You might have noticed that some people have been talking recently about an album that came out a couple of decades ago. Nirvana’s Nevermind undeniably changed the face of popular music. Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994 at the rather cliché age of 27 only served to heighten the legend: Nirvana were a one-off, the unique, authentic voice of Generation X.  They were prodigies in flannel shirts and ripped jeans, erupting out of nowhere, inventing modern alternative rock en route, and then burning out instead of fading away – as Cobain’s suicide note put it.

Indeed, Nirvana were rampant self-mythologisers. The very title Nevermind casts Cobain as a Peter Pan figure, taking the listener on a journey not to a physical place but instead into an alien, and alienated, state of consciousness. And, like most myths, the Nirvana legend is based on the truth. It’s difficult to refute that in 1991 Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl dragged underground rock kicking and (literally) screaming into the mainstream, or that the establishment of grunge as what The New York Times called in 1992 ‘a musical genre, a fashion statement, a pop phenomenon’ – still frequently revived – was a direct consequence of Nevermind’s immediate popularity.

That’s not to say they did it alone, of course. In many ways the history of Nevermind is the history of grunge – where that rough, nihilistic sound came from, and where it went to later. The bands that influenced Nirvana, and those that were influenced by them, form a chain of influence and collaboration that ran through US alternative rock in the 1980s and early 1990s. Nirvana are best seen as the central link in that chain.

Nirvana – Dive

So, you own Nevermind. You like Nevermind. Well, this is better than most of it. The b-side of ‘Sliver’ (1990) is a churning mid-tempo masterpiece, which has Nirvana demonstrating their gift for combining heavy instrumentation with curiously beautiful melodies. 

Meat Puppets – Plateau

‘Plateau’ was covered on Nirvana’s famous MTV Unplugged appearance, with guest instrumentation from Meat Puppets’ Cris and Curt Kirkwood. The original version from Meat Puppets II (1984) starts out similarly, but then, forty seconds from the end, erupts into a coruscating, spiralling guitar solo which elevates it far beyond Nirvana’s tribute. 

Hüsker Dü – Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely

One of Kurt Cobain’s favourite bands and the original alternative power trio, Hüsker Dü seemed to anticipate everything Nirvana did about a decade beforehand. This track, off 1986’s Candy Apple Grey, takes the power-pop formulas of Cheap Trick and turns them upside down with blistering, noisy panache.

Mudhoney – Sweet Young Thing (Ain’t Sweet No More)

Mudhoney’s Mark Arm (apparently) popularised the term ‘grunge’, and his band were central to the formation of the Seattle scene in the late 1980s. Their most famous track is the scorching ‘Touch Me, I’m Sick’, but this slow-grinder is perhaps even better, and also provides an early example of a core lyrical preoccupation in the Seattle grunge scene: irresponsible parenting and corrupted, traumatic childhood.

Dinosaur Jr. – The Wagon

Listening to this track is one thing, but to get the full effect you need to watch the video, which captures in stop-motion clay the wide-eyed stoner ingenuity that characterises most of Dinosaur Jr.’s work. Their best tracks provide a light and playful East Coast alternative to the sludgier products of the Seattle scene.

Pearl Jam – Alive

Lighters out, please. In 1991, five hairy Seattle dudes did what Dave Grohl would later try and replicate with Foo Fighters: mixing grunge with the cockiest of cock-rock in order to fill as many stadia as possible. Nonetheless, despite some unfortunate by-products (for example, Nickelback), Pearl Jam’s Ten does make for a thrilling listen, as ‘Alive’, the band’s first single, ably demonstrates.

Pixies – Planet of Sound

Without the Pixies, there wouldn’t really be a Nirvana to speak of. Kurt Cobain told Rolling Stone that when he wrote ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, ‘I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies… I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band—or at least in a Pixies cover band.’ For their part, Pixies’ 1991 album Trompe le Monde displays a reciprocal influence to the Seattle grunge scene. ‘Planet of Sound’ in particular is a snarling track that emphasises the band’s harder side.

