?

xpost:

Like, I definitely know that a demo of 'Pennyroyal Tea' exists from 1990, and I've heard that 'All Apologies' and 'Dumb' were both written in 1990 as well.

Are Foo Fighters tracks eligible?

Sadly no Foo Fighters tracks, also no Sweet 75 or Eyes Adrift or William Burroughs feat. Kurt Cobain.

"Marigold" qualifies though.

Yeah!

I wasn't old enough to be one of the smelly nirvana fans that my aunt and uncle talk about. And I never got into them until after Kurt's death. I'm a little glad that I wasn't in an age where the social/cultural/popularity impact could effect my opinion.

Gonna throw it out there - Cobain peaked as a songwriter in 1991.

― Master of Treacle, Sunday, October 25, 2015 12:16 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these are the only songs Kurt wrote 1992-1994:

Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle
Serve the Servants
Scentless Apprentice
Very Ape
Milk It
tourette's
You Know You're Right
Do Re Mi
Heart Shaped Box

+ Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip & The Other Improv

xp That live version of "Beeswax" with Grohl on drums is the definitive version IMO.

JF, if Kurt had lived, how long d'ya think Nirvana had left before they became viewed as an irrelevance and were either pushed back into the realm of being a cult band with a large dedicated following or they split up? It just seems to me that some people, Kurt included, were getting fed up with Nirvana even by early 1994?

it's likely they would have taken their sweet ass time with the In Utero follow up, but maybe not quite as long as Dre/MBV/GNR/D'Angelo.

Yeah, it's definitely possible that if they had followed up In Utero, it would have taken a while for it to appear... aside from 'You Know You're Right', it doesn't seem like they had many new songs lying around.

if i can be arsed to put together a ballot one of the tracks on flappy bird's list could be my #1

Sent.

Breakdown was something like

Nevermind 6
In Utero 6
Bleach 3
Incesticide 2
Unplugged 1
Misc 2

I was 14 when Nevermind came out and it was a big fucking deal to me and my friends.

the only Nirvana music that i got permanently sick of was Unplugged and the downtempo In Utero tracks that dominated radio for about 2 years after Kurt died -- it was just a consistent parade of All Apologies/Pennyroyal Tea/Dumb/About A Girl/The Man Who Sold The World. i could only bring myself to vote for even the studio version of one song that appeared on Unplugged.

I was 3 when Nevermind came out and discovered Nirvana c. 1999 thru Weird Al

I attribute the longterm success of Unplugged to programmers relieved to avoid playing those harsh IU tunes.

Weird Al's "Teen Spirit" cover--the video--is the only Weird Al thing I've ever loved.

sent!

I attribute the longterm success of Unplugged to programmers relieved to avoid playing those harsh IU tunes.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, November 6, 2015 10:45 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty much, although considering that "All Apologies" and "Pennyroyal Tea" were slated as the 2nd and 3rd singles before he died, it was kinda gonna go down that way anyway. maybe Kurt could've muscled a video for "Rape Me" or "Scentless Apprentice" onto MTV at the end of the album cycle.

I was like 11 or 12 when Nirvana hit, and they came at a very crucial time in my development into a surly and cynical teen. I remember buying the "Nevermind" CD in a store and being real embarrassed of the cover.

Reading about the "Montage of Heck" CD is making me depressed. They put his story about sleeping w the girl on it, the one from the movie that Buzz Osborne said was BS. The narrative pushed seems to be that Kurt was some kind of media mastermind who was artfully and consciously self-mythologizing. Tbh I am real tired of it and every time I hear about it, it just comes across like something out of the press kit for the "Montage" documentary.

It's pretty clear from the lyrics of the songs he actually released while alive that he was just as interested in tearing down as building up.

Kurt Cobain was an unreliable narrator. He liked it that way. His self-mythologizing started years before he got famous—there’s those tall tales of living beneath Aberdeen’s Young Street Bridge, for example, or the stomach condition that he could only treat with hard drugs.

I have been under the assumption that his stomach pain was real, that he had been to many doctors and they were unable to help him. It's even often cited as one of the causes of his suicide. It's not another piece of self-mythologizing like a selfie or FB post. It's not like there was a simple cure for his condition and he decided to just do hard drugs instead. But yeah about that narrative...

http://www.avclub.com/review/montage-heck-home-recordings-reveals-kurt-cobains--227634

It's like saying Hank Williams didn't succumb to alcoholism to ease his chronic lifelong back pains he invented that for branding purposes.

NVM: 6
IU: 5
WTLO: 5
B: 2
I: 2

I wish I'd remembered about Sappy before I submitted my ballot
― nate woolls, Friday, November 6, 2015 7:35 AM (2 hours ago)

might not be too late to resubmit yr ballot?

Yeah nate if you want to make any changes let me know.

I'm going to have to take a look at ballot, I haven't looked at it since I sent it!

did they add the Kurt sleeping with the girl story to the soundtrack album just to wind up the Melvins doofus? i do hope so.

