Tracking California's Opioid Epidemic | Upcoming Live Music with ...
25 Modern Songs That Sound Like '90s Country
'90s country is still the one in Nashville.
Illustration: Maria Contreras
A decade ago, country music of the '90s was treated like a novelty from a bygone era. In 2012, Jason Aldean released "1994," a single that had him chanting the name of honky-tonker Joe Diffie like a wannabe hip-hop hype man. A 2015 Saturday Night Live sketch cast host Blake Shelton opposite Aidy Bryant's Wynonna Judd and Kate McKinnon's Reba McEntire in a music video for a preposterous folksy tale titled "Wishin' Boot." And later that year Dierks Bentley and his touring band took on the alter ego Hot Country Knights, an affectionate parody of '90s excesses, along with mustaches, mullets, and acid-washed jeans.
Sure, plenty about country music 30 years ago was corny, stylized, overly flashy. But it was also riveting. Garth Brooks, the striving superstar, achieved previously unimaginable commercial feats; before his 1991 album, Ropin the Wind, no country artist had debuted at the very top of the all-genre Billboard 200 chart. An array of pop-savvy divas — Judd, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, LeAnn Rimes — unfurled brightly modern visions of womanhood, agency, and romance. And the impulse to either uphold tradition or chase crossover success dropped away — Twain, Trisha Yearwood, and the Chicks felt genuinely down-home and wide open to the possibilities of a bigger world.
More recently, tongue-and-cheek references have given way to a full-on revival. As 2010s bro country has become the novelty and bygone are the white male artists grimly fixated on come-ons and stock fantasies of back-roads revelry, a new generation of country performers is finding inspiration in Brooks & Dunn hits and looking to Patty Loveless for collaborations. Some of the friskiest country tracks of the past few years have echoed the guitar-powered, line-dance-friendly drive that Nashville perfected in the '90s. There's a greater appreciation for robust vocals, too; singers with lustier instruments and hard country accents like Lainey Wilson and Luke Combs are beginning to break through again. Whether overtly or subtly, today's artists are making clear how heavily indebted they are to the acts that came to fame alongside Daria and dial-up internet. —Vulture Editors
In the '90s, drinking songs and line dances dominated the honky-tonks, bands piled on the fiddle and banjo, and nearly every chorus sounded better through a stadium's speakers. But beneath it all, the work had good bones, telling straightforward yet vividly rendered tales about love, loss, and life.
.
"If You Go Down (I'm Goin' Down Too)," Kelsea BalleriniWhen the Chicks began disguising songs about revenge as songs about friendship, they had a hell of a lot of fun doing it. So does Kelsea Ballerini. On "If You Go Down (I'm Goin' Down Too)," she promises to be her friend's "getaway Mercedes" and sells lines like "Hypothetically, if you ever kill your husband" with a grin. The song even sounds like an homage to the Chicks, with a pared-back, twangy arrangement heavy on the fiddle, light on the drums, and just right for a sing-along. Ballerini draws from other inspirations, too: namely Shania Twain, from the cheeky Brad Pitt reference to her bold decision to perform the song live flanked by drag queens at this year's CMT Music Awards.
.
"Neon Blue," Joshua Hedley"Neon Blue" is Joshua Hedley's best Garth Brooks cosplay. Once that opening guitar riff snakes in, you can just imagine Hedley holding court on an arena stage wearing a crisp off-white Stetson and singing into a headset mic. "Neon Blue" is all clangy honky-tonk piano, wailing fiddle, and swaggering guitar topped off by Hedley's smooth voice, which would give his hero Ronnie Dunn a run for his money.
.
"Human," Cody JohnsonAs much as the guitars walk, the banjos pluck, and the steel guitars sigh on Johnson's album Human, his penchant for an affecting story is what sets him apart from today's other '90s-indebted stars. The title track may be a new write by Travis Meadows and Tony Lane, but it would fit right in among the decade's top sentimentalists like Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw, and Vince Gill (whom Johnson covers elsewhere on the album) with its simple, tried-and-true message of "I'm still learning." There's nothing flashy about the chorus, but that punch line is as classic as they come: "I guess all I'm sayin' is forgive me / If I don't know what I'm doin' / I'm still learnin' to be human."
.
"Fill 'Er Up," Jon PardiA '90s country drinking song is a specific sort of thing, one that Jon Pardi has studied and perfected. "Fill 'Er Up" follows all the rules. The lyrics may be melancholy, but Pardi doesn't let you hear it lest a tear fall into your beer. Like a good bar, the song feels packed but never crowded, with enough room for an acoustic-guitar solo here and a fiddle line there. Pardi checks off his lines about what he's drinking (including tequila, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sign of 2020s influence), how much, and how he's ready to dance.
.
"Mr. Lonely," MidlandOne side effect of a '90s-country revival: a line-dancing revival. Just leave it to the troubadours of throwback in Midland, who paired their 2019 single-steel-guitar-and piano-laden "Mr. Lonely" with a video of cowboy-hatted models trotting side by side. (You could say they're suckers for what the cowgirls do.) Midland is a band that knows its history, and "Mr. Lonely" could certainly slip in right between "Boot Scootin' Boogie" and "Any Man of Mine" on a honky-tonk playlist. But the truest mark of '90s country here is something more simple: a catchy-as-hell earworm hook that sounds just as good off the dance floor.