Throwing Muses – Red Shoes

Cryptically lyrical and starkly gorgeous, ‘Red Shoes’ is the alternative rock hit that never was. Throwing Muses shifted with 1991’s The Real Ramona into a sound with more commercial appeal, but which remained just beyond the reach of the mainstream, emphatically feminine and decidedly independent.

The Smashing Pumpkins – Bury Me

This is the hardest-rocking track on the Pumpkins’ debut album, Gish (1991), and shows off the ensemble playing that typifies their earlier work, before lead singer Billy Corgan began to dominate the band with a more experimental approach. James Iha’s guitar lines swing between metallic riffing and a lighter, more shoegazing sound, Jimmy Chamberlin’s jazz-influenced drums wreak disciplined chaos, and D’arcy Wretzky’s bass holds the whole thing together with impeccable cool. Masterful.

Babes In Toyland – Bruise Violet

Had Babes In Toyland formed in Seattle, they would have been the centre of the riot grrrl movement. As it was the all-female trio started making ferocious punk in Minneapolis in 1987, briefly including Courtney Love on bass, and made sure to stay well away from any scenes – which is just as well, otherwise lyrics like ‘you fucking bitch, I hope your insides rot’ might have led to some pretty unshakeable stereotyping.

Sonic Youth – 100%

Sonic Youth were already alternative rock icons by 1992, when their album Dirty saw them take a brief foray into the sounds of grunge. Bassist Kim Gordon, who wrote the lyrics to ‘100%’ (and borrowed a guitar from Keanu Reeves for the video) is another iconic female musician in a movement where women in bands, both as fierce singers and consummate instrumentalists, were the norm rather than the exception. In fact it’s quite surprising that, despite the abundant female presence in the early grunge movement, its modern cultural representation often reeks of unwashed beards and testosterone.

Beat Happening – Teenage Caveman

Beat Happening’s Jamboree (1988) was among Kurt Cobain’s favourite albums, even though he was later to call lead singer Calvin Johnson an ‘elitist little fuck’ for his animosity towards the mainstream as the head of Seattle’s K Records. ‘Teenage Caveman’, released in 1992, sees Beat Happening structuring their characteristically shambolic sound into a plaintive, fiercely naïve indie pop anthem.

The Jesus Lizard – Puss

Released as a split single with Nirvana’s ‘Oh, The Guilt’ in 1993, ‘Puss’ is heavy but surprisingly funky, forcing the distorted guitars and vocals of bands like Big Black into a densely-structured mess of a song which outshines Nirvana’s effort on the other side.

Bikini Kill – New Radio

The riot grrrl band. Hailing from Seattle, and combining the shrieking experimentalism of Lydia Lunch with a strong and irony-laden political consciousness, Bikini Kill redefined punk for the 1990s. Frontwoman Kathleen Hanna (later of Le Tigre) has influenced two generations of icons from Alanis Morrissette to Hayley Williams, but also inadvertently inspired Nirvana in 1991 by spray-painting the phrase ‘Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on Cobain’s wall. ‘New Radio’ (1993), produced by Joan Jett, is a minute and a half of raucous brilliance.

The Breeders – Cannonball

The Breeders released Last Splash in 1993, by which time the music press had made grunge an international musical phenomenon – the album went platinum. ‘Cannonball’, Last Splash’s lead single, is a fascinating track, undeniably commercial, but constructed in the same esoteric way as songs by vocalist Kim Deal’s previous band Pixies.

Veruca Salt – Seether

The first single by Veruca Salt, who formed in 1993 in Chicago and supported Hole the next year, ‘Seether’ is another interesting collision of the alternative – in this case, riot grrrl – with the mainstream. A hit on MTV, ‘Seether’ was the harbinger of a wave of female-led grunge-lite bands breaking into the mainstream which would last for the rest of the decade. 

