By Louis Addeo-Weiss
June 15, 2019
When Nirvana released their debut record “Bleach” 30-years ago today in 1989, Grunge had yet to become the cultural megalodon it would some two-years later. The genre was still in its infancy, where the heroes of its time were post-punkers the U-Men, Mudhoney, and a version of Soundgarden that more mirrored the likes of Led Zeppelin than it later would Black Sabbath and Gang of Four.
In fact, on the genre’s big four, Pearl Jam, had yet to even form.
Even from the beginning, the aesthetic Nirvana presented separated them from their contemporaries in the Pacific Northwest. While Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell’s distinctive voice, which many compared to Robert Plant, frontman Kurt Cobain vocal delivery mirrored the emotional volatility of a John Lennon paired with the instrumental and lyrical abrasiveness of Black Flag and Killing Joke.
It’s been said that Nirvana never put out a bad record during their brief recording career, and while it generally ranks behind Nevermind and In Utero, there are moments on Bleach that foreshadow what Nirvana would soon become beloved for. Producer Jack Endino perfectly captured a band still in their infancy working to refine their sound.
Opening track “Blew” features Cobain alternating vocal styles from the melodic aesthetics of the song’s opening verse to the low-key screams on the chorus accompanied by Krist Noveselic’s distorted bass. While it’s not one of the group’s most memorable tracks, “Blew” has the grunge blueprint down to a science and executes it was relative ease.
“Love Buzz,” a cover of 60’s Dutch psychedelic group Shocking Blue, was at the time of its release, along with Mudhoney’s “Touch Me I’m Sick (released the previous year), a song that defined early grunge. Again, Cobain switches off from adherence to melody to total punk rock-negligence in the song’s chorus. Melody Maker’s Everett True, who would document the group and their frontman Cobain extensively over the next five years, referred to it as “a relentless two-chord garage beat which lays down some serious foundations for a sheer monster of a guitar to howl over.”
Track three “About a Girl” is really the standout moment on Bleach as Cobain demonstrated his ability to be more than just a one-trick pony, crafting heavy rock music with strong pop sensibilities. Cobain’s adoration for Boston indie group the Pixies, a band renowned for popularizing the dynamic of loud-quiet-loud song structures, greatly influenced “About a Girl” and many of the group’s later singles, including “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Come as You Are,” “Heart-Shaped Box,” and “All Apologies.”
Speaking to Rolling Stone’s David Fricke in 1993, Cobain referred to his decision to include the track on the band’s debut as a complete “risk.”
“I was heavily into pop, I really liked R.E.M., and I was into all kinds of old ‘60s stuff. But there was a lot of pressure within that social scene, the underground — like the kind of thing you get in high school. And to put a jangly R.E.M. type of pop song on a grunge record, in that scene, was risky.”
“Negative Creep” is the closest Nirvana ever came to harnessing the brutality of thrash metal giants Slayer and Metallica, though Suicidal Tendencies seems like a more apt comparison given Nirvana’s punk origins. The distorted guitar and bass are traits the group would further employ on compilation Incesticide and In Utero, with lyrics from the perspective of an antisocial-minded Cobain.
Closing track “Swap Meat” is the closest the group comes to embracing the tendencies of sludge metal, employing Cobain’s signature screams and the continued trend of distorted instrumentation. Even during the verses when he is trying to remain melodic, Cobain can’t help but sound like his contemporary Buzz Osbourne of the Melvins, another Washington area group that greatly inspired Kurt and Nirvana prior to and during their careers.
With 30-years past, Nirvana went from a bar band playing across the Pacific Northwest to arguably one of the biggest bands of all-time. And while Bleach is normally seen as adequate to its two successors, it remains a pivotal moment in the development of the Seattle-sound.
It can be argued that without Bleach, grunge doesn’t garner the following it eventually did, serving as an incremental component to a movement that would embody the ensuing decade.
