Nirvana "Bleach"

Negative Creep, though it's been ages

what is the best shit on bleach
"Gimme back my alcohol" or "cigarettes close to the heart"

"bleach" is better than "pump" by aerosmith. i will kill you.

I thought it was 'gimme back my butthole'

My guess is "Negative Creep" walks this, but I voted for "Swap Meet".

the only Nirvana album I ever listen to anymore, since it's the only one that doesn't feel suffocatingly depressing/humorless/suicidal.

voted About a Girl

I vote 'paper cuts'

What a disturbing and ponderous song.

"the lady whom I have maternal love for / cannot look me in the eyes / but I see hers and they are blue / and they cock and twitch and masturbate"

There's a song on Bleach that nods at this but I would like to see these themes elaborated on more:

"I'm going to go to the beach and I'm gonna collect some shells and driftwood
And then I'm gonna take the shells and driftwood and glue them onto the plywood and burlap
And sell 'em for lots of money
People will be paying top dollar for my kids new used new toys and clothing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa30bdEXNeM

shit i meant this version, can a moderator being delete the above?^:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z56HqQYWReI

School is pretty often my favourite Nirvana-song. Got my vote.

shit, School..can i change my vote?

swap meet has some cool math rock upbeat/downbeat fakeout intro.

"School" is my knee-jerk response but I should probably re-listen before voting.

Paper Cuts!

i would get so bent out of shape if a new band called a song "School"

school vs negative creep, went for school

school vs neg, went for crepe

negative creep. goofy and angry and a great riff.

love buzz is superb as well, maybe im not counting it 'cos its a cover.

i thought 'no recess' was 'no braincells' for a while

school

"School" or "Negative Creep" i guess. don't really care for this album, Chad Channing is lame.

Can't even decide, it's all great

"School" and "Neg Creep" both great--"how few lyrics are necessary?"......but gonna go "Swap Meet" for the pathos and the chorus

Oh I haven't listened to this album in forever. Looking at the list of songs it's more than just "the baby-steps test-run that came before Nevermind". There are some bonafide classics in here, although it's slightly front-loaded AFAICT. I voted for School but maybe need to listen to it with adult ears.

We always heard it as "Gimme back my Albert Hall"

School.

What a great record.

Blew is also great.

i'd read that weird al was an early nirvana fan -- i wonder what his favorite song off this album is, and what food-based parodies leap into his mind.

No recess!

about a roll
i need a cheesy spread / i do with unleavened bread

"About a Girl"

We always heard it as "Gimme back my Albert Hall"

I hear "Gimme back my autoharp."

or "Gimme back my mohawk"

"negative creep" is my favorite Nirvana song.

Paper Cuts

although it's slightly front-loaded AFAICT

"Sifting" is the only non-classic on this album IMO

gimme back my oval heart

Tough one. Probably Swap Meet.

"Keep the bitterness close to the heart."

more recently i've heard this as "keep the internets close to the heart"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Keeps his cigarettes close to his hard hat"

negative creep

<3

I'M A NEGATIVE CREEP AND I'M STONED!

Scoff and Mr Moustache are both brilliant, I'll be sad if they're overlooked.

Definitely Cobain's weirdest/creepiest songs on this record.

Is "Downer" not on this album? Probably would've voted for it, went with School instead.

probably voting "blew"

i always played incesticide more than this, though it's great too obv

i always thought Blandest was on here too...

I'm listening to this in full for the first time in years, and I can't decide. This is a fucking great record.

Some days its my favourite.

Downer is definitely on my copy of this album. Wanted to vote for that. Guess I'll go with negative creep instead.

it's my favorite, the only nirvana album i really love

neg creep

"Downer" and "Big Cheese" on the 1992 CD release but not the 1989 vinyl release

My favourite and the first one I bought, in my 1990 SubPop infatuation. My copy didn't have "Love Buzz", I think it was a Dutch pressing or something.

Voted "Scoff"

xpost "Big Cheese" was on my vinyl in place of "Love Buzz"

i must'ev bought the cd before 92? cuz im p sure downer & big cheese werent on it

yeah the were added as bonus tracks after "nevermind" came out

Okay wow I'm actually listening to this for the first time in years, maybe a decade. Wow wow wow! So not the precursor to nevermind I once saw it as. It's furious, catchy, just fucking brilliant. Hate to be that guy, but there hasn't been a band like them since.

