A Cobain/Grohl/Novoselic Induced Musical Orgasm

I've spent the last hour just lying on my back, on my bed, with my legs crossed, staring at the ceiling, and listening to Nirvana's In Utero.

Every few years or so, I get a bit restless with my music, and I can't ever seem to find the right song/album/playlist. And for a while I scour my old reliables (Sia, Aqualung, Muse, Athlete, Stevie Wonder) and while they satisfy my thirst for good music, I still don't feel like it does the trick. So I turn to music I've been into recently to see if that fits (Noisettes, Glasvegas, Nitin Sawhney, Paramore, Hip Parade) but I've already been through the discovery christ-how-good-is-this-album period, so I start to grow tired of them, at which point I take them off my ipod/playlists immediately for fear of ruining them (which I've already done with the Noisettes latest album. It was too good, and I overdid it. And now, heartbreakingly, I've forgotten how good it is because I'm too familiar with it and it's started to annoy me.)

Anyway, then I listen to any old thing on shuffle because when I try to think what music I want, it just escapes me. I go through genres and subgenres (soft rock, hard rock, glam rock, pop rock, indie, americana, blues, soundtracks, classical, motown, soul, 50s girl groups, jazz, hiphop, triphop, funk, rnb, rap, barbershop, disco, electro, garage, break beat..) and nothing seems to fit.

So I conclude that what's happened is I'm just not aware of all the cool music out there because I've been so lax about discovering new music, so have become bored of my own music collection. So I scour for new music, which does the trick for a while (Belleruche, Lux Lisbon, Airplane, some Nico stuff I never knew existed, TM Juke and the Jack Baker Trio..) but while that excites and interests me, it still doesn't satisfy - in the course of a day, when I get my ipod out, put my headphones in, light up a ciggie and prepare to walk to wherever I'm going, I need (always have, and always will) the perfect soundtrack to my life. In fact, I do at any given time, but at these times the most. I am at my happiest when walking along the street anonymously, watching the scenery pass by, smoking a cigarette and being simultaneously connected to everything around me and everything inside me via the sounds coming through my headphones and into my brainium.

And that only happens when I've got music that gets me, at whatever stage of my life/day/span of emotions I'm in at that very moment. So not having this little but vital comfort puts me on edge, and feeling weird, to say the least. And I start to treat my ipod as background noise, and find myself not adjusting the noise level/bass/headphone positioning every other minute as usual, rather shoving the headphones in and zoning out.

And then one random day, out of nowhere, from absolutely the very back corner of my cluttered mind, a thought appears - Nirvana.

And I brush it aside, as you would a band that you connect so intrinsically with the very fibre of your adolescence and all that that entailed (angst, insecurity, anger, confusion, hormones, school, utter stupidity..) and of course a band that are so hyped and overhyped and overcovered through the musical ages that you almost forget that there was a reason you once shamelessly wore a Nevermind tshirt to death, like every other angst-ridden wanting-to-be-unique greasy-haired Camden teenager, and that even though your musical preferences weren't as well-honed and well-travelled as they are now, sometimes the crowd is right. Sometimes, ever so rarely, but sometimes, things are as good as the hype, and shouldn't be too harshly judged on the repercussions they've reaped upon the mainstream (Nirvana are, in my mind, entirely responsible for at least 4 years of appalling NME-encouraged meaningless scenester grunge music that would have made the Jesus and Mary Chain vomit in shame for punk rock)

See, I loved Nirvana at that same point in my life where everyone loves Nirvana - unhappy cliche'd adolescence. They were the beginning of my journey into endless branches of music discovery, and to this day I lazily bracket them as too obvious and thus irrelevant. Because what self-respecting music fan would ever put Nevermind in a Top 5 Albums list? None. That's for people who think that Creed were heavy metal, and that the Arctic Monkeys are punk. A real indie music lover's top 5 list would consist of four obscure offbeat albums, with one cult classic for good measure. Much as we'll never admit it, us music lovers are damn elitists and point-scorers. Hence, as a people, us not being able to handle a band becoming successful - the 'selling out' issue being that we just can't bear to see people who haven't researched and studied and carefully considered and referenced every album they buy, liking the bands that we've claimed as our own. We've felt so very snooty all this time with our little musical secrets, and the plebs of the general populus shouldn't just be able to get how good a band are because it lowers their value if they do. We've worked hard to be able to appreciate real music and we have very little else in our lives, dammit!

Anyway, what am I talking about? I'm ranting now somehow - what was my point?

Ah yes, my point was this. Rediscovering Nirvana. A mix of nostalgia, comforting familiarity, and pure musical awe (and shame for doubting, and then forgetting, just how good they actually were) - I know this because about an hour and a half ago, I randomly and tentatively put In Utero on, and immediately felt at home. I had forgotten..

Broken hymen of your highness, I'm left black
Hey - wait - I got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
She eyes me like a Pisces when i am weak
I've been locked inside your heart shaped box for weeks
Hey - wait - I got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
Your advice..
Your adviiieeece..

Ahhhh man, Heart Shaped Box. Used to be my favourite song (obviously. Yes I was a cliche, £5 Levi's and Ramones tshirt and all..) when I was about 15, and I had genuinely forgotten how good it is. There's something so fundamentally honest about listening to Nirvana, at any age, on your own, in your bed, smoking a cigarette and smiling to yourself at the rusty familiarity of every chord progression, every bit of distortion or little yelp from Kurt..

I miss the comfort in being saaaad..

Anyway, I'm getting quite carried away and have already lost most of my evening to rediscovering the Nirv' so I'm going to go and start on Bleach, maybe sing along to About A Girl (I need an easy friend, I do, with an ear to lend, I do think you fit this shoe, I do, won't you have a clue.. take advantage while you hang me out to dry.. Free, I do.. ), and finish off with some MTV Unplugged. I just know, when the first few bars of The Man Who Sold The World kicks in, I'm going to have some sort of aural Bowie/Cobain-induced orgasm.

Ahhhhh their cover of Son Of A Gun off of Incesticide, I'd forgotten how good this makes me feel, it's literally the musical equivalent to a threesome. I'm being double-teamed at full blast by Kurt Cobain and the Vaselines, and I am loving it!