Maximalism wasn't new to Nashville in the 1990s, but it was certainly center stage as radio country leaned into its pop influences and ran with sillier jokes. Wherever you hone in on the spectrum of '90s country, you'll find artists and musicians swinging for the fences.
.
"Never Wanted To Be That Girl," Carly Pearce and Ashley McBrydeWoman-to-woman dialogue songs came into the mainstream much later than country's more common man-to-man songs and male-female power ballads. Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde's duet builds on a tradition that is deep and wide. "Never Wanted to Be That Girl" stirs melodrama as Reba and Linda did, swapping vocals, powerfully harmonizing, and telling the song's central story cinematically and emotionally. The third-person voice feels solidly '90s as well, communicating distance from, and unfamiliarity with, oneself, as in Lee Ann Womack's 2006 track "Have You Seen That Girl" and her deliciously '90s stylized record Call Me Crazy.
.
"Tap That," Chris JansonChris Janson's "Tap That" is simply begging for a bespoke choreographed line-dance routine, and that may be the most '90s thing about it. With a utilitarian hook that's as thirsty as it is erotic, "Tap That" feels like the self-deprecating, (slightly more) self-aware '90s precursor to simplistic bro country, which often showcased wit, word play, and silliness more than just unbridled toxic masculinity and rural tropes. At the same time, it's entirely on the nose, leaning into its central pun, pouring unmetered "Saturdays are for the boys" energy into its frenzied southern-rock–meets–radio-country sound, and transporting listeners to boot-scootin' in front of a honky-tonk's chicken-wire-encased stage.
.
"Huntin' Season," Mackenzie CarpenterThe homage to Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" in Mackenzie Carpenter's "Huntin' Season" goes far beyond the four-wheeler-muddin' music video. Carpenter plays with gender roles, rurality, and domesticity, all within a traditional song format — the classic country "Opposite Day" trope, in which a singer celebrates something usually dreaded, gives someone a taste of their own medicine, or reclaims agency by turning the tables. Carpenter's variation on this theme is wry, winking, and affable but makes a striking point: If country is going to be a boy's club, that would naturally leave in its wake a non-male club — and doesn't that sound more fun?
.
"Brenda Put Your Bra On," Ashley McBrydeEven at its most mainstream, the '90s were full of pageantry and theater, two strong underpinnings of Ashley McBryde's 2022 concept album, Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville. Its depictions of pastoral America recall so many stalwart songs and performances of '90s country radio — like "Brenda Put Your Bra On," in which McBryde uses irreverent, working-class, and queer lenses to tell larger-than-life stories that are also down-to-earth. These characters are more complicated and nuanced than most mainstream country released today. The result feels as if it could have been pulled directly from an older era.
.
"You Can Have Him Jolene," Chapel HartGratuitously self-referential songs have been a hallmark of country since its earliest days, but the '90s saw a resurgence of this nostalgia. Chapel Hart's 2021 viral sensation "You Can Have Him Jolene" is certainly not the only song built on a continuation of the lore in Dolly's "Jolene," but it feels palpably retro. Its modern rock-influenced aesthetics and crisp 2020s production feel simultaneously backward- and forward-looking, reminiscent of so many '90s radio hits. And while the lyrics' feminist-tinged self-possession, agency, humor, and unflappability draw on the work of women like Gretchen Wilson, Terri Clark, and Deana Carter, that tradition also reaches much further back in the country canon — beyond even Dolly herself.
Artists teaming up wasn't a new concept in the '90s. But when an established act passed the torch to a rising star, it felt like an event. Thirty years later, not much has changed.
Here we get three generations of bold country women in one song — a late legend, a '90s icon, and a current star who's taking what they did and moving it forward. In this tribute to Loretta Lynn, Carly Pearce and Patty Loveless (Lynn's distant cousin) sing about how their life experiences may be different but the feelings are universal — as Pearce says, she's not a coal miner's daughter, just the great-granddaughter of one. "Your songs were all fun till I lived them myself," she sings near the top, recognizing Lynn's ability to write a song that may be specific in detail but broad in sentiment. And she adds a lyric that perfectly encapsulates what makes a country tune an all-timer: "A lifetime of pain was three minutes long."
Trisha Yearwood was no stranger to massive duets at the peak of her stardom, collaborating with the likes of Don Henley and Aaron Neville, not to mention her husband, Garth Brooks. So it's no surprise that the icon is a highly sought-after singing partner for younger stars. Here, she passes the torch to Whitters as they trade lines about young lovers in trouble like neighbors gossiping over a fence. It's all a clear throwback to Yearwood's 1991 hit "She's in Love With the Boy," showing that while the names may change, the stories stay the same.
While the boys get the beers, Kelsea Ballerini has a drinking song for the wine ladies. Though "Hole in the Bottle" has a spoken-word intro that grounds the song in our current understanding of substance abuse, it's mostly a lighthearted romp about getting over a breakup with the help of Cabernet. Lyrically and sonically, it fits right alongside Shania Twain's early-career vibe so well that the Canadian icon guested on this remix version from late 2020, adding to the feel that this could have been included on 1993's ultraplatinum The Woman in Me.
