You Know You're Right

Scott Hardie | October 22, 2002
Has anybody heard Nirvana's new song? I'd like to know what you think of it.

Personally, I'm disappointed for two reasons. First, because it's not really a very good song. Like most Nirvana songs, it has an ugly surface and an inner melodic beauty, but this one has a particularly ugly surface. And second, I was all pumped to hear a new song from them, then it turned out to be an old song. When they say "previously unreleased," they mean it was never officially published with Nirvana's permission. Fans bootlegged it years ago; I've had it in my CD collection for several years. The new version that's out there has actually been mixed (the old bootleg one sounds like it was recorded in a garage and left untouched), but it's still the same old song.

Scott Hardie | October 22, 2002
Oh, and between the new Nirvana song and Kurt Cobain's diaries being published and all this new attention to an old band, it got me thinking about how successful and historic Nirvana managed to be in such a short time frame. They first became famous in 1991, then their career as a band ended in 1994 with Cobain's death. That's three years. Britney Spears has been famous for longer than that.

Anna Gregoline | October 23, 2002
I like the song a lot, but I'm a pretty big Nirvana fan. I, too, am sick of all the commercialism/glorification/deifying of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. It's time to let it rest. It's pretty much the only part of the 90's I see people holding onto desperately. Why is that?

Scott Hardie | October 23, 2002
Maybe because it came at the start of the decade and it promised a change after the semi-lousy eighties. I remember that Spin magazine called Nevermind the album that "single-handedly guaranteed the nineties wouldn't suck." Maybe for some people it still holds that shiny potential.

Anna Gregoline | October 23, 2002
Yeah, but the point of most Nirvana lyrics are that everything sucks. Ironic.