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Nirvana · S2 E4
Bleach
Released June 15, 1989. Heavy, sludgy, and deliberately ugly. Kurt is trying to sound like the Melvins because he thinks that is what Sub Pop wants. The pop melodies are hidden underneath layers of distortion, but they are there if you listen closely. It sells thirty-five thousand copies in its first year, which for Sub Pop is a hit
June 15, 1989. Sub Pop releases an album called Bleach by a band called Nirvana, with an initial pressing of one thousand copies on white vinyl. It will take three years for the world to realize what it missed.
"All Apologies", Nirvana, official music video (1993). Bleach was the album where Kurt buried his pop instincts behind a wall of distortion. "All Apologies" is what happens when he finally stops hiding. Every tender melody concealed on Bleach was leading here.
The Heaviest Version of Themselves
Bleach is heavy, sludgy, and deliberately ugly. Kurt writes most of the songs trying to sound like the Melvins because he thinks that is what Sub Pop wants to hear. The pop melodies are there if you listen closely, but they are buried so deep under distortion you have to dig for them.
“I was so embarrassed by the pop songs I was writing that I'd hide them. I thought the band had to be heavy to be taken seriously.”
— Kurt Cobain, on suppressing his melodic instincts during the Bleach era, from Michael Azerrad, "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana," Doubleday, 1993
All Apologies, Nirvana (1993)
The closing track on In Utero, a meditation on surrender, exhaustion, and the possibility of peace. Steve Albini recorded the band live at Pachyderm Studio in Minnesota, and when DGC requested remixes, Kurt insisted that Scott Litt add cellos to the ending. Listen for how the bass drones on a single low note through almost the entire song. Krist holds the foundation steady while Kurt's melody floats above it, searching for something it can never quite reach. This is the opposite of Bleach: where the debut buried melody under noise, "All Apologies" strips everything away until only the melody remains.
TAP TO REVEAL: Why does the Bleach cover look like a photographic negative?
What does the album title "Bleach" refer to?
Bleach: The Numbers
Blew, Nirvana
The opening track of Bleach and the first thing you hear when you put on the album. The bass drops first, thick and grinding, before the guitar and drums crash in like a collapsing building. This is the sound of Reciprocal Recording at full volume: three people in a room playing as loud as the 8-track can handle.
Critics call Bleach solid but unremarkable, another heavy record from another heavy Seattle band. Next: "About a Girl," the track that reveals everything Kurt Cobain has been hiding.
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