Hole – Rock Star (Olympia)

Courtney Love is best known nowadays for her messy lifestyle, including last year being elected the Oxford University Conservative Association’s Officer for Rock ‘n’ Roll after turning up at the society’s ‘Port and Policy’ evening. But if you want to know why she’s worth your attention, listen to Live Through This (1994). ‘Olympia’ is a scathing attack on the ‘hipsters’ in the Washington scene, in which Love laments the decay of their original ideals: ‘Everyone’s the same – what do you do with a revolution?’ Live Through This, released four days after the discovery of Kurt Cobain’s body, marks the end of the grunge explosion begun by Nevermind: the Seattle scene had moved onwards and outwards into the wider world.

Mixer: Beyond Nevermind is also available on Spotify – click here to load the playlist.

Girls have always been fittingly named. Album, their lively debut, made them its primary subject matter (‘Laura’, ‘Lauren Marie’, ‘Darling’), and this September’s follow-up, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, is no different. More overtly even than Album, the LP is almost exclusively made up of love songs of the most uncomplicated kind. Frontman Christopher Owen’s style is rooted in a time when songwriters like Buddy Holly churned out hundreds of tunes documenting, with only very minor variation, the consuming object of so much of our fascination: love.

 Unlike, say, Stephen Merritt, Owen isn’t interested in taking any new angles on the ‘love song’; he’s perfectly content to revisit the experiences we all share, sentiments so universal that documenting them could never really be clichéd. The climax of ‘Vomit’, the insistently repeated “Come into my heart”, might be trite were it not for Owen’s genuine earnestness, in ‘Vomit’ and throughout the record. The lyrical content of Father, Son, Holy Ghost thus operates within well-tempered phrases, but never ones that sound tired on Owen’s lips.

 The songs are all backed by an equally well-worn rock sound, far more stylistically cohesive than the scattershot approach of Album, and expertly produced by Doug Boehm and Girls’ own JR White. The instrumentation is as classic and well-tested as the 1966 Ford Mustang so adoringly filmed in the ‘Vomit’ music video.

 Girls know the game they’re playing, of course. ‘Jamie Marie’, perhaps the most heartfelt track of the bunch, sees Owen pining for a lost lover. At first, he wallows in familiar clichés: “I miss the way life was when you were my girl”; as the song progresses, however, Owen comes to realize the emptiness of borrowed words: “I know they say it’s better to have love and to lose it than to never ever know it, easy come and easy go, whatever…” And so he stops singing, and ‘Jamie Marie’ continues with the melancholic riffs of the conversing guitar and organ, perhaps better vehicles for emotion than even the best clichés.

When descriptions of a songwriter resort to Jonathan Richman and Scott Walker comparisons, you know you’ve found something good. And Sweden’s Jens Lekman, though always humble, really is that good. Possessing a witty and utterly confessional style of songwriting, he is also blessed with an intuitive sense of sample-lifted melody-making. You could never mistake a Jens song for someone else’s.

The syrupy and indulgent production that falls just shy of schmaltz would give the impression of triviality were it not for Lekman’s nonchalant honesty and storytelling ability (hence the nods to Richman). And this honesty is such that even the quotidian can be compellingly reframed: “I’m leaving you because I don’t love you”, a phrase familiar to everyone – in its more euphemistic permutations – was affectingly heartfelt on Lekman’s Night Falls Over Kortelada (2007).

No material saw release since then until this September’s EP, in which we find an older Jens, since transplanted to Melbourne (although one track fittingly finds him back in Gothenburg). Befitting this move to the southern hemisphere, the production on An Argument With Myself is distinctly tropical, especially on the eponymous opening track. In terms of raw pop, ‘New Directions’ is the real standout, mixing an old-school sax solo and outstanding bass groove to bugle salutes and a female-sung hook with undeniably catchy results.

Lyrically, Lekman’s talent for writing about several things at once is demonstrated on ‘Waiting for Kirsten’, ostensibly about Dunst and her escapades in Gothenburg during the filming of Melancholia, but also managing to explore Lekman’s nostalgia for the place (and people) he left behind, as well the entrenchment of privilege in what was once a working-class city. But the cleverest of the (short) collection is the reggae-tinged ‘So This Guy At My Office’, which starts out humorously enough: “He showed me this video, and it was not even funny”, until the final verse, sung to a character not even mentioned in the song, “My day starts when you get here, and ends when you leave.” Sappy yes, but Jens means it.

