Worst Nirvana Song

the 2nd person to say it is cool though.

dammit

Possibly "Sifting."

Which one is "Sifting?"

I might also go with "Mexican Seafood," except I kind of enjoy the grunting verses.

I wonder how long before someone says "You Know You're Right."

are you kidding me??? that tune was so hyped it made me sick.

"New Wave Polly" turns a creepy rape song into a rockin' rape song. Which sucks.

-- Chriddof (chriddo...), June 15th, 2005 1:28 PM. (Chriddof)

I agree. That song has about one good part in it. I think when he says something about a disco quees or something. The rest of it is pure shit!

You think it might be because you're 10 years older and we live in a post-Silverchair, post-Creed, post-Nickelback world? Would you have said the same thing in 1995?

(no, I'm not kidding)

i nominate: "very ape"

No way. "You Know..." sounds like an Alice in Chains song mixed with a Nirvana song. A handful of the previously unreleased songs from the box set sound better to these ears, and they were first heard, by me at least, in this "post-Sliverchair, etc." world.

-- The Good Dr. Bill (fadeout9...), June 16th, 2005.

except for ANEURYSM, which is like, oh, only Nirvan's best song.

-- Aod Kelfer (jstsy...), June 16th, 2005.

so wrong!

oh yeah, I guess that is on the second side. True.

pretty much anything on the second half of Insesticide, really.

That's probably Nirvana's worst "side," meaning what I'm assuming was on Side B of the tape version. However, "Hairspray Queen" remains a masterpiece.

Oh, come on. Listen to yourself.

Let me nominate Aero Zeppelin

Aero Zeppelin might not be the best song, but it's a pretty cool name!

If Puddle Of Mudd was awesome.

I think I meant to say "Aero Zeppelin" when I said "Sifting."

Hairspray Queen.

I liked "Teethgrinder" a lot, thought the intro was very World Dom.

I thought that the 12" remix *must* be an awesome thing, then I got one. it's not, really.

I guess the ones I like least are the ones that perpetuate the myth of Kurt as nihilist depressive - Dumb, Pennyroyal Tea etc. I find them kinda dull, and Dumb especially seems to recycle a lot of the same tricks as played on Nevermind. Even boringer are the versions on Unplugged.

Pennyroyal Tea is intensely annoying. Kurt bellyaching about, well, bellyache

Agree with Dog Latin about those downbeat songs on In Utero. The exception being All Apologies, which is sublime.

Yeah, I have time for All Apologies, but yeah In Utero might be a great album but has some pretty wack moments. Problem is it's always these tunes that get cited and quoted when people talk about Kurt as a tortured genius. Gimme Hairspray Queen any day.

I like floyd the barber but, finding out the lyric is "pee pee pressed against my lips" made me giggle.

That thing "Beans" on the box set

Mexican Seafood has this weird on-the-verge-of-puking, stilted chorus... the melody is fun but the delivery just sucks.

I don't hate it but there's rarely ever a time I'm in the mood for "Paper Cuts", even though ultimately I think Bleach is classic.

"Scentless Apprentice"

all the "noise" tracks on In Utero blow except for "Very Ape" and "Milk It"

I love Nirvana. But I HAVE to say Francezj Farmer is a drag. Too repetitive. is orc as relive go sag jay retard is better?

Yes?

I'm going to have to ponder that question for a while

Quite a few disposable ones in the middle of Incesticide (I really like Aero Zepplin but seem to be the only person in the world who does).

Hating "Scentless Apprentice" is positively mental

Well apparently my question was not clear: Is orc as relive go sag jay retard is better?

What Neanderthal said. Scentless Apprentice is incredible, probably in my top 5 Nirvana songs (not that I have a top 5, but y'know). It's one of the harshest and heaviest rock songs ever released on a major label. An incredible performance all round. In some ways it terrifies me more as an adult than it did as a teenager. While I can't claim to have experienced anything like the darkness Kurt was going through, a bit of life experience makes that howl of rage all the more chilling. It's incredibly exciting too: Grohl's finest hour on drums, while Krist's bass - a much underrated but absolutely crucial component of the Nirvana sound - is sludgy and sleazy and grinding and grim.

Mexican Seafood is fun, especially its Sweet Emotion riffing breakdown, but Hairspray Queen is totally great. As a 14 year old listening to Incesticide for the first time I was like WTF? at HQ, but I soon came to love it. Blasting it just now and it sounds fantastic - a weird kinda Gang Of Four-on-very-nasty-drugs meets The Melvins or something. Kurt's guitar playing is great on it. It certainly opened my ears to some weird shit.

