Nirvana

B: Ermagerd, every day just gets worse and worse. It's like everybody's minding everybody else business but their own and then getting mad that their own stuff isn't working out. 

Iowa politicians are on my 5:45AM radio cummute saying they're determined to ban and i quote "gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy" because they're upset about a future where i guess millions of people regret having elected to have these procedures. 

First of all, it's not your job to protect us from our own well-informed choices, it's your job to help ensure that we are being well informed, as opposed to being manipulated and confused for profit. Ain't nobody being tricked into the long and documentedly arduous process of changing their bodies to match their deep intrinsic psychological identity. Quite the opposite. 

Second, you're kind of equating medical doctors, therapists, and surgeons to drug dealers and unscrupulous tattoo artists and monorail salesmen. I've always been under the impression that your own standard "not my problem" phrase is "buyer beware." 

Third, you're saying nonsense in relation to an imaginary problem. Granted, i'm angrily yelling at my car radio like an observable lunatic, but it's completely prompted anger, it's a response to hearing stupid things being broadcast across the air waves on a daily basis. 

Fourth, like every other similar issue, this is ultimately about governmental regulation of the medical industry, and your position is that the government should determine what licensed medical professionals may or may not do in service to their patients. I would consider it common sense that that equates to more government, more law enforcement, more and stricter punishment for any whimsically defined amorality, less freedom, less liberty, less compassion for everyone. 

I am angry. You're using your position of authority to bully anyone you deem morally reprehensible; gain an inch and move on to the next demographic supposedly in need of persecution. You represent everyone who places an R after their name like it's a professional credential bestowed upon the righteous, publicly spewing scripted garbage into everyone's brains instead of attempting to uplift, educate, and/or meaningfully unite the general public toward any sort of common good, and it sickens me to the core. 

Somewhere down deep is a rational person who can distinguish between what actually affects you and what doesn't. I implore that person to keep their arms and legs and malfunctioning brain thoughts inside the vehicle at all times.

E: so you're defending the trans community? 

B: of course i am. I will defend anyone attempting to live their best life on their own terms for themselves in peace and happiness. The gender, sexual orientation, preferred pronouns, clothing preferences, desire for monogomy or polyamory, etc. of other people has no effect on my life whatsoever. Obviously there are interpersonal lines that everyone can and should refuse to cross, anything that constitutes abuse or non-consenting physical/psychological force, but so long as those boundaries are respected i say love who you love and be who you want to be. You don't need my permission, and you certainly don't need my rebuke. I may not want to be a participant, but as long as you aren't objectively hurting someone else i have no argue. 

Marriage to me is the legal and economic commitment to a monogomous relationship, but marriage can mean something totally different for you. That's where a social scheme that accommodates both of our differing views comes into play. You be you, i'll be me, neither of us demands anything more than common courtesy out in public and everything will be as good as it can be. 

E: but what will people think? 

B: they'll think i'm an opinionated person. Anyone who disagrees with my perspective either doesn't understand the concept of minding your own business or else is a person who i think needs to be told in no uncertain terms what my opinion actually is.  Last time i checked i am not a highly revered or particularly famous person selling my words for the advertising profits they generate. I'm perfectly happy being rude about how serious understanding, tolerance, and compassion really are. We're cool as long as your not trying to take advantage of me, but don't ever mistake that for aiding and abetting. 

Funny semi-sequitur, i don't know if it's completely true or not, but the story is that one time Joe Rogan agreed to be the special guest on an episode of Maron. The writers included a lot of things he said in published interviews and he rage quit saying they were trying to make him look like an idiot. I'm the opposite of that, i think a lot before i open my mouth and say everything with a high degree of intention and awareness. 

You have to remember that a lot of these people are out there specifically defending their right to be bigots. That's their choice, their intention, and more antagonism is exactly what they want because there's no such thing as bad press. Saying highly specific bigoted things is a highly effective and apparently lucrative marketing strategy. They often claim to be ardent defenders of "free speech," but what they really mean is "i should be allowed to say whatever my audience will pay to hear me say whether it's true or i believe it myself or not." 

C: why do i feel like you're leading up to an album? 

B: because that's what i do, only this time i'm intentionally going to say all sorts of speculative stuff and then proceed to find out whether i'm right or wrong. Things i'm right about are kind of useless, but things i'm wrong about i will make special note of, try to absorb and use in the future. Granted, it's going to be album specific, but i'm nothing if not a demonstrable expert at listening to albums. 1,014 is an objectively high, and highly underrepresentative number. 

We have to talk about the coincidences first, though. I mean, i was already at Target for a different thing, so i was gonna buy something to write about, but the fact that all this LGBTQ stuff happened right around David Bowie's androgynous Rock Star persona (Bowie himself a "B"), and today's selecting an inarguable reluctant (though not at all androgynous) Rock Star who died way too young and has a David Bowie song on it is ridingadangdonculous. 

Ok, enough foreplay, here's a thing called "Nirvana." 

