Nirvana Album: “Sliver: The Best of the Box”

"Sliver: The best of the box" is a compilation of material from 2004s four-disc box set "With the Lights Out." This new compilation, as its title suggests, curls the best material from the larger box set. Three additional songs, demos of "Spank Thru," "Sappy," and Come as you are" are also included.

The CD includes home demos, radio appearances, and live recordings. The CD flows chronologically, from Cobain's earliest demo with Fecal Matter, to demos recorded in 1994, right before Cobain's death. Some songs are studio demos, while others were recorded on just a boom-box; therefore the quality of these songs varies from poor to good.

"Sliver" both sees the evolution of Cobain as a songwriter, as well as looks at some of his best known songs in their embryonic stage. Some songs, like the stripped down "Sliver" are fantastic and rival the finished product. But even the songs that are of poor-to-fair quality are of historical importance and give the listener an inside look at the songs as works-in-progress.

"Sliver" contains some lost gems that never made it onto the studio albums, like the subdued "Clean up before she comes" and the off-beat rock-a-billy "Ain't it a shame." "Old Age" sounds a bit like a sped-up "Something in the Way," and is up-to-par with the rest of "Nevermind." A home demo of one of Cobain's last songs, "Do Re Me" had great potential. It's a little rough-around-the-edge, but could have been a classic if it had been touched-up and recorded in the studio. Other tracks like Fecal Matter's "Spank Thru" and "Oh the Guilt" don't quite measure up, but should be of interest to fans of the band.

Being mostly a CD of demos, these songs posses an atmospheric, eerie low-fi intrigue, akin to the sound of the Velvet Underground. While the finished songs are ultimately better, these demos are well worth a listen.

Both the demos and live recordings see the band at its rawest, it not finest hour.

If you don't have time and/or money to invest in the larger "With the Lights Out" box set, but are interested in Nirvana's songs as works-in-progress, this CD is highly recommended. The inclusion of the excellent "Old Age" and "Do Re Me," alone is enough reason to buy this album. Fans should also be interested in hearing Cobain's earliest recording, "Spank Thru" (1985) when he was still a teen.

Sorry to spam the site like this, but why the inferiority complex with Nirvana? I'd say Nirvana and Pearl Jam are pretty much on the same page in regards to critical acclaim and fanbase, so what's your beef with Cobain? Nirvana borrowed from the Pixies, sure, but you seem seasoned enough to realize Vedder & his crew borrow from Neil Young and some traces of Led Zeppelin. Your obsession with dogging Nirvana on this site is to the point of psychotic obsession (I rally against 50 Cent a lot, but that's a different issue; yes, it is).

You say that whoever buys this compilation is a "sheep," but you had no problem in recommending PJ's greatest hits package because of a few radio edited/remixed versions of songs widely available. Seems hypocritical. What's the difference? If you love a band enough, you're going to want to own everything they relese. You, above all, should agree with this. I understand your wanting to get enough Pearl Jam as possible, and that doesn't make you a sheep (in my opinion). So why should the script be flipped on Nirvana fans? Because YOU'RE not a fan of the band? Bite me.

Give Nirvana albums all the low reviews you want, but stop insulting the fans with your contradictory garbage. Meanwhile, I'll be comfortable enjoying both Pearl Jam's AND Nirvana's music.

As far as "Sliver" goes, get it if you're a fan. Again, sorry for spamming the site.

Kurt Cobain is Kurt Cobain, and I'm sorry if anyone disagrees with me but that is enough to give him five stars out of the gate. I would pay twenty bucks to hear the man sing the alphabet. And to a degree that is kind of what this album is. In case there are fans out there that are unfamiliar with the box set, "With the lights out" it was a collection of rehearsels and rough demos that Nirvana had accumulated over the years. The audio was extremely rough, but worth every penny. What this album is is basically taking the best of the best and repackaging them into a 22 song format.

Now, as a reviewer I feel that it is my responsibility to be honest. I love Nirvana more then should be humanly possible, but I was still a little dissapointed with this disc. For months I've heard hype about how this disc would have two new songs, and I was lead to believe that they would be of the same caliber that "you know you're right" was on the greatest hits disc. Not so. "Sappy" sounds decent, and is a very good song, in fact it could stand to be a good "new" song, if I haven't had it on CD for about three years now. (It comes on a B-side disc with the track "Laundry room" a great song that for some damn reason hasn't made it onto any of these albums, wonder why?)