Just because a collaboration mostly comes from the desire to make a lot of money doesn't mean it can't be great. And we're not saying Brooks & Dunn teamed with Luke Combs purely for profit — it's just that their team-up came on the duo's 2019 LP Reboot, which featured rerecordings of their hits with younger artists providing guest vocals in an effort to introduce them to new listeners. The love on "Brand New Man" goes both ways: Combs is clearly delighted to be singing the 1991 hit, and the older fellas sound reinvigorated by having him there. The single wasn't a smash hit but provided the perfect modern blueprint for reimagining a classic without making it feel like a cash grab.
Talk about the circle of country life: Rimes was just a child when her mature-beyond-her-years voice catapulted her to stardom, and Arts got her big break in part by covering Rimes's "Blue" on TikTok when she wasn't even a teen. Rimes was sold on taking part in the duet based on Arts's talent alone, but the parallels between their lives made it a no-brainer. "After she shared her journey in music with me and how much I have influenced her, it made this opportunity even more special," Rimes said in a statement, and the two have developed a real bond, even duetting on "Blue" at Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium earlier this year. Somewhere out there, a little girl is learning to play this song, not knowing that she'll be duetting with Arts and/or Rimes in a few decades.
Country artists have always nodded to earlier hits, either as a form of tribute or friendly competition. The approach is still a tried-and-true method for country acts to show they know who paved the way.
.
"Like I Love Country Music," Kane BrownLike those of us who incessantly speak in the near-universal language of movie and TV quotes, Kane Brown's "Like I Love Country Music" uses a bunch of recognizable genre hits to convey his affection for his special lady. But rather than just lift lines on the sly, Brown makes sure to cite his influences. The first ones, for example, are "Girl, you gone and done it to me, hotter than a hoochie-coochie / Got me like the first time I heard Alan Jackson 'Chattahoochee.'" He goes on to name-check Willie Nelson, George Jones, Johnny Cash and June Carter, and Brooks & Dunn, even including a snippet of their "Brand New Man" in the background. It may not be the most romantic method of courting, but at least it's easily understandable!
.
"Half of Me," Thomas Rhett feat. Riley GreenTechnically, Rhett and Green are interpolating a 2003 Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett song here, but bear with us. Those latter two artists teamed up to record "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" back in the early aughts, but the song also felt just as '90s, when Jackson was at the peak of his stardom and Buffett's massive concert parties would lay the ground for Kenny Chesney and the like. On this cut from Rhett's 2022 album Where We Started, Green repeats the line "I think old Alan Jackson said it best / 'It's five o'clock somewhеre.'" The saying goes back well before Jackson or Buffett, but it certainly evokes the decade when beer companies started advertising directly to country fans and tailgating before shows became just as much of an event as the music itself.
.
"Everything She Ain't," Hailey WhittersHailey Whitters has written for both Alan Jackson ("The Older I Get") and Martina McBride ("Low All Afternoon"), and her own breakout single, "Everything She Ain't," is reminiscent of her forebears' hits. She doesn't quote them directly but seems to fully channel their sounds and writing styles — similarly poppy but with enough traditional instrumentation to make it clear she has sworn fealty to the genre's history. As she said in an interview, "This song to me is like going back to your roots, staying true to who you are, and knowing that you bring something to the table," which is the perfect explanation for why any artist would interpolate another.
.
"She Had Me at Heads Carolina," Cole SwindellEven though Cole Swindell couldn't really relate to Jo Dee Messina's 1996 hit "Heads Carolina, Tails California," he loved the way the song told its story of a woman splitting town with the love of her life. The Georgia-born singer wanted to pay tribute to the music of that era without just copying the sounds and stylings, so he came up with "She Had Me at Heads Carolina," a tale of a guy in a bar falling in love with a woman who performs Messina's single at karaoke night. It's not a subtle tribute — Swindell sings, "She's got the bar in the palm of her hand / And she's a '90s country fan like I am" — but who cares? Certainly not Messina, who gave her blessing to the song and then guested on a new duet version on the deluxe edition of Swindell's 2022 album, Stereotype.
.
"He Set Her Off," Emily Ann RobertsEmily Ann Roberts is the latest in a long line of the genre's female stars who can pen a great tune about getting back at an abusive, cheating, generally good-for-nothin' man. Here, she specifically harks back to the Chicks' "Goodbye Earl" and its cheekier sense of "guys are scum, but we can have fun getting even with them." Like many '90s empowerment anthems across all genres, both songs show how you can take a deadly serious subject and turn it into an upbeat jam without sacrificing the ugly truths about the male species.
Whether it has the range of an opera star or the monotone rasp of someone whose diet consists of Winstons and Jim Beam, a country singer's voice has to have personality. These artists are among those pushing the envelope forward now while standing on the backs of their Clinton-era predecessors.
.
