Ha! My title for this blog post says it all. There is no real animosity or mud slinging involved in this very simple debate between myself and my collaborator/friend Joe Maddrey. However, it's taken on a life of its own whenever we mention it on our respective Facebook pages, so I felt the need to put into context here via our blogs.
So here's what happened...
Joe and I have been meeting up quite a bit lately, not only to map out the details of our proposed project together, but also just to get to know each other better. And usually, we do that through our discussions on music, bands, songs, mixes we've made for people and how they factor into some of our personal life experiences. You can learn a lot about someone solely based on what they put on a mix tape! And so at some point in one of our conversations, I'm sure I was talking about Nirvana as the undisputed greatest band of ever when I suddenly noticed in Joe's facial expression... that he didn't agree with me! So that's when I said, "Wait... you a Pearl Jam guy?" Initially, there was never a "Nirvana Vs Pearl Jam" discussion. It was more of a, "well, I like Nirvana. They're a great band, but growing up, Pearl Jam spoke to me more." Fair enough. We're all our own people with our own unique experiences so we see and hear things just a tad bit differently from each other. No biggie. Still like the dude.
I think shortly after this lunch meeting, and out of sheer morbid curiosity, Joe posted on his Facebook page the simple 4 word question.... Nirvana Vs Pearl Jam? And what sprung from that was a fun, healthy and impassioned debate on which band is better. With the exception of one or two jokers that answered "Alice In Chains!," the verdict was predominantly for Nirvana. I'm sure I maturely texted Joe something along the lines of "In your face! Told ya!" Or something to that effect. A few weeks had passed and I'd forgotten all about this, but we're sitting there having lunch and in the middle of our chat, he slowly goes into his bag and slides over a CD across the table to me. It reads "The Case For Pearl Jam."
THE CASE FOR PEARL JAM:
1. Last Exit (Vitology)
2. Animal (VS)
3. Hold On (Lost Dogs Disc 1)
4. Blood (VS)
5. Not For You (Vitology)
6. In My Tree (No Code)
7. No Way (Yield)
8. Yellow Ledbetter (Lost Dogs Disc 1)
9. Given To Fly (Yield)
10. Light Years (Binaural)
11. Of The Girl (Binaural)
12. You Are (Riot Act)
13. Inside Job (Pearl Jam)
14. Amongst The Waves (Backspacer)
15. Pendulum (Lightning Bolt)
16. Release (Ten)
And it absolutely did it's job. There's no denying that there's a great band here, even minus the well known singles. And it got me curious to give those latter records another spin. The only thing I gave Joe crap about was using the "Lost Dogs" version of "Yellow Ledbetter," which fades out early as opposed to the full version as it appeared on the original "Even Flow" single. And I probably would've thrown in the song "In Hiding" from "Yield;" I consider it one of their underrated and best, but again, I'm no authority on Pearl Jam. Now, to be clear, Joe will be the first to admit that he also isn't an expert on their latter career. As is the case with the way most mixes are put together, he was going on instinct; including the tracks that stood out to him personally that he wanted to share. I only note this because when I excitedly showed the track listing to my buddy AJ, a big PJ buff, he was surprised at the lack of newer songs. I was equally surprised by the response from my own Facebook friends when I posted that above photo of his mix CD. I found it ironic that most of my friends were arguing for Pearl Jam as the better of the two bands! (While his were pro-Nirvana?!) I decided that it was only fair for me to craft the counter mix. It was time for me to make "The Case For Nirvana."
I jokingly told Joe I could probably make a mix of only Nirvana B-sides and it'd still be better than his Pearl Jam mix. He joked that all I can do is hand over "Nevermind" or else my case is already lost, which of course he only said because he knew it'd infuriate me. (Which it did.) The one thing we agreed on was no singles. I would put together a collection of songs that would encompass the entire band's history. I struggled with it for quite a while. I had weird early demos on there like "Pen Cap Chew," just because I thought it was cool. I tried desperately to find a spot for "Verse Chorus Verse" aka "Sappy" aka the hidden track on the No Alternative compilation and it just didn't jive with any of the other songs I picked. So after a lot of moving around tracks and testing it out, I got what I consider to be the perfect non-single Nirvana mix:
THE CASE FOR NIRVANA:
1. Breed (Nevermind)
2. Aneurysm (Incesticide)
3. Drain You (Nevermind)
4. School (Bleach)
5. Turnaround (Hormoaning/Incesticide)
6. Oh, The Guilt (The Jesus Lizard split)
7. Very Ape (In Utero)
8. Territorial Pissings (Nevermind)
9. Son Of A Gun (Hormoaning/Incesticide)
10. Negative Creep (Bleach)
11. Curmudgeon (Lithium single)
12. Milk It (In Utero)
13. Lounge Act (Nevermind)
14. Return Of The Rat (Fourteen Songs For Greg Sage & The Wipers)
15. Marigold (Heart Shaped Box single)
16. Spank Thru (Sub Pop 200)
17. Talk To Me (Europe 1991 bootleg)
18. On A Plain (Nevermind)
19. Something In The Way (BBC Session)
20. Opinion (With The Lights Out Disc 2)
21. Do Re Mi (With The Lights Out Disc 3)
22. You Know You're Right (Nirvana)
I'm really proud of this Nirvana mix. The opener for any mix always has to be your strongest case. And although it's not one of my all time favorite Nirvana tracks, I've decided that "Breed" is kind of the quintessential Nirvana song. It's fast, it's got a punk feel to it, it's heavy, it's melodic, it's catchy, it's energetic, it's powerful. It's all the things I love about them as a band. And I think if you're unfamiliar with their catalog, these above listed songs are a good way to weave in and out of their punk songs and pop songs. It's a good collection. Towards the end, I wanted to give a feel for where Nirvana was heading. So I kicked that section off by including the B-Side "Marigold," performed by Dave Grohl which gives a tiny glimpse at the humble beginnings of the Foo Fighters. There's a bootleg track titled "Talk To Me," which I believe was only performed once during this European tour and it most certainly would've been a single had they had the chance to record it in the studio. Then there's the last 2 tracks, the solo acoustic demo "Do Re Mi," which is interesting in that the next Nirvana record would've probably been a hybrid of REM meets their Unplugged performance. It would've been special and weird and in that direction that they started with "All Apologies."
