Richard's funny with music. There are frequently long gaps between us seeing each other, and, when we do, he'll tell me excitedly about some great 'new' band he's just discovered and wants to turn me on to. "Oh, really," I'll reply, trying not quite hard enough to conceal my incredulity, "what are they called?" And the answer will be something like The Flaming Lips, or Radiohead. OK, I exaggerate a little (and Radiohead are probably still a little too modern for his tastes), but it was something like that with R.E.M. in '87 — though I admit he won me over that time, where Radio 1 and the NME had failed.
And thus it was that he came to stay in 1992 (we went to Rollercoaster together), carrying the gift of this CD. What could I say? It's very kind of him to give me all this music (1, 2, others I can't think of just now), but I had a shrewd idea that Nevermind was going to be an uphill struggle.
Lucy thinks I'm being wilfully perverse and obscure not liking stuff like this (or OK, Computer etc etc). But the way I remember it was that this Seattle scene gradually infiltrated John Peel's programme around 1990 in the wake of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and Pixies — yet none of this scene seemed up the same standard as those forebears. Mudhoney were the best of the bunch, but at the time no one seemed to think much of Nirvana or Pearl Jam. I didn't, and I've never got the point of what was so special since. The first 30 seconds of Nevermind has an obvious appeal, but it stops there for me.
Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam, from the Unplugged album, is OK, I guess. But that's a cover version. The rest — meh, as they say. Grunge is the word; so turgid.
MusicBrainz entry for this album
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