"Things a Man Oughta Know," Laney WilsonLainey Wilson's gift for embroidering plain communication with pain is a big part of what makes her seem like such a throwback. Lee Ann Womack, that late-'90s exemplar of traditional country singing, is Wilson's most salient influence: Each of them specializes in a high-femme, hard-twanging variety of vivid emotional contouring. Wilson turned it on when she wanted to in early singles ("Workin' Overtime," "Dirty Looks"), and it was in full effect when she recorded "Things a Man Oughta Know." Her delivery is small and rueful as she inventories the survival skills she has learned in the name of self-sufficiency, then her voice fractures and flares as she bemoans the inaction of a male ex, how little effort he put into figuring out how to make things work. The contrast in dynamics makes the mismatch all the more tragic.
.
"How You Love Someone," Mickey GuytonOne of many things Mickey Guyton brought to the table in the latter half of the 2010s was her impressive vocal ability. As twisted as it sounds, that proved to be something of a liability at a time when so much merely passable singing was getting rewarded with chart success. On top of the barriers, double standards, and barely concealed hostility she faced simply for being a Black woman in country music, she was too much of a singer, too rangy, too emotionally present in her performances for the era. Like LeAnn Rimes and Faith Hill before her, Guyton excels at country-pop ballads, such as the testament to romantic survival "Better Than You Left Me," the urgent and resounding statement of "Black Like Me," and the probing of what it's like being swept up in grown-up passion on "How You Love Someone," where she has room to stretch out, handsomely pace her crescendos, and summon submerged anguish to the surface with her sensitive vibrato.
.
"1, 2 Many," Luke CombsLong before the troubled chart reign of Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs's rapid breakthrough served as a bellwether for the shifting center of country masculinity. Combs had just the voice to help the format ease away from bro country's most tepid tendencies. He was familiar enough with what had become tired genre formulas and their often perfunctory emulation of R&B vocal cadences; he preferred reviving the robustness of '90s country with his vocal attack, which is virile without being aggressive and far more good-natured than self-pitying. It's no wonder he teamed up with Brooks & Dunn on their recordings and his; when Combs plays the lucky loser in "When It Rains It Pours," the affably rowdy, luckless barfly in "Beer Never Broke My Heart," and the bender-prone drinking buddy in "1, 2 Many," he sings in rippling, meaty, full voice, like an astute student of Ronnie Dunn.
.
"What He Didn't Do," Carly PearceThe way Carly Pearce introduced herself with her 2017 single "Every Little Thing" suggested she might know more about adult-contemporary balladry than Appalachian singing. It was pretty intoxicating hearing her wallow in the fresh loss of intimacy, but that first radio hit revealed more about her writerly inclinations — her interest in crafting melodrama out of the accumulation of small realizations — than anything else. Since then, Pearce has drawn on her bluegrass background more. From the bluesy trills in "Hide the Wine" to the bent notes of "What He Didn't Do," Pearce is skilled at bringing her poised pop sultriness to lilting, sharp-edged laments.
.
"Somebody Else's Whiskey," Frank RayFrank Ray was plenty aware of the significance of owning his Mexican American identity in the country mainstream and strategic about how he arrived on the national stage: He led with a demonstration of his cultural and stylistic agility, sliding between English and Spanish in his suave upper register over the reggaeton-adjacent groove of 2021's "Streetlights." He brings just as much exuberance to the hard country singing he has done since, including in "Somebody Else's Whiskey," in which he bids high-spirited good riddance to all obligations to and impositions of an ex. The way he scoops out deep, rounded notes and articulates thoroughly country vocal runs, Ray provides a lighthearted bravado to the sort of brawny, ornamented twang that Tracy Lawrence and other '90s predecessors were known for.
The 30 Greatest Nirvana Songs
30 years ago this week, Seattle alt-rock titans Nirvana—Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic—unveiled In Utero, their final studio album as a band. It became one of the most important records of the year and of the decade and, by April of 1994, Cobain would be dead and Nirvana would be no more. Between 1989 and 1994, they put out three studio records, recorded the greatest MTV Unplugged set ever, cast a large spotlight of importance over the Pacific Northwest music scene and, in the largest sense, turned the world on its head and created one of the sharpest, most important eras in all of rock 'n' roll.
Nirvana became huge when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was christened as the song of a generation, the definitive document of the 1990s—we know this much. They ushered in the grunge movement—alongside bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, The Melvins and others—and, in the wake of Cobain's passing, have endured in an almost mythical way. You've likely owned a smiley-face T-shirt at some point in your life, or you've read Cobain's suicide note. You've probably made a joke about the baby on the cover of Nevermind, or you've gotten really stoked on the Meat Puppets because of their proxy with Nirvana. Few rock bands in the history of modern music have outlived their own catalog like Nirvana—maybe only topped by The Beatles, at least in a commercial, consumerist sense.