Every moment is a hook. this is as accessible as anything they ever did but I always saw it as a slightly abrasive 'difficult' album when I was younger.

School vs Love Buzz vs Negative Creep

yes I eat cow, I am not proud

The back half of the album holds up pretty well imo. I don't want to see Mr Moustache or Sifting get blanked, so I'll vote for one of those, since some of you already share my love for Paper Cuts. Sifting is a bit overlong, but what a great, ugly chorus of doom.

how popular was bleach among metal dudes when it came out? i read kirk hammett was a fan somewhere.

"Negative Creep" by a fuckin mile

how popular was bleach among metal dudes when it came out? i read kirk hammett was a fan somewhere.

― Philip Nunez, Friday, August 31, 2012 6:00 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

but kirk hammett is the metal dude who always told the press how much alternarock he was into

seemed like all the metal bands/dudes in olympia liked them, but it was a small town

Bleach is hardly "alternarock" album in the same vein as REM or Beat Happening though... You could call it indie rock by definition, but it seems much more related to metal than typical college rock of the time. Thinking about it now, it's remarkable how different its cloth is from that of Nevermind and In Utero. It sounds like a different band entirely. Bleach has a lot more guitar riffage, where the following albums are heavy on power chords.

I got the

how popular was bleach among metal dudes when it came out? i read kirk hammett was a fan somewhere.

― Philip Nunez, Friday, August 31, 2012 6:00 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

but kirk hammett is the metal dude who always told the press how much alternarock he was into
--some dude

Their music festival they curated had Best Coast and Modest Mouse and Wooden Shjips

Who is they?

kirks hammetts

yeah but even way before Orion Festival or even before they did Lollapalooza i'd see Kirk interviews and go "huh, he listens to a lot of alt rock" -- i was kinda going off the assumption that he repped for Bleach after Nevermind but maybe that wasn't the case i dunno

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

At least based on doing college radio back in 89-90, Nirvana and Bleach was just another record in the stacks. Mudhoney was the cool band on Subpop at that point and people were way more into Dinosaur Jr. by comparison with similar bands.

Maybe out west it was different, but there wasn't that many metal guys I knew in Indiana in that were listening to that kind of rock. They might know and like The Misfits or The Ramones, but that's about as far as that went.

http://www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-metallicas-kirk-hammett-discusses-kurt-cobain

paper cuts at a respectable placing!

:D

I played this on college radio and yeah, almost nobody thought it was as good as "Superfuzz Bigmuff"--but "Superfuzz Bigmuff" was really fucking good!

that was maybe true at the time of its release, but i remember noticing over the year leading up to the release of nevermind that a HUGE amount of interest in nirvana had developed. by that point, mudhoney had become a little bit "yeah, them", the haircuts and disappointing debut LP doing a fair bit to dampen the enthusiasm superfuzz occasioned.

i think the summer 91 tour with sonic youth (the tour in "1991 the year punk broke") was an indication, by that point, that nirvana's pre-nevermind momentum had generated more buzz than mudhoney's... it might have been a slower build though, since nirvana didn't really have a single that got as much attention as "touch me i'm sick" .. i'm guessing their most popular song prior to "teen spirit" was "sliver"

I saw them twice during Bleach era. It was my favorite album in 1989. I fuckinh hated Nevermind when it came out. I still have never sat down and listened to it all the way through.

I turned on a lot of metal friends to Bleach at that time. None of us considered it metal, but we all found it ludicrously heavy and catchy as fuck.

A masterpiece.

Seems weird and kind of a shame you've never listened to Nevermind all the way through. Maybe it's finally time to check it out ;)

lol nate youre doing it again

But I can see how someone who loved Bleach might not see anything redeeming in Nevermind. They sound nothing alike.

no recess

Sifting you deserved better

idk if i saw this thread at the time, would've voted for "mr. moustache"

"School" absolutely killed live every time they played it. And I think they played it live more than any other song.

only one of these songs makes me wanna go fuck shit up

Swap Meet

...which they barely played live at all, but for some reason brought back for a handful of european festivals in 1992

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv8AkpP5KRI

30 years young.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_9N-o0v8Fs

swap meet is still the best song on here imo
but maybe I like it because they barely played it at all
such a killer riff though. great example too of Kurt's way with words and melody, how the verse is totally marble mouthed and beautiful, but the lines themselves are great, more than glossolalia