![]() Beyond padding the release to box-set length, why include a sub-Barlow stab at four-track tape manipulation ("Beans"), two versions of "Polly" to go with the four already released (every Nirvana record on Geffen except In Utero features this middling song), two demos of "Rape Me" showcasing Cobain at his self-conscious worst, and a number of live tracks that sound like they were recorded on overused speech cassettes? If tossed-off experiments and poorly recorded demos of familiar songs are fair game, one imagines the Nirvana vaults stretching into bottomless "Dick's Picks" infinity. Simply put, there's enough good stuff here for a solid single disc. So, first, the bad news: Those hoping for a trove of overlooked gems will be disappointed, as too much of With the Lights Out sounds like nothing so much as a dull-edged instrument lifting flakes of material from the bottom of a barrel. It's a scruffy hodgepodge of solo acoustic and full-band demos, radio shots, and live recordings, hugely variable in terms of sound, songwriting, and performance quality. Only nine of the set's 51 tracks have been previously released (though many have been bootlegged), and those are culled from B-sides and compilation appearances. Now the long-awaited box arrives, bearing three music discs, a live DVD, notes by Strauss and Thurston Moore, a wonderfully obsessive recording history (though no discography), and ugly metallic packaging that would have made Cobain, an accomplished visual artist, throw up. Nirvana did little to bolster the band's legacy, though, and with its lone new song, the collection- otherwise pulled from a tiny catalog- was most often discussed to explain the appeal of illegal file-sharing. ![]() Eventually, Love was granted her wish to release an eponymous best-of complete with "You Know You're Right", considered the cream of the then-unreleased crop. A box set containing a promised mother lode of unreleased recordings was first discussed a few years ago, but it was delayed by legal squabbles. But Nirvana was the global rock band for a few years not so long ago, so if it's true that Generation Z is ambivalent at best, well, that seems a little strange- especially considering how much every popular American rock band- the P.O.D.s and Linkin Parks, for example- owe them.Īfter allowing Nirvana to lie fallow for almost a decade following the release of the live album From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Courtney Love are now working to reverse this trend. Usually, this sort of unscientific rock crit device involves bands like The Replacements and is meant to demonstrate that, despite perceived greatness among fans, the group in question was denied access to the big time. Journalist Neil Strauss tells a similar story in the book included with this odds 'n' sods box set, of polling teenagers in a California record store and realizing only about a third of them had knowledge of Cobain & Co.
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