It's hard to make sense of the landscape of music as we know it in 2023 without first giving thanks to Cobain, Grohl and Novoselic and their contributions. They made rigid, punk-infused rock built on pop architecture and glossed with a noisey, brash shine. To honor the trio, we've combed through their discography—studio albums, demos, live records, EPs and all—and picked out the entries we feel are their very best. So, without further ado, here are the 30 greatest Nirvana songs, ranked. —Matt Mitchell, Music Editor
30. "Breed" (Nevermind, 1991)The quickest three-minute song to ever exist, "Breed" is just dumb, fun and catchy. Originally titled "Imodium" after the anti-diarrhea medicine Tad Doyle was using on TAD and Nirvana's joint European tour in 1989, "Breed" is glam-stoked punk rock with pop choruses. "I don't mean to stare, we don't have to breed," Cobain sings. "We could build a house, we could plant a tree." The lyrics are among the frontman's simplest—but the focus on tracks like "Breed" and other Bleach-era tracks was to get loud and melodic. The verses would come later. Given the greatness of Nevermind, even a track like "Breed"—a composition rid of star-power—lands on two feet. —Matt Mitchell
29. "Very Ape" (In Utero, 1993)Working away from its original title "Perky New Wave Number," "Very Ape" appears on In Utero as an exercise in punk surrealism. With its slight forward syncopation, whirring guitar backing and lyrics like "I'm the king of illiterature," and "Out of the ground, into the sky. Out of the sky, into the dirt," it is impossible to not become absolutely disoriented when listening. Steve albini's tight, meticulous production holds all the parts together in precise frequency, giving Cobain all the room he could possibly need to fully let loose. —Madelyn Dawson
28. "On a Plain" (Nevermind, 1991)While I prefer the Unplugged rendition, it's hard to ignore how melodic and perfect "On a Plain" was and still is. It was written in 1990 after Bleach had come out, recorded in Seattle a year later during Dave Grohl's first session with the band and then re-recorded a year later with Butch Vig at Sound City in Van Nuys. While Cobain felt like the song came out "too clean," there's so much to love about "On a Plain"—especially the "love myself better than you" lyric that rings in with searing catchiness. Much of Nevermind balanced mainstream chords with waves of immense, terrifying distortion—but "On a Plain" cuts through the noise with infectious poptimism and a punk rock gloss. —MM
27. "Molly's Lips" (Incesticide, 1992)Written by the Vaselines and made famous by Nirvana, "Molly's Lips" was the band's most retro entry across their whole catalog—and Cobain sings the track like a punk band playing a sock-hop dance. The version of the track we get on Incesticide was recorded with John Peel during Dave Grohl's first session with the band. It's uptempo and keeps in line with Nirvana's alt-rock blueprint, yet it maintains a candy-coated gloss to it—cementing its legacy as one of the uniquest compositions ever. Cobain never liked his version of the track very much, but I'd argue it's Nirvana on a level they rarely let anyone else hear them get to. —MM
26. "About a Girl" (Bleach, 1989)A wistful ballad from the pre-Dave Grohl era, "About A Girl" charted as a single five years after its initial release on Bleach—thanks to the band's MTV Unplugged album in 1994. Arguably, it's Bleach's most accessible song for its '60s pop melody, and a standout against the grit of the rest of the album. The girl in question is one of Cobain's less infamous girlfriends—Tracy Marander—and recounts their volatile relationship. Domestic spats about cleaning and financial problems are painted as a toxic affair and are artfully condensed into the chorus, "I'll take advantage while you hang me out to dry." Bleach's third track may not be as heavy as other standouts from the 1989 album, but Cobain's classic, scratchy vocal keeps it as grunge as ever. Taking such a risk with a more mainstream sound on their debut foreshadowed their future boundary breaking successes. —Olivia Abercrombie
25. "Lounge Act" (Nevermind, 1991)Novoselic's jumpy bassline starts the track with a particular clean coolness, giving Cobain the space to articulate one of his catchiest vocal melodies in the band's entire catalog. His jealousy builds into the lines "I'd go out of my way to prove I still smell her on you," but he is even-keeled, detached just enough to keep his cool—so that, when he loses it, it rocks you. Cobain's singing turns to screaming, shrieking, growling—giving the song a fuzzed-out desperation that fans can grasp onto wholeheartedly. If this is Nirvana's idea of lounge music, I can't imagine they were a band ever familiar with relaxation or restraint. —MD
24. "The Man Who Sold the World" (MTV Unplugged in New York, 1994)Nirvana's episode of MTV's Unplugged was everything that show should have been. Here was a band near the peak of their commercial powers throwing the concept of the program—artists performing mostly acoustic versions of their material—on its ear. Rather than strip back their hits, the band opted to dig deep into their catalog, put the spotlight on friends like Curt and Cris Kirkwood of Meat Puppets and try out some curveball covers—like their now iconic take on the title track to David Bowie's previously underappreciated 1970 album The Man Who Sold The World. With judicious use of Cobain running his acoustic guitar through a fuzz box and triggering a pedal to make it sound electric—and the beautifully droning cello of Lori Goldston—Nirvana kept true to the song's glam-psych roots while adding in the perfect amount of punk sneer and spit. Their version caused a big enough cultural splash that Bowie was inspired to put it back in the setlists for his live shows. —Robert Ham