Listening to the first few lines of Danny Brown’s XXX is enough to put off even open-minded hip hop fans. Brown’s voice is strained and high-pitched, his flow tense and frenetic, delivered over a chopped beat, gritty and unforgiving. Brown himself, currently seen on stage with Versace skinnies, a swoop haircut and half his head shaved, doesn’t fit the rapper aesthetic. But, as the Detroit MC’s rhymes fly by, consternation soon melts into attentiveness, and ultimately, to amazement. Brown is uncannily on-beat, and chameleon-like in his delivery, be it on the drug-addled hyperactivity of brag tracks early in the mix (‘Pac Blood’, ‘Monopoly’) or the hungover street-wise flow of later confessionals like ‘DNA’ and ‘Scrap or Die’.

XXX reads like an amphetamine trip: scarily focused on the red-and-wide-eyed first half, sobering up to into muted but heartfelt solemnity in the second. This shift – vocal, stylistic, emotional – gives Brown the appearance of multiple personality, mirrored by the dual interpretation of the release’s title: either the fast-lane lifestyle of  ‘Triple X’, or the coming-of-age introspection of ‘Thirty’ (Danny’s birthday was in March).

The early tracks are utterly mesmerizing, owing in part to the dark and skeletal production – courtesy of Detroit up-and-comers like Skywlkr and Brandun Deshay – but primarily due to Brown’s hugely impressive (and admittedly adderall-fuelled) flow: in his words, “So many lines you can barcode it.” ‘Die Like a Rockstar’ is an anthem of overdose brinksmanship that name-drops everyone from Keith Moon to River Phoenix (“Experiment so much it’s a miracle I’m living”), ‘Pac Blood’ claims Brown’s rhymes are so authentic they could only have been penned in Shakur’s blood.

But the energy dip of the latter half is counterbalanced by Brown’s sober realism and his gritty portrait of Detroit life. ‘Scrap or Die’ and ‘Fields’ describe the helplessness of living in a city in steady disintegration, reified in the empty houses and tattered couches lining its streets. Intoxication by whatever means available is temporary respite, and Brown name checks everything from Newports to Hennessy to crack, but he admits addiction. ‘Party All the Time’ is ostensibly about a female acquaintance, but one gets the sense Brown is also describing himself: “Lost in the fog, head in the smoke, laughing at the world ‘cause her life is a joke.”

So, this is it. Either you’re trudging back to the academic coalface, or you’re about to embark on the degree of your choice – but not before getting very drunk and covered in foam, UV paint, vomit, or all three. Let Cherwell Music lighten things up a little with the last of our summer monthly playlists, plucking the best new tracks from the tree of September 2011 and bringing them to you in a hand-woven audiobasket (or something like that). We’ve got something for you whether you’re into Girls or you prefer The Men, as well as new sounds from Damon Albarn and Wild Beasts.

Plug it in, turn it up, enjoy – and when you’re done stick around, because throughout Michaelmas we’ll be bringing you a weekly Mixer, featuring the very best new music as well as mining the last fifty years or so.

Jens Lekman – An Argument with Myself

Effortlessly talented Swedish popsmith Jens Lekman returns after a four-year disappearance with this month’s delightful EP, An Argument with Myself, prelude to a full-length due later in the year. This self-titled opener is a flawlessly crafted Afro-Caribbean tune, littered with Lekman’s witty exchanges (with himself) and sociological observations of his adopted hometown of Melbourne.

The Men – Bataille

Leave Home, a breathtakingly produced album recorded straight to tape, is Brooklyn punk quartet The Men’s noise-drenched ode to the bygone era when abrasive indie rock (the fanzine and basement show kind) still pushed the boundaries. Of all the musical eras to revisit, the heyday of Sonic Youth and Hüsker Dü is surely ripe for borrowing.

