Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Kurt Cobain
Krist Novoselic
Dave Grohl
Courtney Love
Buzz Osborne
Kurt Loder
Henry Rollins
Directed By:
?
I liked Nirvana as a kid, but I was also very scared by them. I thought they looked like a bunch of derelict serial killers in their videos and that they would rape me and kill me in my sleep. Also, I didn't understand the concept of a rock star persona back then, so I thought their on-stage and interview antics were made directly to fuck with me and not with the music establishment. What can I say? I was nine years old. NIRVANA: TEEN SPIRIT INTERVIEWS is not really a documentary. It's more like one of those seminal rock tapes that were offered in rock magazines, that you mom ordered for you for Christmas, at your request*. I have Pantera's VULGAR VIDEO in VHS, in the nineties. It has some documentary value, but it doesn't really try to make a point. It's just a bunch of interviews put together for commercial purposes, with a slight emphasis on the fact that Kurt is dead. Just a tiny bit. Which is great because it's more of an honest celebration of Kurt's work than a mourning piece.
Nirvana were the last great cultural phenomenon of music. I do not count the Backstreet Boys in there, because 1)They didn't change anything (they were an updated spin on the New Kids On The Block) and 2)They targeted a very precise audience, teenage girls. Nirvana reached to alienated kids, yes but they tapped into an anger everybody seemed to feel or at least, understand. Die hard fans of Nirvana will probably learn very little in this interview tape. Kurt, Krist and Dave recall how they came to know each other and make music together, from before BLEACH to the controversial making of IN UTERO and to the post-Kurt era where both surviving Nirvana members look like grown suburban dad. Funny thing, Kirst Novoselic, which I thought to be the Nirvana member who looked the most like a cracked up trailer park killer back then, is now fat and wears neat clothes. Oh and where's Pat Smear? Except for background appearances in late Cobain interviews, he's not allowed a word in there. I would have loved to have his side of the story on how he magically appeared during Nirvana's live performances. Has somebody ever asked him to talk?
Like I said, there's no real fresh stories but there are some I never get tired to hear. The inception of SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT for example. One of rock n' roll cornerstone song was built on so many bizarre occurrences that it had to be this unique. From the Pixies-ripoff guitar riff to Kurt, not understand what "Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit" meant, the most talented fiction writers couldn't have come up with a better story than this. The whole Nirvana story is very dramatic (rock n' roll's last great drama, too?), but this is really a pure moment in the existence of the bad. My second favorite story is the recording of IN UTERO, with noise-rock producer Steve Albini. This was a long and complex process that Kurt Cobain has to sell very hard to his record label and didn't satisfy many people. I liked IN UTERO. I thought it was very coherent to do such a record after the success of NEVERMIND. Artistic integrity and songwriting skills are a combination not many artist can brag to have.
I watched NIRVANA: TEEN SPIRIT INTERVIEWS on Netflix and I'd be lying if I said that you should watch it any other way. While it's been pretty informative to the casual Nirvana fan that I am, it's not very well structured and there is a lot of filler. The last twenty minutes is an unlistenable mix of low-fi interviews taped by fans or by Nirvana themselves. There is one lengthy bit taped in Montreal (which is cool) but you can barely hear anything. So I suggest you watch it on Netflix also and stop the streaming when you're up to this interview. It will save you some bandwith. It's always cool to have the members of a band going over the higher and lower points of the band's life but NIRVANA: TEEN SPIRIT INTERVIEWS would've benefited a tighter direction and an artistic purpose. You can't rely on the interviewees alone to assure the content of a would-be documentary. You need to have a purpose to it. Interesting in parts, but NIRVANADA: TEEN SPIRIT INTERVIEWS is a bit of a scattered mess. But rock tapes usually are.
SCORE: 62%
* Or that you ordered yourself, with money that your mom gave you. Either way, if your mom wrapped it up and put it under the tree(moms liked to do that) you always tried to spot it and open it first, so that you could unwrap the rest of your presents with a genuine surprise.