23. "Come As You Are" (Nevermind, 1991)A Top-40 hit, "Come As You Are" is often underscored by the song that preceded it as a single—"Smells Like Teen Spirit"—but it is, in many ways, just as roaring and melodical and perfect. It's been hypothesized that the song is a nod to Cobain's heroin addiction, as the line "come doused in mud, soaked in bleach" was a reference to Seattle's local HIV-prevention campaign encouraging addicts to sterilize their needles before use. But even Cobain himself has noted that the song is about the humanism of contradictory forces and societal perceptions and expectations. While it's not as dynamic as other tracks on Nevermind, "Come As You Are" is as legendary as anything else Nirvana ever made. —MM
22. "Polly" (Nevermind, 1991)Stripped down and dirty, "Polly" is easily Nirvana's darkest song. Cobain wrote the track about the abduction and rape of a 14-year-old girl—and he told the story from the perspective of the rapist. Brutal and bare, it's a tough listen but impossible to ignore—if only for its refusal to shy away from male cruelty. Spotlighting the rapist may seem like a slap in the face to victims, but this choice strips away the aestheticization of violence against women that a lot of music perpetuates. Cobain was very outspoken about feminism; this song is a statement of his support for victims. "Polly" uses the metaphor of a caged bird to describe the girl; this song is vulnerable for Cobain, vocally, with just a simple acoustic backing. It's an ambitious turn for him, and it makes the song stand out among such a revered album. The essence of Nirvana was being bold, and to have a song like this on one of the best-selling albums of all time is precisely that: bold. —OA
21. "Even In His Youth" (Nevermind B-side, 1991)Kurt Cobain's strained relationship with his father has been rightfully explored as a crucial element of his output as an artist. That finds no greater expression than this song. Recorded in an early 1991 session prior to signing with DGC, "Even In His Youth" eventually made its way as the B-side of the single release of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." And there's where it has mostly remained, as Nirvana almost never played the song live and never got around to revisiting it in the years after it was recorded. Fans, however, have long since championed this song as a testament to Cobain's ability to express volumes of emotional turmoil in a quick, well-chosen turn of lyrical phrase. Sure we've heard the concept of disgracing the family name before, but when those words are spat out over a backdrop of roiling guitar buzz and misfiring engine rhythmics, they take on greater weight and might. And just listen to Cobain sing the words "Daddy was ashamed." He draws out years of deep seated disgust and anger to fuel each syllable of the pitch shifting melody. Brutal and honest and stingingly relatable; all the best qualities of Nirvana's output summed up in one brilliant song. —RH
20. "Negative Creep" (Bleach, 1989)Perhaps the punkiest cut to make the list, "Negative Creep" is one of the more straightforward tracks on Nirvana's debut studio album Bleach. It repeats and it rips; it's hard to tell which is more heavily distorted, Cobain's guitar or his vocals, the latter of which catches in his throat and scrapes out through his mouth. He sings "Daddy's little girl ain't a girl no more," paying homage to the Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff track "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More," and his vocals fade the track's explosion out into the ether. —MD
19. "Pennyroyal Tea" (In Utero, 1993)Apparently written in 30 seconds on a tape recorder in the apartment he shared with Dave Grohl in Olympia in 1990, "Pennyroyal Tea" is one of Cobain's standout performances on In Utero. No one had made a "Leonard Cohen afterworld" sound so perfect, yet "Pennyroyal Tea" had a certain devastation about it—a truth accentuated by Cobain's scratchy, gashed-up singing. The title is pulled from an herbal remedy used in traditional medicine to induce abortions, just one of the many allusions to reproduction and birth and ailments across In Utero. Knowing that the song is, in actuality, Cobain's own commentary on his long-standing bout with stomach pain, makes it hard to look away from the brutality of lines like "I'm so tired, I can't sleep" and "I'm on warm milk and laxatives, cherry-flavored antacids." —MM
18. "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" (MTV Unplugged in New York, 1994)Before Unplugged, Nirvana had been covering the Vaselines' "Jesus Don't Want Me for a Sunbeam" for years (their Paramount performance on Halloween in 1991 is a personal favorite of mine). But that Unplugged performance—which features Novoselic playing the accordion—is unbelievably perfect and gut-wrenching, as it unleashes Nirvana's underutilized delicate side. Before Unplugged, virtually no one outside of Seattle knew about the track (which was originally called "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam"), and Nirvana helped give it new life across the world. The whole thing is a parody of a Christian children's hymn—but the Vaselines, and Nirvana, made it sing. To many, it's the bridge between "Come As You Are" and "The Man Who Sold the World" in the Unplugged performance; the truth is, it's much better than either of those tracks. It's an all-timer. —MM
17. "Been a Son" (Incesticide, 1992)Incesticide is great because it's a grand amalgam of everything that Nirvana did great—and "Been a Son" is that perfect middle ground between the sludge of grunge and the high-octane pacing of punk rock. Written in 1989 and originally included on the Blew EP that year, "Been a Son" was way ahead of its time lyrically—as Cobain comments on the life of a girl whose parents wanted her to be born a boy. It's a deft commentary on gender, and it could even be interpreted as a nod to how the patriarchy dictates the destinies of the women within it—with Jesus allusions firmly in tow. "She should have died when she was born, she should have worn the crown of thorns," Cobain sings. "Been a Son" is a benchmark on Incesticide and a benchmark for Nirvana altogether. —MM
