Here we are now, entertain us...
Twenty years is a long time; or at least that's what I thought in 1991 when I was fifteen. Hair metal, of which I was a big fan, had for the most part ditched spandex and make up and favoured ripped jeans and lumberjack shirts, but was still the mainstream of rebellious music - Thrash Metal had peaked and the pioneers were changing their sound to a more Hard-rock edge. Bands like Aerosmith, Guns'n'Roses, Metallica, Motley Crue and Skid Row where the big stadium bands. Anthrax re-invented themselves with their successful collaboration with Public Enemy, but for the most part outside of the bands on Def Jam records, Rap was still predominantly ignored by white folk (although Beastie Boys did their best to change this). Throughout America, England and Europe hundreds of bands popped up either copying, emulating and/or generally sounding similar to those popular aforementioned stadium bands, mixing up party-rock with it's chauvinistic undertones, to Hard-Rock incorporating Blues, and sometimes a touch of funk in it's rock-by-numbers blueprint. Some of these bands were: Wildside, Noisy Mama, Kingofthehill, Jackyl, Junkyard, Damn Yankees, Danger Danger, Blackboard Jungle (look these bands up!) to name but a few. And of course with any repetition it was inevitable that something would have to give, as music listeners were suddenly hit with the realisation that life wasn't all about parties, girls and good times, and the soft cotton-wool began to wear thin as the struggle to pay bills, lack of jobs and depression was now left...
In Seattle, an underground movement of bands were emerging taking the stripped down college Indie sound from bands like The Pixies, Sonic Youth and The Melvins and adding the sludgy and/or Buzzsaw guitar sound. Initial albums by Soundgarden and Alice In Chains had moderate success before Nirvana's "Nevermind" and Pearl Jam's "Ten" shot the genre into the ears of the music-listening public and sent an aftershock wave throughout the music industry that would see the majority of the bands named in the first paragraph losing record deals seemingly overnight...there was an obvious shift from party-music to disgruntled rock that tackled 'real' issues casting aside the bed of roses previously sung about, to highlight that life to many was in fact dead-ground with the inability to grow anything. Opportunities seemed few and out of reach to the masses and thus singing about everything being happy and fun appeared to be a sham and evidence of denial and living a lie...
So to celebrate twenty years since it's release we have a tribute version of "Nevermind" (with the addition of 'About A Girl') of re-arranged, mellowed out or copied versions of each song by various artists. Tribute albums by definition are never the best as quite often the original version, or artist are the best at preforming the song, or it is in fact that version that holds the nostalgic key to your heart. Kicking off we have The Dutch Masters (featuring Brent and Courtney from The Dandy Warhols) with the hard task of nailing the band's signature anthem of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', and unfortunately they fall well short. Whilst the original was a headbanging stomp, this one is laid back with over-echoes that sound like Enya has slowed her Orinoco Flow to mix this into an ambient album of covers...Then Mewithoutyou slow down, 'In Bloom' which again without the heavy guitar riff sounds lost and comes over as a mad uncle singing a Country song.
South Africa's Civil Twilight do a good rendition of, 'Come As You Are' which is more piano based, and this is followed by Story Of The Year and Hawthorne Nights nailing their carbon-copies of 'Breed' and 'Lithium' respectively. Then Ontario's Finger Eleven gives us the acoustic and thoughtful 'Polly', before we have the slightly different but great take on, 'Territorial Pissings' that has more depth than the original, whilst also being slightly dreamy.
Maps and Atlas' give us a nice go at, 'Drain You' that sounds a little '70's, whilst Murder By Death give us 'Lounge Act'. Brazilian Rock chick Pitty has a fine stab at, 'Stay Away', before the slightly laid back version of 'On A Plain' by The Album Leaf. We get a bit spaced out by the hip-titled band Margot & The Nuclear So and So's who trip their way through, 'Something In The Way' which then sees Anthony Raneri from the great band Bayside sing over the piano melody of, 'About A Girl', which is another of the high points of the album.
So the album is what it is, mostly as-you-were covers with a few re-arranged versions, which for the most part give nothing special (About A Girl being the exception), but ultimately is a celebration of a great band and a great album, and so this is a fine album. Not great, but fine nevertheless.