Sliver: The Best Of The Box

“Demos” (four track, cassette, etc), obscure live recordings, tracing back to 1985 roots of Nirvana all the way up to rudimentary sketches of In Utero tunes, up to their very last song. Some are unreleased songs that were plenty fine in the studio that didn’t make the record (for good reason), others are fascinating peeks into the rough edges around Cobain’s mind, several sound like Curt alone in his room with a tape recorder and an old acoustic. Like most posthumous releases of “obscurities” (or crappy “Directors’ Cuts”) this paltry play to line the pockets of David Geffen employees and Courtney Loves pharmacists’ would have Kurt laughing and rolling his eyes in his grave.

1) very lowfi 1985 version of a Bleach song, the vocals are pitiful if fascinating, yikes
2) Nirvana playing Zep’s Heartbreaker, sounds like every high school party I went to in the late 70’s
3) FCCs (too bad)
4) live, good take on fundamental Bleach song/sound
5) 4 track song heretofore ever heard, mellow guitar and several vocal tracks, a dumb little ode to junkidom
6) Enter the Nevermind era: 4 track guitar/vocal version of About a Girl is quite nice if only in a ghostly creepy manner
7) metal damage, Bleach, says “home demo” but the quality is full band and decent
8) hilarious side of Nirvana you’ve never heard before: a hillbilly cowpunk song, probably a sidewise poke at the rednecks that tortured all those rocker kids in Aberdeen
9) one of the better older songs, a nice cut
10) solo acoustic radio appearance, angsty folk
11) solo acoustic radio cut of Lithium, wow, nice
12) home low fi, solo acoustic of Sliver (“gran’ma take me home”)
13) very low-fi early home-recorded cut of Smells Like, lyrics are incomplete but the soul and desperation is ratcheted up a notch, wow
14) Come As You Are, “boom box version”, sounds like a living room, nice
15) a “Nevermind Outtake”, mellower, weaker stuff than what made the record
16) heavy as fuck, worthy of Bleach
17) Rape Me, home solo acoustic 4 track quality
18) “band demo” or Rape Me features a crying tiny baby here and there, creepy (Francis Bean? most likely), very close to what ended up on In Utero
19) studio demo, Heart Shaped Box, incomplete lyrics, incomplete arrangement
20) low fi acoustic guitar, solo, near melancholy pop
21) very low fi, more tape dropouts, dark demo of something that may have become greatness, pensive Nirvana
22) acoustic solo take on All Apologies, incomplete lyrics, nice