Nirvana - Nevermind

I think something that the music world needs to know is the reason why Nirvana was a great band. Not just a good band, or even a talented band. A great band - and after hearing this album there is no doubt that Cobain, Grohl and Novoselic belong in the company of the Beatles.

Part of the reason is Pop, because Nirvana is a pop band. Their appeal is firstly melodic, then visceral, then formal, and it is satisfying on all three levels.

Part of the reason must be cultural, because the subject matter was groundbreaking. Not that Kurt was much of a lyricist in the formal sense - but he had a knack for refrains that were revealing if not technically facile. But nobody had written music about how little they cared before. If anything, the history of rock n' roll was a series of ever-more-violent ways of caring. And of course the mere novelty of Cobain's lyrics wouldn't have carried if it didn't signify to a generation of jaded youths.

Part of the reason is Cobain himself, who was a personality as well as a frontman, like any proper rock star. He especially reminds us of John Lennon, whose life was submitted to the media as the ultimate art project. And Cobain the man greatly informs the music, which is self-deprecating, often darkly funny, and never cares as little as it claims because it always sounds so good.

Cobain's myth was compelling, and Nirvana's myth was compelling because it gave the new generation an ideal free of self-importance. But perhaps his cultural importance is overstated.

The main thing here is the music, which is pop at its best - tuneful, uncultured, uncluttered, and playful.

EDIT: shall I presume to define pop? Let me put forward a hypothesis. Pop is non-idiomatic, audience-oriented music. Non idiomatic as in free of a unifying aesthetic (radiohead, for example, is Not Pop. )

adam