Teenage angst has paid off well / Now I'm bored and POLLed: The ILM Nirvana poll results thread (Poll #69)

Well Nevermind and In Utero are clearly going to place in their entirety. Not really a shock in a 40-track rundown by a band whose studio albums contain a grand total of 37 songs.

my god the Voodoo people sample is so obvious – how did i never notice??!!??!

http://i.imgur.com/TRD8Ikf.jpg

19. Pennyroyal Tea
434 points, 20 votes (incl. 1 vote for the MTV Unplugged version)

Gutted this didn't make the top 10 - I had it at #2 but for a long time it was my favourite Nirvana song.

that'd be 12th for me

Well Nevermind and In Utero are clearly going to place in their entirety. Not really a shock in a 40-track rundown by a band whose studio albums contain a grand total of 37 songs.

Ha, yeah, I voted for 10/12 songs on In Utero and 8/12 songs on Nevermind.

"Pennyroyal Tea" #18 for me.

gimme
a Leonard
Cohen afterworld

Well, of course, but we've only just hit the Top 20 and more songs from In Utero have placed than songs from Nevermind. I can only think of two songs from Bleach that could possibly be up this high, 'About a Girl' of course being one of 'em, and I can think of two big songs from Incesticide that are yet to place.

In terms of my own ballot, 11 of them have already placed... remaining are: 2 songs from Bleach, 2 from Nevermind, 1 from Incesticide, 3 from In Utero and one which I don't think has a fucking chance of placing at this stage.

'Pennyroyal Tea' was one of the songs on In Utero I didn't vote for. I like it, but I think superior tracks from the record have already placed.

I think it's weird that #24 is the first thing on Gavin's ballot to show up.

for a few years i'd misremembered that line as "Leonard Cohen afterbirth"

wonder why they bitched about how Albini had gotten the mix 'wrong' on Pennyroyal Tea when even the Litt remix doesn't sound.. hugely different.

gimme
a Leonard
Cohen afterworld

Slightly regretting not going with "Gimme A George M. Cohan Afterworld" as a d/n.

The backing vocal is louder on the Litt remix and there's been a tiny bit of sweetening up, but not a great deal. Litt's version of 'Heart-Shaped Box' had far more done to it.

for a few years i'd misremembered that line as "Leonard Cohen afterbirth"

Haha, that sounds more typically Cobain than the real line

Christ, I hope the Top 5 isn't 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Come As You Are', 'Lithium', 'About a Girl' and 'Heart-Shaped Box' ... god, that would just be so fucking boring.

Calling It:"M.V." #1

I have had five songs place now - I skew slightly away from the noisy/Bleach side of Nirvana and there seemed to be a lot of that lower down (xposts).

You know when you see a list of song titles ahead of an album, and imagine how they might go?

Well, its just as well ILX pre-covers weren't around, as I had the "Sit and drink penny royal tea" line long before I heard the song.

http://i.imgur.com/slF1K3E.jpg

18. Where Did You Sleep Last Night
449 points, 18 votes

FUCK - how did I forget to put Moist Vagina on my ballot? goddammit!

I think "Pennyroyal Tea" is one of the few songs on Unplugged that's markedly inferior to its studio version. A lot of people find it devastating, I know, but having Kurt play it solo just highlights his severe limitations as an acoustic guitarist, and makes him sound petulant. It needs those anthemic surges on the chorus.

"Where Did You Sleep Last Night," on the other hand, is one of those few performances that really, honestly makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I know that 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night' has always been a popular track, but after looking at what tracks have yet to place I kinda figured it wouldn't place at this stage. I'm actually delighted to see it here, even if I didn't vote for it.

otm on both counts. His voice cracks in the wrong place on the Unplugged version. Plus, it not a great melody? It needs the full band.

Maybe I should have voted for it, actually, because I love Cobain's performance on it.

I think bleach's negative creep sounds bad next to the wishkah version

The Unplugged version of 'Pennyroyal Tea' is undoubtedly my least favourite version, so I couldn't agree more.

Christ, I hope the Top 5 isn't 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Come As You Are', 'Lithium', 'About a Girl' and 'Heart-Shaped Box'

Damn, I have 3 of those in my top 5 because I was more interested in accuracy than not-boring!

Thanks to only having terrestrial tv back then, it took ages for the Unplugged show to air over here, about a year after Kurt had gone.

Anyway, due to being out on that night I had set the vcr to record it, and my settings were such that the recording ended about 10 seconds before the end of "Sleep last night" just as k had taken a deep breath for the last "whole night through".. BANG! Off.

That was hair raising times two.

xxxxp to Alfred - Yeah, "Pennyroyal Tea" has a great set of lyrics but it's harmonically threadbare. Another performance that gives the lie to the eternally stupid idea that you can't call it a great song unless it translates to solo acoustic.

just highlights his severe limitations as an acoustic guitarist

This is basically my problem with the whole Unplugged album. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" isn't bad though.

I like Unplugged in NY but I haven't listened to it in years.

http://i.imgur.com/889DcUW.jpg

17. Lounge Act
469 points, 19 votes, 3 #1 votes

i'm here to represent the Great Unwashed who can't tell a limited acoustic guitarist from Leo Kottke. xp

Don't tell me what I wanna hear.

i like the acoustic guitar on Unplugged! what's wrong with it?

I seem to recall a story about how during the Unplugged taping, on some the more electric-oriented numbers Cobain stomped on imaginary pedals as a reflex action.

Well on "The Man Who Sold the World" he actually does use a distortion pedal

YES! 'Lounge Act'! One of my all-time favourite Nirvana songs, this.

TOO LOW!

Pure hooks.

IMO Nirvana songs are pretty barre chord heavy, so YMMV as how they come across acoustically - Pennyroyal or On a Plain I'm thinking (as opposed to About A Girl etc)

Yup, 'Lounge Act' is just pure hooks... I love pretty much everything about this song, and a great bassline too.

For most of Unplugged I don't really have a problem with the guitar work - the record's really not about that - but even when I got the album for my birthday in 1994 (I was 12 and hadn't yet touched a guitar) I could tell KC wasn't so hot on acoustic.

Yeah love this one.

Lounge Act is so great, one of the songs that wouldn't have fit on Bleach or In Utero at all. Glad to see it in the top 20. That makes 5 in a row I voted for.

I guess another reason why I feel 'Lounge Act' is too low is that aside from 'Breed' (which I voted for) and 'On a Plain' (which I didn't, but easily could have done) the rest of the selections from Nevermind, all of which will undoubtedly place, are all the songs which at this stage I'd be happy never to hear again. I got tired of 'Drain You' years ago, if I'm to be honest, and what's left? 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Come As You Are', 'Lithium' and 'In Bloom', which are undoubtedly the four songs on the record which lost their power for me a long time ago to the point where I find 'em a bit boring to listen to.

Novoselic deserves a medal for that bass line

I recall the live version received moderate play on the local alt stations when Wishkah came out, but other than that "Drain You" isn't exactly a radio staple. Maybe you got tired of it 'cause you played it so much?

Last one for today:

http://i.imgur.com/OAvN17R.jpg

15. Come as You Are
469 points, 21 votes