16. "In Bloom" (Nevermind, 1991)"In Bloom" is a sonic straight-shooter, though its enigmatic lyrics have inspired decades of stupefaction. Nirvana play into their own reputation here; Cobain sings his condemnations of the fair-weather fan over a consistent electric guitar, with a riff that brings the band as close as they ever get to an arena-ready rock song. "He's the one who likes all our pretty songs and he likes to sing along" Cobain croons. "But he knows not what it means." The kicker is that before you know it, you're singing along to the damn thing too. —MD
15. "Serve the Servants" (In Utero, 1993)The opener on In Utero is superior to the opener on Nevermind and I'll die on that hill. Had it not been for the whole "song of a generation" thing with "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Serve the Servants" would have gotten those accolades instead. It's a gorgeous and blistering first chapter on Nirvana's swan song—and a line like "Teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old" is, perhaps, one of the greatest opening lyrics in rock 'n' roll history. It maintains a steady noise, deviating from the soft/loud formula Nirvana perfected. It's the approach that makes the track such a standout on a record brimming with outliers. There are nods to how the public scrutiny of Courtney Love and her band Hole was like a witch-hunt, allusions to the pain and aches of unexpected stardom and a bunch of self-loathing and hyper-critical mindsets. It's a dynamic, brilliantly cathartic and complex track that stabilized the spectrum of In Utero. —MM
14. "Lithium" (Nevermind, 1991)Sometimes I feel like the wrong song from Nevermind blew up. Yes, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is great and worthwhile, but, c'mon, have you heard "Lithium"? Cobain was at his best when he was merging heavy alt-rock with Beatles-inspired pop melodies—and that is exactly what "Lithium" was and remains. It's perfect and catchy and everlasting. Cobain wrote the song about people whose vices are religion-based, specifically through the context of a heartbroken man—post-breakup—attempting to find God before killing himself. Beyond the candied gloss and lightness of that opening riff, "Lithium" is a deeply ruminative song stirred by Cobain's own interest in the human condition and our obsessions—and lines like "I'm so happy, 'cause today I found my friends, they're in my head" and "I'm so ugly, that's okay 'cause so are you, broke our mirrors" and "I love you, I'm not gonna crack" still shine uncomfortably and beautifully. —MM
13. "Rape Me" (In Utero, 1993)Cobain wrote most of "Rape Me" while Nevermind was being mixed in May 1991. The usual rebuttal towards anyone's displeasure with the song's title is that "Rape Me" is actually an anti-rape song that serves as a commentary on fame. The bridge came much later in 1991 and holds allusions to Cobain and Courtney Love's marriage and struggles with a newfound mainstream success. The "I'm not the only one" chorus reads like a worry that the jabs at Cobain and Love would make their way onto the life and livelihood of their daughter Frances Bean, while the "my favorite inside source, I'll kiss your open sores" line has been attributed to the accusation of a manager of a local Seattle band anonymously being interviewed for a Vanity Fair profile on Cobain and Love in 1992. "Rape Me" is a complex song that uses the most piercing language to get its message across—and it could have only worked under the shadow of Nevermind. —MM
12. "Something in the Way" (Nevermind, 1991)Thrust back into the mainstream by The Batman in 2022, "Something in the Way" hit #2 on Billboard's US Rock Digital Songs Sales chart over 30 years after its initial release. But long before the DC comic book adaptation gave new life to the song, Nirvana had made it the stirring, haunted finale ("Endless, Nameless" remains a hidden track) on Nevermind. Featuring a stark, droning cello performance from Kirk Canning, "Something in the Way" is, in no short terms, a rather menacing entry—and one of Cobain's strongest vocal performances—in the Nirvana catalog. "Underneath the bridge, tarp has sprung a leak and the animals I've trapped have all become my pets," he sings. "And I'm living off of grass,and the drippings from the ceiling. It's okay to eat fish, 'cause they don't have any feelings." The song's origins and inspiration have been widely debated, as many long believed it was about Cobain's period of homelessness as a teenager—but Cobain himself considered the track a fantasy. I think Courtney Love said it best, that the place he wrote from was "so emotionally desperate we all understand it." —MM
11. "School" (Bleach, 1989)You've got to love a classic "high school sucks" song; it's the crux of all edgy teens. "School," in particular, is about someone who returns to work as a janitor at their old high school. The story sounds like a bad dream, but it was a reality for Cobain—who actually did this when he dropped out of classes. The song is a scream of frustration with punchy riffs and hard-hitting drum rhythms under repeated yells of "Won't you believe it? It's just my luck." The raw and unedited production is what truly shines on Bleach, and the simplicity of the angsty lyrics makes "School" the perfect grunge classic. —OA
10. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nevermind, 1991)There's an argument to be made that, without "Smells Like Teen Spirit," there wouldn't be millions of people wearing smiley face T-shirts and bowing down to Kurt Cobain like he was a God—and that may be a fair assessment to make, but it's merely a what-if at this point. When it comes to the greatest rock songs of all time or the greatest songs of the 1990s, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is always, without fail, a high-ranking representative—and often tops the latter. Let's face it: The track made Nirvana into kingpins of rock 'n' roll; painted them as saviors in a post-1980s synth-pop world. It's the most referenced alt-rock track in history for a reason, and that's because it's very, very good.
