Nirvana Box Set - 'With The Lights Out'

Release Date: November 23, 2004

It Includes:

Disc 1

"Finally it's here. After years of rumour, conjecture and intra-band strife, the Nirvana boxset has arrived. And there's plenty of it: nigh on 80 tracks in total, three quarters of those previously unavailable. Arranged chronologically over four discs, your money also buys a 60-page illustrated book, an annotated time-line, liner notes by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and a gatefolded box made from heat-sensitive material that changes colour when you touch it.

Initially, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselie were looking at the project as a way of "personal closure". That was around the time of Nevermind's 10th anniversary, when they were on a war footing with Courtney Love - then, even collating their unreleased Nirvana tapes was the limit of their ambition. They couldn't have envisaged something this extravagant. Now, thanks to a peace accord with Love, the tracklist has been swollen with the boxes of cassettes Cobain squirrelled away from 1987 to 1994, the year he wrote that suicide note saying he hadn't "felt the excitement for years".

Excitement is the best thing going for the earliest tracks; only historians and serious fans would want to play the messy Led Zeppelin cover, Heartbreaker (from Nirvana's debut show), more than once; they were glorying - as Cobain sings in White Lace And Strange, one of three cuts from 1987 - in being "young and stupid". Though Cobain often spoke of fusing Black Sabbath with The Beatles, Zeppelin seem to hold more sway here, from the Raunchola/Moby Dick medley to the old blues covers. The three remarkable Leadbelly songs feature Cobain and Novoselic with Mark Pickerel of Screaming Trees, who shares drumming credits on this disc with Aaron Burckhard, Dale Crover and Chad Channing.

As the set progresses, the trademark Nirvana sound begins to take shape. Check out the Clean Up Before She Comes demo's, layered vocals over bony guitar - it's where we first hear that blend of dopey ennui, throat-ripping anger and melodic fragility in Cobain's voice. But he's still finding his range, so primitive gospel song They Hung Him On A Cross sees him channelling Johnny Cash. Elsewhere, on the daft Beans, he's channelling cartoon rockers The Chipmunks.

Where CD 1 opened with Cobain's voice cobwebby, barely discernible, CD2's first five tracks has it upfront. By now, his songwriting is increasingly sure-footed and his vocals audibly growing in confidence. He has range now, melodic and engaging on Opinion, energised and raw on Lithium, keening like an old Appalachian country-blues singer over an acoustic guitar on Where Did You Sleep Last Night. It's not all good: The Velvet Underground cover Here She Comes Now sounds more bored than the original. But as we enter the '90s, it's Cobain's songwriting which starts to bewitch, featured here in alternate, live and demo versions. The real hair-on-end moment is the first rehearsal of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Even in foetal state, you know it will change the face of rock.

It will also, of course, change Cobain. By CD3, the nosedive has begun. Nirvana are a phenomenon, and Cobain just wants to crawl back into the womb. Instead, he's a father - that's baby Frances crying on the second Rape Me - and a man losing control; the tempo veers all over the place on his solo Pennyroyal Tea. The Vaseline's Jesus Doesn't Want Me... is dark, drugged. Very Ape sounds like he's been tied to a hamster's wheel. But there are moments too when the thrill of creation, of simply being part of a band, glares through: the 10-minute jam Scentless Apprentice, for example.

The DVD underlines that spirit. There's wobbly footage of rehearsals in Novoselic's mum's living room, and wobblier footage from the Bleach tour, the band carrying bedrolls to sleep together on the floor. There's an '89 in-store, a gig opening for Mudhoney, In Bloom's cheap video and a show at which in total silence they announce a new song: ... Teen Spirit. The ending - the band a studio in Rio, Cobain on drums, doing a straight version of cheesy ballad Seasons In The Sun - will bring tears to your eyes. Or make you buy a guitar.

Thursday, October 24, 2004

Less than a month until release day, it has been annonced that Thurston Moore will be writing the liner notes for the upcoming Nirvana box set. The sixty page booklet included in the set will feature Moore's commentary as well as unpublished photos of Nirvana. Thurston Moore is the guitarist for Sonic Youth - a band who toured with Nirvana in 1991. Also, an official announcement has been made from Geffen Records confirming the release of the box set.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Potential cover art? This picture was posted on umusic.com for a short time before it was taken off. Apparently Universal has a policy not to release tracklists before 30 days prior to the release of music, so we may have to wait another week or so before we see an official tracklist. Click on the image below for a bigger version....

Saturday, October 16, 2004

An official website has been launched to promote the upcoming Nirvana Box Set. The site confirms a 4-disc box set to be released internationally on November 22, 2004 - with a Canadian and US release of November 23, 2004. Currently there is only a link to pre-order at Amazon.com, with sounds, videos and images "coming soon".  

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

"The long-awaited Nirvana box set 'WITH THE LIGHTS OUT' will feature 68 previously unreleased recordings. Released on November 22, the four-disc set will feature 81 tracks including 68 previously unreleased recordings - rehearsals, outtakes, Kurt's home demos, as well as a DVD which is confirmed to have unreleased band home movies, live footage, rehearsal footage and 20 full-length video performances. A 60-page booklet will accompany the release. A source told NME.COM: 'I've seen some of the footage and it's amazing stuff. There's a video of them performing at a friend's party with Kurt reading lyrics off a sheet of paper on the wall, footage of them covering Seasons In The Sun in a studio with Kurt on drums and lots of other great stuff.' The artwork for the set is currently being put together, with the likely choice being a 'landscape' box..." NME.com

"The 3CDs feature 81 tracks with 63 of these being previously unreleased recordings of rehearsals, outtakes and Kurt's home demos. Meanwhile the DVD features unreleased band home movies, live footage, rehearsal footage and 20 full length video performances." - HMV UK online

Saturday, September 4, 2004

A limited edition release will include footage of Nirvana playing one of their first shows at a 1987 house party. Parts of the video were recently shown at a National Association of Recording Merchandisers conference. "From what I saw at [NARM] - which was amazing - I think it's going to blow everyone away. It really will out-perform any expectations that customers may have - even if their expectations are huge," said attendee Carl Mello.

Krist Novoselic said in 2002 that a planned box set was to inlcude 'KAOS radio 1987, BBC Peel Sessions, studio outtakes, sessions that we did in north Seattle, Rio de Janeiro, In Utero outtakes, live stuff...'

NME.COM reports that the DVD will include "archive footage, including a rare promo of ‘In Bloom’. An early live show is also expected to feature. The audio tracks on the box set will be rare and in some cases, previously unheard demos, alternative versions and radio session tracks."