Nirvana, "Aneurysm" (Track of the Week)

Even though I grew up in the 90s if I decide to listen to old music I will dig up stuff from the 60s and 70s as opposed to the decade of my youth. It's not because I don't like the music, it's because it has such intense emotional connections for me. The memories can get a bit overwhelming. 

For some reason, I have been able to overcome that recently, and have been incessantly listening to the OG grunge that came out of Seattle in the early 90s, before the Silverchairs and Bush-es of the world turned the genre into lamesville. 

Back in 1991 I was trying to explore more challenging, less mainstream music with the resources available to me in a small town in the middle of Nebraska before the internet. In the fall of 1991 this meant a lot of REM, The Clash, Depeche Mode and *gulp* The Doors. That was my main listening diet when I got hit upside the head by "Smells Like Teen Spirit." It was love at first feedback. 

After a year of listening to Nevermind on repeat and going back to pick up Bleach I was desperate for more of my favorite band, and so I bought the B-sides and rarities comp Incesticide the day it came out. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but some of the songs put their hooks in me, including "Aneurysm." (I find it best heard in the live version at Reading.) At their best Nirvana sounded like an explosion, but here their fireworks do the loud-quiet-loud thing they lifted from The Pixies for their biggest hit. (It's fitting that this was the B-side to "Smells Like Teen Spirit.") The loud parts are truly fearsome, the most savage attack they mounted in any of their songs. For me it's a song that belongs in the B-side hall of fame.

Nirvana reminds me of my angsty teen years like nothing else, when I would blast this music in my car and blow away all of anxiety and feelings of inadequacy in a hurricane of feedback and drums. It can feel weird and a bit embarrassing to go back to that state of mind as an adult, but the music is a reminder that I've come a long way. I only wish Kurt had been able to make his own journey.