Essential 10: Nirvana

This edition of The Essential 10, our quickfire introduction to a wide range of my favourite artists, features Nirvana; an act that managed just three studio albums (and their legendary MTV Unplugged one) over a career that spanned 1987 to 1994.

I have trawled the entire catalogue to come up with ten of my favourite tracks by them, including a few surprises (although, if you don’t know much about them, they may all be surprises).

Nirvana came into my life, like they did for pretty much anyone who was in their teens / 20s in the early 1990s, with the explosion of Smells Like Teen Spirit and the subsequent Nevermind album. Their peak success, and untimely demise, neatly bookended my time at university; Nevermind came out the month I started (September 1991) - and their end came with Kurt Cobain's tragic death in April 1994 (three months before I graduated).

But, I didn't fully buy into them at first. Maybe I was trying not to follow the crowd - there seemingly weren't many 19/20 year old lads not wandering around in plaid flannel at that stage. Don't get me wrong, I liked the singles as they came out, but shied away from the idolisation of Cobain. It was only a few years later, when the live record, From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah, came out - that I got it... Nirvana were a punk band through and through; rough edged, raucous and on the edge of control, but it needed that live context for me to realise that.

Photo: Paul Bergen / Redferns

This also links into a bigger, grunge adjacent, post that I am working on in the background that will be with you soon...

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1. Mr. Moustache: let's start loud. Very Loud. Early Nirvana was very punk - and this one comes complete with a monster riff.. (audio only)

2. Come As You Are: apparently quite similar to Killing Joke's Eighties, meaning Cobain was initially reluctant to release it as a single (a rumoured lawsuit never came to fruition). There is a great underlying melody to this song, but it still mucks around with dynamics and volumes, like you might expect from a Nirvana song. (official music video)

3. Blew: first song on debut album Bleach, and also re-released as the title of an EP later the same year (1989). It's another very (very) crunching riff, coming in part from being recorded lower than originally intended (drop C rather D) - it ends up being quite sludgy. (live in Seattle, 1993)

4. Polly: this is one of the earliest songs that Cobain wrote (started in 1987), initially appearing on the Blew EP in 1989, before being re-recorded and ending up on Nevermind. It deals with the tricky subject of sexual assault, something he never shied away from and how he could positively influence other men. It is simple but effective - playing almost like an acoustic song (live at Reading Festival, 1992)

5. In Bloom: another quiet / loud tune about anyone shallow on the underground scene - basically some of the people they started to find in their audience as their popularity grew. (classic 60s pastiche, official music video)

6. Scentless Apprentice: based on the novel Perfume by Patrick Suskind, with the relentless steamroller main riff actually written by Dave Grohl, meaning it was the only track on In Utero where all three members got songwriting credit. (live in Seattle, 1993)

7. Breed: originally called Imodium (fellow Seattle musician Tad Doyle used this anti-diarrhea medicine on a tour they did together) with a slower tempo. Four takes were done for Nevermind, but Cobain put so much in, he blew his voice, so they went with the first take. This has everything - the fusion of riff and drumming is intense and mesmerising, and the drum roll rumbling under the pre-chorus is - ^chef's kiss^ (live in Seattle, 1991)

8. About A Girl: under many great punk songs lies a relatively melodic 1960s heart; and this one such tune, written about Cobain's then girlfriend, Tracy Marander (she only found this out later when she read the Michael Azerrad Come As You Are biography). To back up the first point, apparently Cobain spent a 1988 afternoon listening to Meet The Beatles! when he started penning the song. (live in Seattle, 1991)

9. Negative Creep: this one is seen as being the most akin to a true 'grunge' tune that Nirvana recorded. Boy it's intense; Pitchfork's Mark Richardson said, "Cobain's voice through the second verse terrifies me... I think my headphones might be breaking up from the volume only to realise that the membrane being excited to the point of distortion is actually Cobain's larynx." (official live music video from Reading, 1992)

10. All Apologies: the final track on sadly their final album, In Utero, and the second single (the last one before Cobain's death). It was actually written back in 1990 and is a beautiful counterpoint to the harshness of much of their output; again, we get that 60s referencing - manager Danny Goldberg recalled that Cobain listened to the Beatles Norwegian Wood a lot during the writing process for this one. (audio only - just enjoy the gorgeous tune)

Bonus: The Man Who Sold The World: the classic Bowie cover (title track of his 1970 album) from their seminal 1993 MTV Unplugged appearance. The great sound of this comes from Cobain playing his acoustic guitar through a fuzzbox, so it still had an electric feel to it. The performance is incredible and I'm sure Bowie would have admitted, gives even more depth than his original. (live on MTV Unplugged, 1993)