Nirvana
Why not the standard studio 3? Because Incesticide is their best album, and Unplugged is special. Actually, all 5 albums are completely different beasts, and altogether they paint a picture of a band who cared about 1 thing: playing songs. The constant thread through every album is the complete exorcism of every ounce of negative energy infesting these human beings. Obviously it didn't work, but you can hear Kurt Cobain exerting every ounce of physical and mental energy just trying get it out of his system.
"Grunge" isn't a thing. Every nirvana album is both the exact same and completely different. They are the same because Kurt was a professional songwriter from the start; he'd revise his lyrics 30 times before he considered it "finished." Plus, we're only talking about a 4 year time span. They are different because each one had a completely different production crew and aesthetic context.
"Bleach" is basically a demo album, and it most resembles sludgy punk-metal like The Melvins. Nevermind just take it up a notch in a real studio with a proper budget and Butch Vig (from Garbage). But it connected. Everyone who heard it instantly understood where they were coming from, and recognized the unrelenting honesty of just not caring about anything anymore. It's pop but it's sarcastic, it's angry but it's funny, it's polished and highly produced but that somehow makes it more nasty. It's the Ramones if the Ramones could afford a Dual Rectifier, 700 guitar overdubs, and pay someone to watch them play with squeak toys for an hour.
Then they were touring and starting to fall apart, and every once in a while they'd get to record a few songs and that's Incesticide. It's the stuff they liked playing: covers, different versions of songs, new things. It's fantastic. If you've never heard it you have to. Now. Stop reading my blah blahs...
.... Welcome back. At this point, Nirvana is frightening. If they don't make another album, we might as well all kill ourselves (i don't mean that as crassly as it comes across). So, Kurt hired Steve Albini to record In Utero. Why? Because Albini had no interest in sponging off Nirvana. He said here's the studio time i can give you, pay me whatever you think it's worth (actually, Albini still pretty much runs his studio that way and doesn't give as shit if you're famous or good or not. He just takes pride in his own actual work, and tries to make everybody sound as good as possible). Great album.
Then MTV wanted them to do an Unplugged concert. To which Kurt replied, only if we can have effects and play mostly covers. Basically, not an Unplugged concert. But holy crap. Even the same MTV execs who argued about it admitted that it wasn't another dumb Unplugged, it was an actual unique experience, a happening, a moment in time when "the artist" was 100% right, and knew better than everyone.
Then he killed himself. There's been way too much romanticizing of the circumstances of his suicide. Whatever it was he was actually battling won. It doesn't effect my love of his music one way or the other, and the 50 million dollars his accountant manged for him at that moment didn't do it for him.
I've probably heard every stupid self esteem boost ever, like "i used to like Nirvana until i realized i was a better guitar player than kurt cobain." Eat me. I simply cannot stress this enough: the skill with which you play your instrument has no bearing on whether i like it or not. Bob Dylan can't sing, Mike Anthony played 3 note bass lines for the entire history of Van Halen (Running with the Devil is basically a pedal E for crying out loud). To paraphrase John Cage, if your child can do it, please for the love of all things earthly and beautiful encourage them to do it in front of a microphone so that i can listen to it later!!!
There is nothing artificial about the whole discography. I have countless bootlegs and demos that you could use as evidence that "they suck," but you're missing the point. The point is "this is what i hear in my head." Nirvana is exactly what i hear in my head, from "Blew" to "Where Did You Sleep Last Night." Every single moment is perfect, every song sounds right, every person who came in contact with them brought their A game, nothing is pretend or fake or contrived. Every word he screams is the result of trying all the words until it physically felt perfect, and i can feel it (meaningful or not, it's the pure pleasure of speech).
When you really sit down and listen to it all in one go, it's flabbergasting. You've heard me say all sorts of creatively critical things, but i've got nothing. Literally nothing. Every single second of the whole discography is perfect, exactly what it should be, and it's glorious.
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