The "come as you are" demo is cool for the first couple of run throughs but isn't amazing. What this release basically comes down to is this. THIS IS NOT A GREATEST HITS CD! The songs DO NOT SOUND LIKE THEY DID ON NEVERMIND, INCESTISCIDE, BLEACH, OR IN UTERO.There for casual radio fans of Nirvana need not apply to this release. This is a cd for the die hards, the ones like me who can get by the rough edge of the recordings and hear the talent that Cobain had. If you think you can do that, and don't have "With the lights out" then you should get this as soon as you can.

Finally I must say this, Cobain was a legend. Nirvana were musical saviors. So STOP! releasing albums like this for just the die hards. If somewhere in a vault there are tracks from the Nirvana album that never got finished because Kurt died, then mix those tracks and release them on an Ep, if they don't exist, then stop doing this to great music. Kurt would turn in his grave to know that his demos were being constantly regurgitated onto different discs so a group of suits can make as much cash as possible off of Nirvana. And the sad thing is that it will take awhile before that formula fails, because Nirvana meant so much to so many people, and they will contiuosly poor money into Nirvana in order to feel that connection again. And taking finnancial advantage of people like that is wrong. So please, just let the legend rest and don't taint people's view of Nirvna by releasing numerous DEMO discs.

Thank you for your time.

The quality and selection of these bootlegs is crap, pure and simple. The people that give this Nirvana/pre-Nirvana compilation more than one star must be deaf, because this Best of is the worst Nirvana ever had to offer.

There are literally hundreds of hours of better unreleased Nirvana recordings and versions out there, like the version of "Sappy" from the Smart studio session from April of 1990. It's strange the record company included a far inferior and badly-played version of the song from the same year. To give you an idea of how high-quality and well-played the Smart session songs are, I must mention that it's the same session that yielded the version of "Polly" that was put on Nevermind. It's damn good. Unlike everything on here. The suits at Geffen and Interscope just want to milk Nirvana for every penny they can, and are making unsuspecting Nirvana fans pay for the cream of the crap (this supposed Best of the Box and With the Lights Out) when they don't have to. To any Nirvana fan that wants to hear better versions of the songs on With the Lights Out: Check the 'net. You can download the same Nirvana songs in better quality, in their entirety. For example, the whole live radio show that yielded "Opinion" has been circulating for years on the bootleg circuit, and actually includes the very funny and amusing banter with Kurt being interviewed by Calvin, the owner of Circle K Records. Kurt claims he wrote the lyrics to "Opinion" while driving "with one foot" on the way up to the interview. Then he does something several Nirvana fans have yet to hear him do: He laughs about it. To me, Kurt's very silly yet insightful conversation throughout the interview is much more interesting than the actual songs, which are played extremely sloppily. I guess Krist, Dave, and Courtney didn't want to let fans know Kurt had a funny side to him. Kinda takes away from his suicidal angst, which is what makes uninformed people buy this crappy set of recordings. Don't even get me started how worthless the boombox recordings and uber-sh*tty and very embarrassing version of "Spank Thru" are. Bottom line: NO record company should be putting this crap out. These kinds of songs are what you exchange blank cassette tapes and CDs for on the internet (hint, hint). Songs this bad are not worth spending money on.

I still don't know why Geffen bothered to release this best of the box compilation, oh yeah, I forgot, more flow of bucks from the already cash stripped Nirvana fans. I'll try to keep it simple, if you are a true Nirvana fan, you'll probably save up to buy the real stuff, the Box, which really has a lot of rarities that are not available elsewhere, like Verse Chorus Verse or Old Age from the Nevermind recordings, or the Rio de Janeiro Sessions, and many other songs that are known to the bootleg community (like Endless Nameless and Dumb from the Peel sessions, Sappy from the In Utero recordings), but in this case the sound quality is much better.

This, apart from the already known songs from the box, has three new additions, Spank Thru from the Legendary 1985 Fecal Matter Demo, which is OK, and the Nirvana community is surely pleased about this. On the other side, Sappy is just...gross, I have heard over 10 different renditions of Sappy, both live and studio, and I have to say, this is the worst one, sounds very sloppy, just plain hideous. Better stick with the Sappy from the Smart sessions, or the Sappy from the No Alternative Compilation.

Regarding Come As You Are, apart from being an historic piece (since this song comes from the legendary 1991 rehearsals done for the upcoming album, Nevermind) there is nothing else to say, the quality of the song is not for putting in a product like this.

Overall, if you are a casual Nirvana fan, don't buy this, don't even buy the boxset, stick with Nevermind, In Utero, Bleach, and of course MTV Unplugged. For the rest of us, the hardcore Nirvana fans, I think Geffen is underestimating the fact that we could pay a lot for some stuff that is really wanted from long time, like the 1993 Sao Paulo concert, the Terminal 1 Munich show, and other nice live concerts, but they don't seem to realise that. Please stick with the bootlegs and the Net whenever you can.