Bleach

  Bleach is Nirvana's first album and was released in 1989. While Bleach had success on a lot of college radio, Nirvana didn't blow up until the release of their second album, the famous Nevermind. I kind of feel bad for Bleach in a way, being stuck in the shadow of your younger brother must be quite embarrassing. Even if it is sort of permanently stuck in the shadow of Nevermind, Bleach has nothing to be embarrassed about. It's an album that I feel perfectly fits in to Nirvana's discography. I love how on all three of Nirvana's studio albums (and Unplugged too) Nirvana is able to give the listener a new kind of sound while staying Nirvana at their core. So many bands mess this up, they either don't change enough and people get bored. Or they change too much and completely distance their fans. Anyways, to get back on topic I think Bleach is a great album, just like all of Nirvana's albums. Can you tell I'm a Nirvana fan?

Two of my favorite songs on this album are School and also Negative Creep. I love the bouncy and hard grove on the song School that sort of melts into the chorus when you hear Kurt yell "NO RECESS." then you eventually get to the bridge were he keeps repeating "you're in high school again" which builds in to another "NO RECESS." Nirvana use their instruments to create this kind of winding tension on the verse. The chorus is the release. Once you get to it you just want to scream the, "NO RECESS" at the top of your lungs along with Kurt, and trust me I have. Besides the sound of this song I also love the complex story Kurt tells by just repeating basic lines. I didn't know this for a while but the song is about Kurt while he worked as a janitor at his old high school which, makes perfect sense and is really clever. My other favorite song on this album is the song Negative Creep. This is another really badass and heavy song. The reason I like this song so much though is because of its lyrics. I remember the first time I heard the line, "I'm a Negative Creep and I'm Stoned." I was at some tourist center in Canada and I just remember thinking that they had to be the most relatable and angsty line of lyrics I've ever heard.

One thing I noticed about this album is that Kurt repeats lines a lot. Two great examples of this are the two songs I talked about above. While this might at first sound like a bad thing, trust me it's not. Kurt has such a way of picking the perfect phrases to drill in to your skull and these repeating lines are such a big part of the albums style along with its rougher sound. I know its common practice to repeat lines on the chorus but repetition is definitely taken to an excess on this album, especially compared to other Nirvana albums like Nevermind and In Utero. Even though I mostly chose to talk about my two favorite songs off this album, every song on this album is really good. Just like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (which is the last album I talked about) I think this album is great and, I love it but, I can't guarantee everyone will. If you like Nirvana's other work or if you like heavy and aggressive music like Punk rock or even metal I suggest you give this album a listen. This album deserves just as much love as Nevermind and being Nirvana's first album it certainly has a special place in music history.