There are some pretty poor b-sides and rarities. I remember pals proudly brandishing their Outcesticide bootlegs and insisting such and such a half-assed demo was the best Nirvana song ever. But I gotta say You Know You're Right is a mediocre song and the SOUND of it is just wrong. Apparently Kurt used Grohl's guitar set up cos he didn't have his own stuff with him, and it just sounds shitty.

the best songs on In Utero are the most tuneful. "Serve the Servants" is messy sounding for instance but it flows in a way "Scentless Apprentice" doesn't. head-thudding riff imo

The melodic songs on In Utero are great too. That album nails both the loud and quiet, melodic and noisy.

mental. that riff is perfect - the sloppy, chromatic ascending riff into the battering ram singular chord, then the tension building prior to Kurt's shrieking in the chorus....chills. the concept behind the song makes it pretty terrifying, too. it's like they took some of the moments that were B pluses on Bleach and perfected them with this tune.

I mean compared to actual "noise" rock that shit's pretty tame, in terms of accessibility.

"In Bloom"

(no, I'm not kidding)

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, June 15, 2005 5:03 PM (8 years ago)

Good job, 2005 me. I was just about to chime in with that again.

'Scentless Apprentice' fucking rules. One of my favourite ever Nirvana tracks, that.

the intro is pretty badass, I'll give it that

Plus it soundtracked this so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktpNtVtXvSo

Hairspray Queen is totally great

Yes, what a brilliant weird mutant of a track.

But I HAVE to say Francezj Farmer is a drag. Too repetitive.

And this is nuts. It's dynamic as hell, and has one of Kurt's best choruses.

opinion

NO RECESS
― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Wednesday, June 15, 2005 2:34 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Last time I listened to Bleach one of the songs really stuck out as especially forecasting Puddle of Mudd style post-grunge radio dreck and I think it may have been this one.

Never heard a song from this band I would willingly listen to again

Might've been interesting to hear a fully realized band arrangement of "opinion" but the acoustic solo version is kinda whatever.

"Beans" posing as a standalone Nirvana song on the boxed set never made much sense to me. Imagining it as part of a weirdo Cobain bedroom cassette alongside "Clean Up Before She Comes" and "Polly" gives it some much needed context IMO.

Yeah, "Opinion" is just juvenile in the worst way. Also, this is funny:

Last time I listened to Bleach one of the songs really stuck out as especially forecasting Puddle of Mudd style post-grunge radio dreck and I think it may have been this one.

because, around '96-'97, a cover of "School" by a forgotten "post-grunge radio dreck" band called Another Society got a lot of play on the local "Active Rock" station in the Boston area. Actually, based on their one other song that got some play on the same station, I'd say the band straddled the nebulous border between post-grunge and nu-metal. Nobody ever really talks about Nirvana's influence on nu-metal, but I think everyone knows it's there. Attitudinally is obvious enough - Kurt's frank self-loathing and disaffection with the testosterone pumped up and minus his saving wit - but I mean musically too, and deriving from "Bleach" especially. I'll bet Korn and Staind stole a ton of ideas from that record.

"In Bloom"

(no, I'm not kidding)

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, June 15, 2005 5:03 PM (8 years ago)

Good job, 2005 me. I was just about to chime in with that again.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, March 23, 2014 1:15 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Good job, 2014 me. I was just about to chime in with that again.

god i wish jack endino got the chance to remix the tracks he recorded on incesticide. "beeswax" is such a killer song

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

New Wave Polly is the worst by leagues

New Wave Polly is awful but my hipster opinion is that "smells like teen spirit" is the one that actually ruined the band by becoming bigger than them. It became such an anthem that it made Nirvana "the most important band of their generation" effectively putting so much pressure on them that it ended up destroying them.

On the other hand: if it weren't for the success of that song we wouldn't have the intense trainwreck of In Utero that is amazing at capturing that self destruction and frustration of having everyone dissecting your every move and expecting another "smells like teen spirit pt 2".

Going off topic but it reminds me of Radiohead and Creep. Nirvana retaliated with "Rape Me" (a blatant copy in the intro riff and a fuck you in live performances of people expecting them to play the song). Radiohead expressed their frustration with "My Iron Lung" and OKC.

Both In Utero and OKC wouldn't exist without that pressure.