But, as is the case with 90% of bands, it is not Nirvana's best song—it's just the one that got everybody's attention, and there's nothing wrong with that. Even at live gigs, Cobain would play some of the chords wrong intentionally because of his disdain for its popularity. But, from that raw, haunted opening riff to Grohl's bonkers drumming, you'd have to have been living under a rock for the last 32 years to not immediately recognize the track when it comes on. "With the lights out, it's less dangerous" has become synonymous with one of the most fleeting eras of music ever. A tip of the cap to Cobain and company for making such an unequivocally perfect anthem for a movement that would live with their success and die with their disbandment. —MM
9. "Scentless Apprentice" (In Utero, 1993)One of the heaviest moments on In Utero, "Scentless Apprentice" features a thrashing arrangement and lyrical compositio ubiquitous for possessing Cobain's touchstone surrealism. He was inspired to write the song after reading Patrick Süskind's 1985 novel Perfume. Lines like "most babies smell like butter" and "electrolytes smell like semen" and "there are countless formulas for pressing flowers," paired with Cobain's desire to make the track the second single from the album, are immediate nods to just how unconcerned he was with fitting into the mainstream's box. "Scentless Apprentice" is a clear example of the angst and the poison Cobain sought to expunge from his own psyche—and it unfurls in droves here. The song is so antithetical to the accessibility of Nevermind that it's as if a completely different band wrote it—which is what makes it so damn important. —MM
8. "Endless, Nameless" (Nevermind, 1991)Let us never forget those glorious days of the peak CD era when artists would hide material in plain sight in the dead space between proper tracks, or in the digital area before the first song begins. Or, as was the case with many second run and beyond CD pressings of Nevermind, after many minutes of silence. Once the duration counter on your player hit the 13:52 mark (or thereabouts), listeners were treated to a corrosive and nasty little number by Nirvana that apparently was spat out on the spot by the band following frustrating attempts to record a different song. It is a righteous spew of noise-rock bile with Cobain screeching a wordless melody and torturing his Fender Stratocaster to the point that he destroyed the instrument. When the band played the song live, at the end of their sets, the whole band would follow suit, fearlessly tossing equipment and their bodies around. Put this track on at the right volume in your own home and see if you don't wind up smashing some shit. —RH
7. "You Know You're Right" (Nirvana, 2002)The last song Nirvana ever recorded—on January 30, 1994—"You Know You're Right" appears to suggest what direction the band was destined to go in after In Utero. As heavy as anything they'd made prior, it's an evocative, formulaic approach to what Cobain and company had perfect long before. Featuring slow, methodical verses and a cathartic, explosive recurring chorus, "You Know You're Right" is brilliant and devastating—if only because it's the last thing Cobain ever laid down in a studio. The lyrics point to a disintegrating relationship and a desire to run away from toxicity. "I no longer have to hide, let's talk about someone else," he sings. "The steaming soup begins to melt. Nothing really bothers her, she just wants to love herself." "You Know You're Right" was only performed live once—during a show at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago in October 1993—but it's release as a single in 2002 helped usher Nirvana back into the cultural forefront as nu-metal and "butt rock" were still plaguing mainstream and alternative rock 'n' roll. —MM
6. "Drain You" (Nevermind, 1991)It might be impossible to pick a favorite Nevermind song, but "Drain You" should always be considered a contender. Cobain even cited it as one of his favorites off the album, and for good reason. Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill—another of Cobain's girlfriends—not only inspired the song, but she unintentionally contributed to the famous verse "It is now my duty to completely drain you"—which was something she said to him during their breakup. Brutal. Still exalting the passion of the relationship, the pounding chorus gives the fervent image of sharing more than spit: "Chew your meat for you, pass it back and forth in a passionate kiss from my mouth to yours." It is a disgustingly delicious depiction of imperfect love, and Cobain approaches it in an almost clinical way—with the sounds of inhalation and mentions of infections and fluids. It's the perfect setup for the medical motif of In Utero. —OA
5. "Sliver" (Incesticide, 1992)"I decided I wanted to write the most ridiculous pop song I had ever written," Cobain said, in order to prepare for the band's 1991 release which would come to be Nevermind. And so, "Sliver" was born—and, even with its pop-influenced structure, simple and sweet lyrics and intentionally deafening repetition, "Sliver" still has a certain rawness to it. Novoselic underlies the track with a pulsing, sparse bassline that makes the initial flash of electric guitar feel both unexpected and inevitable. It isn't a song that takes itself too seriously, and it serves as a needed reminder that Nirvana also didn't fear an appropriate dose of silliness. —MD
4. "Heart-Shaped Box" (In Utero, 1993)The last song Nirvana ever played was "Heart-Shaped Box," which they used to close their March 1, 1994 concert in Munich. A little over a month later, Kurt Cobain would be dead and Nirvana would be over. Less than a year earlier, it served as the lead single to In Utero, and it remains one of the most notable tracks in the band's catalog. Written in the Fairfax apartment Cobain shared with his wife Courtney Love, the origins of "Heart-Shaped Box" stretch as far back to the tail-end of the Nevermind cycle. Love has said before that he was working on the now-infa
Comments
Post a Comment