Bleach - 6
Nevermind - 4
Incesticide - 2
In Utero - 8

Looking back at this ballot a fortnight after quickly putting it together, I can definitely say that I stand by it 100%

Oh, in that case I'm going to switch something too Gavin.

did they add the Kurt sleeping with the girl story to the soundtrack album just to wind up the Melvins doofus? i do hope so.

Since half the movie was just songs from Nevermind I hope they put half of Nevermind on the soundtrack too.

Swap Meet is their most underrated song by far. No idea why they barely played it live, even during the Bleach tours. Really *tuneful* song with a fucking killer riff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ysqFhPc__o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOgxpFrYT-0

It's never been a favourite of mine, tbh.

"Bleach" works best if you hear it as a concept album about the horrors of small-town life. "Swap Meet" fits pretty snugly into the narrative.

I wish I'd remembered about Sappy before I submitted my ballot
― nate woolls, Friday, November 6, 2015 7:35 AM (2 hours ago)

might not be too late to resubmit yr ballot?

Yeah nate if you want to make any changes let me know.
― Gavin, Leeds, Friday, 6 November 2015 18:49 (4 hours ago)

Thanks, could you swap it for the song I've got at no. 19 please?

Done!

If anyone else wants to vote or make any changes to their ballot, there's still time - I'll check tomorrow morning for anything that comes in overnight. I've had 35 ballots in which is great.

awesome. ballot coming!

teen spirit is probably my least favorite nirvana song. i wasn't there when it broke, i don't feel any of the excitement that 'changed music/culture/fashion/everything', it's too long, the lyrics are stupid, the riff doesn't do anything for me... i'd rather listen to any other nirvana song. *except* when it's on the radio.

― flappy bird, Thursday, November 5, 2015

i was there maaan and mostly agree with some dude's post. sounded like hardcore gone pop, which was disappointing to the extent that it felt like The Man had co-opted the one scene i maybe still kinda cared about but also kinda, if it has to be someone these guys do have a crazy rhythm section.

that said, the riff killed in "more than a feeling" and it kills in "teen spirit" too

that said, the riff killed in "more than a feeling" and it kills in "teen spirit" too

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Saturday, November 7, 2015 2:05 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dSPH9YZCCA

sounded like hardcore gone pop, which was disappointing to the extent that it felt like The Man had co-opted the one scene i maybe still kinda cared

Was it more disappointing than "I'll Be You"? (Honest question.)

interesting question -- i don't think i held "i'll be you" against the replacements any more than i held "heartbreak beat" against the furs. it was kind of nice to see them score a minor hit.

the discomfort around nirvana was different. it wasn't about the act so much as the scene. suddenly people who wouldn't have been caught dead at a hardcore show were ~all about~ what sounded a lot like a hardcore act with some poppy numbers and the media were talking about them as if they'd popped fully-formed from the skull of Zeus. but they did sound great tho :)

"disappointing" was maybe the wrong word. "unsettling" maybe...

can't bleeve you guys let The Man take a great song away from you

you'll get over it

any of you guys see Soaked In Bleach by the way? i can't face it.

i've seen bits and pieces, and well... it won't put you in a good mood

OK, I got 39 ballots in the end - thanks to all who voted. Not sure when I'll start the rollout, it'll depend on when the Extreme Metal one gets going.

=xtreme metal still hasn't happened yet?

yeah i wouldn't say hold up the results on account of any other poll. but do it whenever you feel like too, don't let anybody rush you.

i watched Kurt & Courtney for a piece about music docs a couple years ago, between that and Montage i don't think i wanna see another Cobain doc ever again.

Do post a link on this thread when the countdown starts please, I often miss stuff I haven't bookmarked! Looking forward.

http://loudwire.com/kurt-cobain-mtv-unplugged-cardigan-sells-137-5k-lock-hair-pulled-from-auction/

there's a certain glow over kurt in this performance

am i guilty of subscribing to the myth? sure. but that doesn't mean it's not anymore emotionally moving

just total end of the world nervous energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbuN55HXb2E

xp Don't think I've ever heard "Pennyroyal Tea" unplugged on the radio. "Lake of Fire" on the other hand...

OK, just noticed that Frobisher was planning to start the metal rollout on Friday so I'm going to get the results thread started later today and hopefully finished by the end of the week.

woohoo

btw, does anyone know what's up with the deluxe edition of the montage of heck home recordings that are supposed to come out on Friday? there's no listing on amazon. i'm dying to hear that 9 minute "do re mi" medley

oh, it's one iTunes, nevermind. pre-ordered!

*bud abbott voice* no, Nevermind is a completely different album!

The phenomenon of people writing "nevermind" to mean "never mind": no one actually did this pre-1991, did they?

dunno, but don't get me started on "everyday is a winding road"

feel like you could get away with it in the context of e.g. "make no nevermind"

Blast 'Stay Away' - not filler.

The phenomenon of people writing "nevermind" to mean "never mind": no one actually did this pre-1991, did they?

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, November 11, 2015 1:32 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaky_Styley#Track_listing