BBC Review
An unheard live set makes this album worth investing in again.
Mike Diver 2009-10-23
With its title derived from a poster advising heroin users to bleach their needles before use, it’s easy to look back at Nirvana’s debut album of 1989 – famously recorded for just $606 – and conclude that all the warning signs were there. Collapse was inevitable, disaster just over the horizon. But then you listen to the record and fall in love, again, with a collection of scrappy, scratchy songs that comprised the foundation for one of the best rock albums of all time.
That bona-fide classic is Nevermind, of course – Nirvana’s 1991 release elevated the trio of Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic (Chris at the time) and Dave Grohl to superstar status, aided in no small way by the runaway success of Smells Like Teen Spirit and the reach of MTV. But Bleach is an angrier, fidgety affair; it’s the sound of a hungry band putting all they’ve got into sessions they couldn’t afford to repeat. As such, compared to its successor it’s a rough-edged listen, and the actual songwriting on show is at a developing stage, a lack of sing-along choruses limiting its mainstream reach. But the promise that sweats out from the cracks between songs, between the fractured riffs and guttural screams of Paper Cuts, the frenetic flailing of Swap Meet and the affectingly understated ardour of About a Girl, is incredible.
Cobain told Spin magazine, four years after Bleach’s release, that many of its lyrics were throwaway, often written hours before recording. He had a point – there’s not a great deal that’s especially memorable – but the way Cobain delivers his syllables is perfectly indicative of how he must’ve felt at the time: disenchanted and disenfranchised, ostracised and alone. Finding love, and seeing his band rise through the ranks, would lead to a different-sounding Nirvana on their next album, but here there’s a real sense that the writing comes from the darkest pit at the bottom of an acid-ravaged stomach. And this was before the heroin really took hold.
Though a historically significant recording given what followed it, Bleach is the least-essential of Nirvana’s three studio albums. What makes this deluxe reissue worth the money, though, is the inclusion of a live set from 1990. Previously unreleased, the band’s set at the Pine Street Theatre, Portland is an arresting listen, featuring pre-Bleach numbers Sappy and Spank Thru. Turn it up loud and lose yourself in the ferment.
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The least essential? It's clearly the best of the three! Gimme back my alcohol, gimme back my alcohol!
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Of all Nirvana albums, this is the one I go back to most. Rough and raw and all the better for it
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Yeah this is easily the most memorable and for a lot of fans, myself included, one of THE essential albums.
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A poor review which tells the reader nothing. You seem to give great relevance to something he said to spin magazine (who?). He found love? (so what!) And spend most the article giving us a biography............................................................. Why not give a proper review on the new live tracks? As for the old tracks... have they been remastered? You dont say!!!!!! That might be really worth a mention !!!!!
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I think people are overrating this album here. A few tracks are quite inspired (School is my favourite, Blew and the cover of Love Buzz get the odd play even now), but the second half of the album sounds very repetitive. Play 5 seconds of a track other than the token melodic About a Girl and you'd struggle to remember which song you're hearing. When compared to Mudhoney's debut album of the same year it sounds quite flat and characterless. If one of the other grunge bands of the time had made Nevermind, Bleach would be a fairly forgotten album. 6/10 tops from me.
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Nevermind the bona-fide classic? In Utero is the sound of a band at its peak, mixing the sound of both Bleach and Nevermind and eclipsing them both. If history was re-written, Nirvana would not have bettered In Utero.
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Some of you people are suggesting that Nevermind is not Nirvana's best album. Surely this is treason! Maybe now I feel that I should confess that I agree. I believe In Utero to be a superior record due to it's sheer quality of songs e.g. Really Ape, Frances Farmer...., Radio-friendly Unit Shifter and Scentless Apprentice.
I have to admit that I have had relatively little to do with Bleach but perhaps I'll now re-investigate.
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Nevermind was the crossover success of the decade - one of those records which changes the very make-up of popular music and it is lauded over by industry types as a result. Bleach on the other hand, as Nevermind's predecessor, is the album it's 'cool' for muso's to like - an "I was in to them before they got big" type of thing. I do accept that there are some people genuinely feel they prefer Bleach to Nevermind, but I can't hep but raise an inner eybrow when someone tells me they do.
From my point of view, I think the reviewer is correct in his assertion that Bleach was Nirvana's least accomplished album. IMO The songwriting is considerably better on both following albums. I also agree with 'lovelybuttocks' (thanks for making me type that) in that I prefer 'In Utero', as it combined the scratchiness of Bleach with the songwriting brilliance of Nevermind.
But then, by saying that maybe I'm just as guilty of tying to be cool as the Bleachophiles ;)
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20th anniversary remastered from the original tapes,sounds much better than the original release,cracking album now improved by the 1990 live set from portland oregon, 5/5 from me
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