Nirvana Album: “With the Lights Out”

After many years of waiting, Nirvana fans have what Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, at one time refered too as "the Holy Grail Of Rock Music." That has turned out to be absolutly no understatement. This 4 disc compilation (3 CD's + 1 DVD) is a must for any rock fan. With rare demo's, solo Cobain recordings, a few live tracks, some late 80's radio perfomances, and a few B-side's thrown in also. Whether you've been a Nirvana fan for years, or are just beginning to appreciate the music of this wonderful band, you will get everything in this package. It's not all polished, it's not all perfect, it's raw. It's rock. It's Nirvana.

Most compelling on this album is disc 3. Which hosts at least 3 unreleased demo's that Cobain made just previous to a concert tour in early 1994, which ended with him in a coma in Rome. Following his release from the hospital in Rome, within weeks, the enevitable happened. Cobain swallowed a shot-gun shell in the home he shared with his wife and child. Resulting in his tragic death and a brutal punch in the gut to music as we new it.

Included with these 1994 demo's is the much talked about song: "Do Re Mi," which can clearly show some of Cobain's influence from the poppy Beatles, which he adored through his whole life. The track begins with what seems like someone banging against a wall, perhaps a suitcase, or maybe just a box, to simulate the drums that aren't present. The vocals are pristine. Serious. Haunting. The acoustic guitar that Cobain plays reflects his not so perfect, but yet delicate guitar skills. At the end of the track, if you listen carefully, you can hear the entushiastic voice of Cobain's wife, Courtney Cobain, telling him: "That Was GREAT!"

The album then goes into an acoustic version of "You Know Your Right" which was only played live once under the title, "On The Mountain," and recorded on a cold afternoon at Lange Studios in what is said to be 1 take. The lyrics are very different then the one's fans heard on the studio version that was released in the fall of 2002. The vocals are far from perfect. At times you can nearly feel the pain Cobain muct have felt as he strained his voice. His lyrics are extremly haunting, considering the suicide that followed, including the line: "I Could Never Die Again/I Won't Loose Another Friend/She Will See Another Me/When I'm Through........" The vocals then become hard to understand. Maybe on purpose. As a part of the mystery. To hide his secrets. His pain. His love.

The most hard to listen to track has to be the electric demo of "Rape Me." Which begins with the shrill cries of a 2 month old Frances Bean Cobain. On her fathers lap in the studio, he holds her up to the mic, he passes her off, maybe, to his wife perhaps, and the intro begins. The cries of the child overlapping the vocals of a man she'd never really know. During the second refrain they return. Louder and even harder to listen to. Father & child crying out together. In the angst of a child who wants her bottle, maybe just a diaper change. In the angst of a man who just wanted to disappear.

There's also some funny tracks though. Including "Mrs. Butterworth" on disc 1. Where Cobain goes on a tirade about Ply Wood, Burlap, & Seashells. Only to end his story of a beach trip with the ever sarcastic: "But I'm still sleeping on that P*ss stained mattress," before ripping back into the song.

The DVD features rare performences & private band footage. Including a 1988 rehersal taped @ the home of bassist Krist Noveselic's mother. The Sub Pop video of Neverminds "In Bloom." The debut performence of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and a rare look inside the studio with the band as they record "Season's In The Sun" in Rio de Jeniro, Brazil. This performance includes a rare mix-up of the band lin-up. Cobain trading in his guitar for his first insturment, the drums. Drummer Dave Grohl (also of the Foo Fighters) moves outta the drummers seat to pick-up a bass. Krist Noveselic, takes off the weight of his bass for an all white Fender Strat. The music is at it's best. What we loved. What we lost. Cobain has freshly dyed brown hair. Wearing a ratty old sweater. His boyish giggle can be heard through his vocals towards the end of the song. A rare smile spreading across his face. It's an emotional final farewell from an epic part of musical history. As Cobain sings: "Goodbye Papa It's Hard To Die/When All The Birds Are Singing In The Sky." You just have to wonder.

Why couldn't something as simple as a bird save him?

Finally a Nirvana album with most of the unreleased material they have ever made! This is a truly incredible box-set showing how diverse of a band Nirvana really were. Most of the tracks here have been heard by us hardcore nirvana fans before on bootlegs but what makes this really special is the quality of the tracks.

On disc 1 the opener is a scorching rendition of one of Nirvana influences Led Zeppelin with the cool guitar riff of "Heartbreaker"! Also included on disc 1 are some cool ledbelly covers that most people have never heard. "Aint It A Shame" is incredible! Kurt gives the vocal performance of his life on this song! Also the never before heard song "Mrs Buttersworth" is also a real highlight on disc 1. Why it was never put on their first album "Bleach" we'll never know.

