intercourse with biscuits a modern miscellany

Oh now will you look at that, it’s another day and I’ve found another article on the Internet that’s got me kicking the rubbish bin with frustration. Don’t worry though, it’s not Twitter-induced rage this time. Nope, it’s Luke Lewis’s attempt at puncturing the “myth” of Nirvana and Nevermind.

Now clearly Luke was set a task here – this is a slaughtering the sacred cows sort of piece but it really tweaked my pips. The central contention is this:
I think it’s puzzling how quickly those songs have been leeched of their power through over-exposure. It’s a weirdly time-bound record – which, I’d argue, exposes an inherent shallowness in the songwriting.

I can’t stress how wrong I think Lewis is here. He’s more wrong than a banana and broken glass sandwich, more wrong than the thought of John and Edward winning X-Factor, more wrong than the vision of Margaret Thatcher in suspenders and a peep-hole bra. Yes, that wrong.

And I’ve got two main ways of proving that his first point is that wrong. Take Nevermind to any indie disco in the country on a Friday or Saturday night. Throw on Come As You Are, Lithium, Smells Like Teen Spirit, even Territorial Pissings and something alive and visceral will happen. The crowd will go mad.

Secondly, look to Unplugged In New York and its stripped back versions of Come As You Are and Something In The Way. The essential strength of the songwriting shone through even with the much discussed production stripped back.

And on the subject of that production, Lewis does the classic rock critic thing of obsessing about it without truly giving Kurt Cobain for writing those melodies in the first place.

No sooner had the album hit Number 1 in the US than Kurt Cobain was claiming to be “embarrassed” by its slick production. “It’s closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record,” he complained. Like so many Kurt declarations, this was profoundly disingenuous: Butch Vig recalls him practically cart-wheeling with joy across the studio floor when he heard the final mix of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

Kurt Cobain was an intensely conflicted individual when it came to “fame” and the trappings that came with it. He did love Abba and Scratch Acid, Celtic Frost and The Smithereens. That duality is part of what means he’s still a baffling and fascinating figure. 

When Luke quotes clearly ironic comments (“I’m a rock star. Give me blow jobs”) as  proof of Cobain’s mad egomania, he’s doing him a disservice. We’re talking about a guy here who killed himself because he couldn’t cope with the idea of being somehow inauthentic.

Next we get on to the lyrics which Lewis dismisses as “pseudo-medical gibberish”. Rock writers, enamoured as they are with words and myth and legend, often have this attitude to lyrics.

Unless they tell a simple story that they can latch on to, they are dismissed. At points Nevermind’s lyrics can seem hackneyed but at others like on the haunting Polly or Lithium’s evocation of deep depression, they are still genuinely affecting.

And as for the now traditional attack on Cobain’s myth-making tendency (the bridge of Something In The Way is a fictional construction, he almost certainly did not sleep under a bridge ever) is a cheap shot.

Myth has always been a part of rock’n’roll, self-created or otherwise. Joe Strummer went from the son of someone in the diplomatic service to a rock insurrectionary. His deception does not reduce the worth and power of the Clash.

Finally, Lewis’s anger at the claims that Nirvana and Nevermind “changed music forever” is not unwarranted but Cobain never truly claimed that he had achieved that. And while it’s possible to point to a wave of grunge-lite bands like Nickleback, acts like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden are as guilty for their existence as Nirvana ever were.

The entire concept of “sweeping away the old guard” is a hold over from punk and it is entirely bogus. Punk didn’t kill off prog or the Rolling Stones, it simply created an alternative.

If Lewis no longer feels a rush when listening to Nevemind, that’s a sad thing for him. It is still a classic record (though arguably less powerful than its successor, In Utero) and the hundreds of teenagers who ever year discover the anger and energy of Nirvana show that they remain relevant.

If Lewis truly believes Nevermind and Cobain are no longer relevant, he’d better lobby against the next time NME decides to give them a cover.