Nirvana – Bleach 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Album Reviews • Wednesday November 25th, 2009 • 9:43 am

At the beginning of Nirvana’s iconic MTV Unplugged performance, Kurt Cobain modestly warns, “This is from our first album. Most people don’t own it,” before starting “About a Girl.” But judging by the crowd reaction from the opening chord, many people did know it. At the time of that performance, the seemingly out-of-nowhere success of Nirvana had already sent indie aficionados, the mainstream audience, and angst-ridden teenagers scrambling to find the band’s debut album that was released on Sub Pop Records. Bleach was well on its way to gaining platinum certification years after its initial release. Now for its 20th anniversary, the album that first introduced the world to one of the most important figures in modern music has gotten the deluxe reissue treatment.

Today Bleach stands as the heaviest, most metal influenced of Nirvana’s three studio albums. It also contains some of the greatest tracks the band ever recorded. Whether it’s Krist Novoselic’s thick bass line on “Blew” or the staccato thump of “Floyd the Barber,” these songs have cemented themselves in the annals of rock history. “About a Girl” is still one of Cobain’s most remarkable achievements. A very Beatles-esque love ballad, it’s as close to traditional pop music Nirvana ever got.

Cobains’s introspective statements of anxiety that propelled him into the spotlight several years later are no less predominant on Bleach. With “School,” his continuous cry of, “Won’t you believe it, it’s just my luck…No recess,” is an angrier declaration against authority then Pink Floyd drowning, “We don’t need no education.” The loss of innocence is buried in “Negative Creep” as Cobain pleads, “Daddy’s little girl ain’t a girl no more.” At only a minute and a half, album closer “”Downer” packs more frustration than all its predecessors combined with Cobain’s feverish, almost incoherent ranting.

Tacked on the end for this 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition are 12 tracks taken from Nirvana’s Pine Street Theater performance in February, 1990. A well-sounding remaster, most of the songs performed come from Bleach. The studio versions of others would end up on their outtakes compilation Insesticide, including the cover of The Vaselines’ “Molly’s Lips.” The hidden gem “Sappy” pops up during the Pine Street performance and is prime example of the passion and power that Cobain embodied. For those of us that never got the chance to see him in his lifetime, recordings like this are the last evidence of the emotion his music was birthed from.

This reissue also sports an expanded liner booklet that features Bleach-era photos. These photos tend to focus on young Cobain and Novoselic, leaving their pre-Dave Grohl drummer Chad Channing to be lost in the shadows. In fact the band actually used two drummers for their debut (the other being Dale Crover). But being that most people associate Grohl as the standard Nirvana drummer, this isn’t a surprise. One interesting photo inside is of their signed contract with Sub Pop, the fine print of which would make it possible for the indie label to continue to profit from future Nirvana releases even after they signed to DGC Records.

In 1989 Bleach was at the cusp of the grunge movement that would forever change the face of music. The album is loud, angry, and hurts the way meaningful music is supposed to hurt. While it still may only be considered a precursor to the masterpieces that are Nevermind and In Utero, the anti-hero Kurt Cobain was already in full form. Twenty years after his debut album, there hasn’t been another artist in rock that has made the type of impact that Cobain had (in all respect, Jack White has been the closest but that is still a far distance). Kurt Cobain and Nirvana defined a genre, a movement, and a generation. Bleach is the first chapter in what is perhaps the last great story in rock music.