It's so darn good

Nevermind is one of those quintessential albums that without your life is meaningless. It's awesome. From the most well known guitar riff of the 1990s, to the song that is entirely built on a lie, this album is great.
Released in 1991, Nevermind, stormed through the Billboard charts in America and went on to knock Michael Jackson's 'Dangerous' of the #1 spot. It was the second album of Seattle band Nirvana, a band that would go on to change rock and roll history, catapulting a movement named 'grunge' into mainstream America, and then just as quickly as they started the movement, ending it, with the death of lead singer Kurt Cobain.
The success of Nevermind is understandable, with it beginning with easily the most successful single off the album, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. This song kicks off with a stunning, yet amazingly simple four chord guitar pattern, backed with the same chords from the bass and an easy drumroll from the......drums. The verse opens with:
'Load up on guns, and bring your friends'
in a slow, kinda mellow melody which is met with a loud and catchy chorus giving the illusion that Cobain is singing something meaningful, when the unintelligble lyrics of this song permit you to hear. This is an awesome single, the lyrics, music and name all fit it perfectly.

After that comes 'In Bloom',, a song which I find so amazingly innocent. It really shows off Dave Grohls talent as a drummer, him being the highlight of the music, but for me the highlight of the song is the chorus:
'He's the one
Who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means when I say aahh ...'
It's really catchy and it's basically all about how Kurt Cobain would hang around with his punk rocker girlfriend Tobi Vail and would support their punk rock ethic but he didn't really understand it. Nevermind would be a very soppy lost love album to Miss Vail if Kurt Cobain had not been blessed with the talent he posessed. It's quite sweet, really.

After 'In Bloom' comes 'Come As You Are'. It opens with a really mellow bass riff, maintaining an eerie feel throughout the entire song, which is intensified with lyrics that really take advantage of Cobains song writing ability. They are dark and moody, but even the line:
Come dowsed in mud, soaked in bleach
shows off the way in which he would create three-dimensional, poetic lyrics, while all the while sounding suicidal.

Now 'Breed' is different. With its fast-paced drumming, 'dirty' guitar work and brilliant, incoherent lyrics, this song really comes back to the basis of grunge music. It's sweet and silly, with the line:
'We could plant a house, we could build a tree'
as the basis of the chorus. This song, along with Drain You, is one of the most obvious love songs Kurt Cobain ever wrote. Sweet, simple and amzingly grunge, but all the while awesome.

'Lithium' was meant to be the hit single off of Nevermind. And it's quite obvious why. The song begins with the bass and the bass maintains its lead throughout the song, with the drumming to a minium and guitar work quiet. The verses are odd, but cool and this is one of my favorite songs off of Nevermind. The drums bring you into the chorus, which is surprisingly simply written, with the word Yeah being repeated six times. But the word is artistic and the post-chorus, which is even weirder than verses in the lyrics department, fits into the song and makes it an all round thumbs-up.

'Polly' is my favorite song of all time. And for those of you lucky enough to have heard it, you will know why. Its, well, sensational. Even though its entirely acoustic, and Cobain's singing is laid back and un-emotional, its still brilliant. And here's why. The melody of the song is lulling and catchy and makes the listener sing along, unaware that what they are singing is actually Kurt Cobain's artistic take on a horrible, real life crime that he plucked from a newspaper article. Yeah, it's the lyrics are what make this song great. Cobain tells the listener of the tale of a girl who was kidnapped, tortured with a blow torch and raped. And though this may seem unappealing, its not. Cobain manages to bring a bizzare sense of reality and normality to the horrendous crime. Maybe its the way the listener isn't sure of what he's singing at first or maybe it's the way Kurt is singing, surprisingly, through the eyes of the rapist, as opposed to the victim. The lines:
Let me clip
Your dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself,
let you get a sense of the horrifficness of the insident, whereas the line:
And she's just as bored as me
tells you of the humaness of the attacker. Kurt had a way of expressing empathy in the strangest of places. All in all, I think this song is great, but it may be an accquired taste.

Now, while 'Polly' was slow and melodic, 'Terrotial P*ssings' is quite the opposite. It's loud and fuzzy and starts with a line which takes the p*ss out of people. It's awesome and contains one of the best lines from a song ever:
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you. Fantastice, its the only Nirvana song which makes you wanna dance.

'Breed' was a love song, but it took some working out. But 'Drain You' is so obviously a love song, that it borders on soppy. Wait, no it doesn't. It starts with the verse straight away and all the instruments come in. The lines:
Chew your meat for you
Pass it back and forth
In a passionate kiss
From my mouth to yours
I like you
are really the tell tale signs that its a love song. Its cool and even the absurd sqeaks near the end don't ruin it.

'Lounge Act' is also one of my favorite songs of the album. It's the only song the Kurt Cobain ever admitted to having written about Tobi Vail, a girl I can't be bothered explaining about you can find out about her for yourself. The bass is the highlight of this song, its the best bass off the album. Its tricky but cool and an awesome starter of the song. The verses are catchy and the chorus is awesome. I'm also too lazy to dissect the meaning of the lines, so I'll leave you to ponder them. But Lounge Act is still brillant.

'Stay Away' is darn good. The bass is yet again tricky and the bassist, Krist Novoselic, plays a big part in this song as he gets sing. The lines he does sing are odd, but effective:
Monkey see, monkey do
I don't know why I'd - rather be dead than cool
I don't know why - every line ends in rhyme
I don't know why - less is more, love is blind

'On A Plain' is one of those songs which sound so much better live. For those of you who are fortunate to have access to Unplugged in New York then you will know what I'm talking about. While On A Plain is catchy, fun and cool, with non-sensical verses, it's a bit too studio for it to sound good. But that's just me.

The finisher song is 'Something In The Way'. This too sounds better on Unplugged, but it sounds pretty awesome on Nevermind aswell. It starts with the lie the Cobain told many:
Underneath the bridge.
Cobain used to say he'd lived on the streets. But the eerie, hollow feeling of the song is great and very fitting for it. Not my favorite song, but still pretty cool.

There is also the song 'Endless, Nameless' but that is a extra track and not all albums have it, so I'm not going to review it. All in all Nevermind is a fantastic album and even if I didn't love Nirvana, I'd still own it.