Wild Beasts – Thankless Thing

Smother, the third LP from Kendal’s flamboyant quartet Wild Beasts, was rather unfairly overlooked this year. Perhaps they should have included ‘Thankless Thing’, the excellent B-side from to-be single ‘Reach a Bit Further’, featuring their famously pitch-perfect instrumentation and the falsetto croon of co-vocalist Hayden Thorpe.

Jonquil – Mexico

Released just over a month ago, Jonquil’s latest single ‘Mexico’ has made the already agonising wait for the band’s upcoming album nigh on unbearable. Combining the soaring melodic sensibility of Animal Collective’s ‘My Girls’ with the sunny guitar jangle of Vampire Weekend, ‘Mexico’ is a joy to listen to from start to finish and sets a new high-water mark for a band that seems to grow in stature with every release.

Summer Camp – Better Off Without You

Although it came a little late in the season, this is a serious contender for the year’s best summer single. It’s got it all: the sound, the hook, the John Hughes-esque teenage drama. Elizabeth Warmley’s voice is oh-so-satisfyingly derisory as she tells an imaginary jilted ex-lover that ‘if you said you’re never calling back, I’d be so happy’. Don’t miss the London duo at the Jericho on November 15^th.

Ford & Lopatin – Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)

Hype bands du jour love to dabble in 80s synth, but remain aloof, for aesthetic and nostalgic (or indeed ironic) effect, from its cheesy potential. Brooklyn duo Ford & Lopatin (formerly known as Games), to their credit, dive right in. ‘No more lo-fi’, sung on standout single ‘Too Much MIDI’, sounds like a battle cry.

Daily Bread – Volume

Michigan-native producer Apollo Brown is in high demand these days, providing the backings to the stars (Black Milk, Danny Brown) of an increasingly dominant underground Detroit scene, but he still finds the time for his own projects. Daily Bread finds him collaboration with New York’s Hassaan Mackey, with throwback party track ‘Volume’ an obvious standout.

Love Inks – Rock On 

Love Inks breathe new life into this minimalistic cover of the 1973 glam hit by David Essex (last seen playing Eddie Moon on Eastenders) with some drifting vocals and barely-there guitar, all tied together with lopsided funk bass.

DRC Music feat. Tout Puissant Mukalo and Nelly Liyemge – Hallo

Damon Albarn does pretty much anything he wants to these days. Fresh off the global success of Plastic Beach, Albarn spent a week Kinshasa, Congo, to record an album with the newly established DRC Music collective. Featuring such high-profile collaborators as Dan the Automator, Kwes, and Oxford’s very own Totally Extinct Enormous Dinosaurs, the album’s teasers, including ‘Hallo’, are raising quite a few eyebrows.

St. Vincent – Cruel

One of the more straightforward cuts off her latest album Strange Mercy, ‘Cruel’ proves that Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent) can pen as striking a pop melody as the next indie fan-boy’s heart throb.

Little Roy – Lithium

Did you ever think, ‘I love Nirvana, but I wish they were just more reggae’? Us neither, but luckily Kingston roots legend Little Roy, celebrating the twentieth birthday of that record with the baby on it, did – and this is what happened. It’s pretty good, actually.

The Doppelgangaz – Doppel Gospel

Not much is known about emergent New York outer-borough duo Doppelgangaz, except that they’re preternatural producers, and they favour capes. ‘Doppel Gospel’ is at once soul-inflected and brooding, bringing a welcome dark edge to classic boom-bap construction without ever straying into exaggerated horrorcore.

Blouse – Into Black

Oregon duo Blouse, recently signed to Brooklyn’s Captured Tracks, sound a lot like pretty much everyone else out there: borrowed nostalgia, breathy vocals, moody synths, feigned aloofness, and dollops of reverb. The difference is they do it better than almost anyone else.

Veronica Falls – The Fountain

Veronica Falls might be dismissed as mere C86 revalists, were it not for the excellent songwriting and the immediacy of their post-punk-tinged and vocal-layered tracks. ‘The Fountain’ is a case in point, its spooky lyrics offsetting those delightfully jangly guitars.