Lastly, their final track ever "You Know You're Right." I remember the time this sucker finally hit radio was probably a good 10 years after it was originally recorded. The Queens Of The Stone Age just released their hit single "No One Knows" with Dave Grohl pounding furiously behind the drum kit. Also on the radio was the new rockin' Foo Fighters single "All My Life" from their record "One By One." And then out of nowhere, we finally got the long lost last Nirvana track and immediately, it showed everything that'd been missing from the "pop/rock" music scene in the decade since that band ended. It was intense, passionate and angry. And lyrically, it spelled out Kurt's fate, whether he intended it to or not. I love the song, but it also makes me terribly sad because as the last few notes pluck out to the progressively slowing drum beat, you know that that's it. That right there is the end of Nirvana.
I gave the mix to Joe and after a few listens, he signed off on the whole Nirvana Vs Pearl Jam thing via his own personal blog: maddrey.blogspot.com. Check it out right HERE. He makes a lot of valid point as to why each band resonates with each of us. I particularly like the theory he illustrates from Daniel Levitin, who essentially says that we're most impressionable at the age of 14 and hence, that's when our life long musical tastes truly emerge. For me, I was around 14 when Nirvana first broke big and it absolutely changed my feelings about music in general. Joe's a year behind me so he was 14 the following year when Pearl Jam broke. But I think Nirvana plays a more prominent role in my life in terms of how it changed me personally from that moment forward. As I briefly touched upon in my very first blog entry, I always had an interest in music, but I was constantly discouraged by every adult that I ever crossed paths with. It literally wasn't until I heard Nirvana and picked up a guitar and figured out the 4 main chords to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that I realized "I can do this." Had it not been for Nirvana breaking at exactly that moment in time, who knows if I would've formed several bands and written 100 plus songs in that time since?
The biggest difference I find between Pearl Jam and Nirvana is the simplicity in the songs. Sure, Pearl Jam lyrics are amazing and the songs themselves are all compromised of really cool riffs and licks. But... hearing them for the first time, could I actually figure out how to play them? It'd take a lot of work. And that's not to say that I wouldn't want to try to put the work in, but people get easily discouraged when things are difficult for them at first. The fact that Nirvana songs are simple enough for you to figure out pretty easily I think factors greatly into their overall influence on people. My buddy Jon Holland worked for years at a Guitar Center store and he told me, "remember that scene in WAYNE'S WORLD where they're in the music shop and there's a sign that says 'No Stairway?' That's how we felt about 'Teen Spirit' because every kid would come in and play it!" And then I'd move on to "Come As You Are." It's just a few simple notes. Almost like a scale exercise. And "Lithium" and so on and so forth. Nirvana for me wasn't just accessible to how I was feeling (which was angry all the time), but I felt as if I could figure out how to play their music too. And in turn, make some of my own just like it.
There's no right or wrong to this debate. It's all personal preference. It's all our life experiences that add up to why we love the things we do. And the beautiful thing about the things we love is how they inspire us. I wanted to close this by showing you something that years later still inspires me. There's a terrific little documentary called "Classic Albums: Nirvana Nevermind." I believe this was part of a series of VH1 specials that took an in depth look at one hit album, and broke it down track by track. Below is a clip from it where recording engineer and "Nevermind" producer Butch Vig breaks down the recording of "In Bloom." You get to hear the bass & drum tracks on their own. You also get to hear Kurt's main vocal track isolated. Then paired up with Dave's harmonies. And it sounds amazing. And to me, I love that fact that 3 guys walked into a room and created what you hear in this video clip. That's it! No pitch shifting or voice correction or pro tools manipulation. Plain and simple, 3 guys in one room. It's inspiring. And if 3 dudes can go into a room and come up with something that great, well then anything is possible.