Nirvana: 

This is the fairly infamous 2015 compilation album published in the wake of settling a lot of publishing/legal blibbityblabbery. All sorts of boxed sets and demos and unofficial things had been published in the intervening decades, but this was kind of the official "You Know You're Right deserves a proper album to be on" kind of thing. Kurt left a fair few mostly finished songs behind. Courtney played at least one but possibly 2 at the Hole Unplugged show, gave 1 to Michael Stipe, and Nirvana finished recording a vocal demo of You Know You're Right. You might vaguely remember that tribute concert where Lorde wore a sparkly suit and sang Lithium around that time. We'll find out if  that's correct or if i'm talking out of the wrong orifice later, for now we flip it over and wildly speculate about the track list. 

I almost don't think you could really call this a Greatest Hits album. I don't say that to be argumentative, i just mean that a quick glance at the track list gives this a more "quinessential" vibe. Yes they are all "hits" in the generic sense of the word, but it feels more like this one record is intended to be a kind of summary of everything Nirvana really was throughout their entire and comparatively short career. 

What i don't know is where the recordings came from. Are they new or weird? Are they just ripped from the original sources, and if so has there been any attempt to try to make them sonically inhabit the same space? All the albums are represented, but what actual versions am i going to hear? I guess in short, is this an honest compilation intended to represent the thing we all call Nirvana, or is it really just one more revenue stream to milk as many dollars as possible. It could legitimately be either. 

I normally wouldn't bother at all, but since this entire batch was about me ranting at the deplorable state of corporate media and this was literally the only newly appearing album on the shelf i was willing to buy, i feel compelled. I have the originals and random bootlegs, i don't need another Nirvana comp. Anywho, on with the actual research from first hand listening and 3rd hand wikipedia graffiti (and possibly primary sources if i get all confuddled). 

I won't bash on the liner story, except to say this is an obsessively old school record in the sense that it's presented as David Fricke's Nirvana, the standard executive spiel kind of thing. Except it was written in 2002 while the copyright on the back is definitively 2015. Took 13 years to get this published? When did You Know You're Right actually get released? 2002 seems about right because this song is lodged in my brain inside my '77 blue and white Chevy van in the front Administrator parking lot at the OCU School of Music. Idetic memory territory, that one. Ah, ok, it is actually from 2002, but they didn't publish it on vinyl until 2015. I can live with that. Also, apparently, the lead off track wasn't a posthumously manufactured thing, it really was the last song Nirvana ever recorded all together and it took the whole day. See? My memory isn't perfect after all (except that was definitely the explanation i was supposed to receive at the time; 21 year old gaslighting at its finest, which reminds me i saw a picture a while ago that both spellings of Barenstain Bears actually did appear in physical reality; still no Sinbad genie movie, but that's not important). 

Ok, now actually listening, i promise. Last song first, first song that was originally track 3 2nd, then all the quintessential stuff in between. Wasn't wrong in that perception, we'll get treated to the version of Pennyroyal Tea the way "Curt wanted to hear it." Press play.... 

You've all heard the first track.

Bass is way up on About A Girl. I like it. 

Been a Son is definitely a mix i've never heard before. 

Sliver is tweaked a little, but mostly normal. These are all much darker mixes than you might expect. Some of that is sounding good on vinyl, but some is just knob twisting and fader sliding for the sake of it. 

Smells Like just straight off Nevermind without any adjustment at all. 

Yeah, the rest is just straight from Nevermind. Not gonna lie though, this is a mighty fine sounding record. Side A flows as well as any random selection of Nirvana songs; they certainly aren't chronolocked in any kind of instrinsic musical or lyrical order, and you can make your own just as good comp from any of your favorites in that respect. 

Side B starts off fine, but i am not in the slightest bit impressed with this mix of Pennyroyal Tea. Maybe the In Utero and Unplugged versions are too ingrained for me to set aside, but on first listen i hate every single thing about it, the background chorus in my left ear, the acoustic guitar part, the nauseating doubled chorus, the grunts at the end, just blech. 

Rape Me is back to normal though, so that's fine. 

Dumb, All Apologies, and The Man Who Sold the World are all the Unplugged versions. I'm fine with that even though it is a bit of a large shift to a noticeably more raw/live sound. 

I mean, this is definitely a good compilation, and it is completely listenable from start to finish. It's much sadder than i expected, though. I don't think this is a celebratory compilation, or if it is it's of the funereal persuasion. This is a grieving album, and in a way it ends without any catharsis at all. Maybe you'll hear it different, i don't know. 

Now for the fact checking. That concert was their 2014 hall of fame induction, so i was pretty darned close. However, St. Vincent did Lithium, Lorde did All Apologies in a pink suit. Now before you get all "horseshoes and hand grenades isn't close enough, Bottle," you should know that i've never actually watched that induction ceremony, i just have the briefest of snapshots from like a commercial or youtube thumbnails. I seem to recall Krist was wearing a porkpie hat or something? Did any of those covers sound good? Dunno, still haven't watched any of it and i don't plan to. 

I guess the point of all this is that if you're the man who sold all her Nirvana albums a long time ago but suddenly wishes you had some Nirvana in your record collection and this is all you can find it's totally fairly ok and enjoyable. Conversely, if you're the kind of bigoted jackass who picks on anybody who doesn't meet your standards of "pay back your debt with your birth-genetalia!," then i'm not gonna be much help.

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