Nirvana, With The Lights Out (DGC)

Posted January 22nd, 2005 by admin

Nirvana
With The Lights Out
DGC
By: Eric Greenwood

I'm always puzzled and annoyed when reviewers say that a box set might not be for casual fans. No shit. It's a box set. It's clearly not designed for casual fans. So, casual Nirvana fans can stop reading. Geffen is either plundering the Cobain estate for any scraps it can possibly exploit, or Courtney Love needs some more plastic surgery. Regardless, this collection is the antithesis of anything Kurt Cobain would have authorized, right down to the shiny metal packaging. It's so slick it would have made him sick and fueled his guilt over his fledgling indie rock credibility.

There's little new here, aside from acoustic versions of songs you already know. Some of the early live jams are funny- like in the middle of the cover of Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" when someone yells out "do the badass solo" and Kurt Cobain proceeds to spew nonsense from his guitar. The one song I didn't already know, "Do Re Mi" was recorded acoustically just a few weeks before Cobain shot himself in the face, and it's eerie and sort of creepy to have insight into something that was obviously never meant for public consumption. And that goes for the whole box set.

Tags: review