Disc 2 and 3 are also include some amazing material from the never before heard "Verse Chorus Verse" Nevermind studio outtake which completely blew me away! And "Old Age" which sounds so crisp and clear here compared to the short bootleg we fans had for so long. The "Smells Like Teen Spirit" demo is also here and it gives you a sense of how much the band evolved the tune to where it now resides on the masterpiece "Nevermind" album we all know and love. To top it off we get a DVD filled with early rare performances of Nirvana when they were just an indie band on the rise. The home camera quality vibe gives you this cool underground perspective of Nirvana when they were still the best indie band out there in the late 80's to early 90's before they blew up. To end the DVD there's a really poignant moment with the band covering the beautiful song "Seasons In the Sun" with Dave Grohl playing bass with Kurt on drums and Krist on guitar. The part when Kurt sings "Goodbye my friend it's hard to die" is really sad and touching.

All in all this box-set is truly a must-have for any hardcore nirvana fan looking to hear some incredible unheard material from the greatest band of the past 15 years.

I can comepletly agree with some of the negative reviews of this. So far I think I have only read one review that is typical nirvana-hate retard who says the same crap "kurt complain was a coward and sucked at guitar, go listen to a real guitar player blah blah blah blah blah" I wish that those people not Kurt would have killed themselves. They are just taking up space.

With that said let me give my own opinion on this. for what it's worth I LOVE this box set. It's a good look into the more raw elements of this band. It's cool to hear home demos and them jamming around trying to get it just right. It's deffinetly not for everyone. If you don't have much of an emotional attachment to this band I can see how you wouldn't care much for hearing home demos and live stuff or Kurt joking around. I LOVE LOVE LOVE "Do Re Mi" , "Aint it A Shame" the best.

Some of my grumbles on this are that there are plenty of other songs that they have recorded that I had hoped to be included. And then there's the DVD. It is cool but I think Live! Tonight! Sold Out! is much better. I was hoping for more footage of them in the studio, and goofing around. Plus there was NO in utero-era footage which is some of the best live footage of them.Oh Well maybe there is more on the way. I'd like it becasue the weeks before this came out was so exciting and it sucks that that is over. All in all this is a great collection to have if you really like Nirvana.

It's odd to see people complaining about the inclusion of boombox recordings here when that's the point of it, to include primitive and different versions of the songs. Besides, was Kurt supposed to go to a recording studio every time he had the slightest idea for a new song?, obviously not. If you want "proper" recordings of the already known songs, you know where to find them, and for others such as "Do Re Mi", would you rather not hear the songs at all than hear the, not professional, but fairly enjoyable only-existing recordings of them?

Now, most die-hard fans/collectors are used to listen to and enjoy poor recordings, sometimes worse than the oh-so-bad sounding tracks people think shouldn't have been included here, so we don't have a problem with the dropouts and hiss on the Smells Like Teen Spirit demo as long as we finally get to hear it, just to give an example. The set also offers tracks such as "Ain't It A Shame", "Grey Goose", "Verse Chorus Verse" and "Old Age", the Rio version of "I Hate Myself And Want To Die", which if you take a look at a few internet message boards, you'll realise serious fans were more or less aware of their existance and were dying to hear them. They included stuff they knew we wanted. This also upgrades stuff we had been listening to for years in slightly to much poorer quality, "If You Must", "Pen Cap Chew", "Clean Up Before She Comes", etc.

"Opinion" has an error, but overall it sounds much better than what we had before.

It was also very nice to hear a few soundboard tracks from the 1/23/88 show and know that "Raunchola" was not lost in that poor, echoey audience recording we were used to listen to.

The only complaints I have are that the remixing on the songs from April 1992 ("Oh, The Guilt", "Curmudgeon" and "Return Of The Rat") was not very good, the digital reverb added to some of the instruments just doesn't fit the songs, they should have just included the original mixes, or not have included the songs at all and put the excellent recording of "Drain You" from the Peel session, "Sappy" from the April 1990 session, and the electric version of "Something In The Way" from the Mark Goodier BBC session instead.

Let me start out by saying that this is by far the best thing that can ever happen to a true Nirvana fan. After 10 longgg years, the Nirvana Box Set has finally arrived. I've been a Nirvana fan since i was 13 years old and today I'm 19, and my love for Nirvana hasn't changed since. The Box Set starts out great with demo songs that Cobain recorded from his early age when Nirvana was just formed and it slowly went from album to album from the year 1987 to 1994. The Dvd is exellent too. It showed great moments that i never thought i would ever see it.

Bottom line is that this Box set is truly very immersive and its worth every penny. Go buy it if u want the real raw taste of Nirvana!!