Girls – Honey Bunny

Written by Christopher Owens of Girls whilst singing into his mobile phone on his birthday, ‘Honey Bunny’ certainly doesn’t sound like a track that has been obsessively composed. Spontaneity is the name of the game here but, as Owens sings “they don’t like my boney body, they don’t like my dirty hair” over twanging 60s guitars, what the song lacks in depth it more than compensates for with Orange Juice-style charm.

Trophy Wife – Wolf

On October 17^th, Oxford-based trio Trophy Wife release their debut EP BRUXISM. Produced by Yannis Philippakis of Foals, this brooding track finds the band exploring new territory away from the bright sheen of their indie-disco beginnings and serves as a brilliantly haunting end to the record.

Mixer: September 2011 is also available on Spotify – click here to load the playlist.

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I do not profess much technical knowledge over the art of film, but being a journo hack and having spent a portion of my summer on Hollywood Blvd it seems fitting that I try my hand at writing something that roughly resembles a review. My victim of choosing is mere happenstance, as I fully intended to donate my free half-day in submission to the relentless ad campaign of the newly released Contagion, however for reasons of partial intrigue and partial laziness (Contagion would’ve entailed a two hour wait) I decided to see Rod Lurie’s remake of the 1971 classic Straw Dogs.

As I walked into the film, however, I knew nothing of Rod Lurie, nor of Straw Dogs (save the trailer) and I certainly knew nothing of the celebrated 1971 original. As I mentioned, I went to see the film almost completely unintentionally and I feel that I was subsequently in a most advantageous position not often afforded to the modern-day film critic; that of one with a light heart and an open mind.

(Indeed, I had no idea that I would be writing this review either.)

The film is wonderfully shot from the outset, showing Blackwater, Missisippi in all its parochial glory. The still shots of nature are luscious to behold and a marvel for the viewer – a brief window into the (largely) peaceful world of the deer in the enchanting forests. Lurie makes an excellent contrast between the vivid beauty of the woodlands and the underlying tension that leads the film to its explosive climax. Accentuated by the heavy silences and leaving the imagination to run free into a world of horrific trepidation, the plot incubates a foreboding that lurks in the shadows from the very outset of the film, slowly taking shape as the events begin to unfold that lead to a gruesome but yet unknown ending.

It is one of those plots that performs a double-feat of storytelling mastery – on one count by leaving you at every juncture screaming inwardly at the characters not to make the choices that creep them slowly, inevitably, towards the horrific climax, imploring fate to give the characters the happy ending that your morality craves. And yet morbid curiosity keeps you transfixed, encapsulated by the ignorant & bullish traits inherent in human nature, goading them further forward into the morass of miscommunicated hell.

On the other hand, whilst you know from the outset that affairs will not end well for at least some of the characters (and even have some prescient predictions during the film), Gordon Williams (writer of the novel The Siege of Trencher’s Farm that inspired Straw Dogs) keeps you guessing until the last moment of the exact way in which the proverbial s*** will hit the fan.

For a film so horrifically portrayed in the trailer, it is remarkable how rarely the concept of evil rears its head in the film itself. This makes the gut-churning morbidity all the more painful – that the ensuing chaos is all the result of a few staunch redneck values, chronic miscommunication and an unfortunate culture clash.

The film has not been received particularly well by critics, denounced as a shoddy remake of a solid chapter in the history of film. Mote though it may be in the eye of Sam Peckinpah’s classic, as a first-time viewer with no prior experience of the original I think it’s treatment has been unfair to say the least. It is a feast for the eyes and the ears, wraps up a number of nice metaphors and parallels (eg. Of Mice and Men, The Notebook) seamlessly into the plot without seeming cumbersome or forced, and has at its core a fine story that is told very well. It may not be genius, but I applaud Straw Dogs for leaving me feeling entertained enough to write a review of my own volition. And in these times when we are quick to criticise but slow to praise, that is a delightful rarity.