Nevermind Review

The tension in this record is between the material and the presentation, and that tension is the whole reason it worked. The songs are simple, mostly four chords, mostly built on a whispered verse detonating into a chorus, and Cobain sings them with his throat shredded. The mix, done by an outsider brought in after the band had finished, is compressed, glossy and enormous, and Cobain complained about it for the rest of his life while everyone else recognised that it was the delivery system.

Smells Like Teen Spirit has a riff so blunt it barely counts as a riff and a chorus that means nothing and lands like a brick. In Bloom mocks the audience it was about to acquire. Come as You Are, Lithium and Drain You are all better songs than the hit. Something in the Way is a whisper over a cello and it closes the album properly. Almost nothing on it is complicated. Almost nothing else from that decade has kept this much force.