In all the material published this month about the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind (the record which changed rock/music/the world etc etc), there was one publication which has stood out for me.
Kerrang! magazine, the go-to
organ for young rock fans since 1981, has included the usual information
about its genesis, importance and influence, but they've taken a brave
step and included a cover-mount CD this week: a 're-imagining' of the
classic album by 14 different artists, covering the tracks in order
(plus a bonus of the inter-album single Sliver).
Nevermind Forever sleeve
It's never normally a good idea to cover classic tracks, let alone
whole albums. The history of music is littered with bobbins cover
versions, and the successful ones are few and far between. Usually, the
element which made the originals into classics has been lost. The worst
culprits manage to strip all soul and emotion from the song in favour of
a highly-polished sheen (All Saints doing Under The Bridge, Madonna's
American Pie or Hilary Duff doing My Generation, anyone?).
Given the dangers, you've got to admire the chutzpah of a project
like Kerrang!'s. It's difficult to imagine an album as dearly-held by as
many people as Nevermind. And it's difficult to over-emphasise the
importance of the record; it even forced a major rethink on Kerrang!
itself, back in the day. On its release in 1991, Guns N' Roses had
produced the sprawling, coke-fuelled twin towers of stadium rock in Use
Your Illusion volumes I and II: a gargantuan testament to the excess of
1980s American musical flatulence. Skid Row, Poison and Extreme were bona fide cover stars.
Nevermind shook these bands and their ilk to the core. Honesty,
integrity and dirty pants were IN; spandex, hairspray and voting
Republican was OUT. Kerrang! and other rock mags ditched their mates of
old and suddenly it was all about Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice
In Chains and Smashing Pumpkins. I don't think I ever saw Warrant
referred to again.
Tracks from Nevermind have been covered before, it's true. Tori Amos
recorded a version of Smells Like Spirit, as did Take That, Paul Anka,
The Flying Pickets, Miley Cyrus and Nirvana's mates The Melvins. Lithium
has been done by The Polyphonic Spree and Glasvegas have done Come As
You Are. And Nirvana themselves were notorious cover artists in their
own right. Their best-known is probably Love Buzz (originally by
Shocking Blue), and there are the covers on Unplugged In New York
including Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World, but they did a couple of
dozen more over the years.
Kurt was inscrutable at the best of times, and I wouldn't hazard a
guess at what he'd make of Kerrang!'s idea (he called Tori Amos' Teen
Spirit "a great breakfast cereal version") but as an affectionate
tribute, it's pretty damned good.
Kids In Glass Houses
There are two Welsh bands getting in on the act. Kids In Glass Houses
tackle Drain You. Aled Phillips tells the magazine: "I was five when
Nevermind came out. My sister taught me to hangbang to Teen Spirit. With
Drain You, we thought it would be fun to recreate the middle eight,
where Butch Vig recorded aerosols and a rubber duck. We bought a squeaky
toy from Tesco and some Glade vanilla room spray. Smells like teen
spirit..." In truth, it's a straightforward cover, with Phillips' vocals
tracking Kurt's faithfully and the guitars blazing with well-marshalled
distortion.
The Blackout
The Blackout's
Stay Away is a more frenetic affair, as befitting the original. Again,
it's true to the original but there's a sense of fun here: the
Gavin/Sean vocal partnership gets to stretch its legs and it's pretty
brutal. Gavin even goes as far as to put an American inflection on his
lines. Rhys of the band told Kerrang!: "Nevermind was the album that got
me into playing bass. Covering Stay Away is an honour. We're a hard
rock band and this song is pretty heavy so I think we've captured the
same feeling and intensity."
For me, though, the stand-out track here is Evile's Lounge Act. If I
accept, as I do, that this collection was never going to replicate the
unified, intense, wholeness of Nevermind, then here's a cover version
that does something interesting with its material. They metal it up,
with an amped-up riff and a lead guitar of admirable squeal and squall.
Check out Frank Turner's On A Plain, Francesqa's Lithium, Young Guns'
Polly and Rise To Remain's Breed too. Nirvana: Nevermind Forever is as
close as to a quality covers album as you're going to get. But what
strikes me, on repeated listening, is that this album couldn't work
without the fact that Nevermind itself possessed 13 songs of almost
unparalleled quality, passion and melody. What other album could allow
itself to be approached in this way?
