Keith Pille's Weekly Shuffle
11.14.05

Every week, I will fire up the Shuffle Songs option on my iPod; the first song to come up, no matter what it is, will get an instant, unvarnished review. We're at the mercy of random chance and the limits of my digital music collection. Let's see where this takes us.

Sliver (live)
Nirvana, From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah

I don't love Nirvana the way a lot of people do. I think they were pretty good, and had some great moments, but I can think of a pretty long list of similar-sounding contemporaries/near-contemporaries who do a lot more for me. I can appreciate the impact that Nevermind had on mainstream musical tastes; but you'll never convince me that it was worthy of even holding Surfer Rosa's jockstrap.

So, yeah, Nirvana weren't the Greatest Thing Ever, but they had a lot of good songs. And "Sliver" is up at the top of the list. I actually prefer the studio version, but this is the one that bubbled up, so this is the one we'll talk about.

And really, it's not like there's that much difference-- this is Nirvana, so the studio version wasn't exactly bathed in studio wizardry. It was a rocking three-chorder with a repetitive chorus, all chugging guitars and snarling vocals, just like this live version.

I think part of the reason I like "Sliver" better than a lot of other Nirvana songs is that it's not as self-conscious about its psychological turmoil. A lot of the later Nirvana songs annoy me because they're just such obvious "I am miserable and I will talk about my misery and such talk is profound" statements. Rather than going so far over the top, "Sliver" describes a moment of childhood panic, augments the atmosphere with one of Nirvana's best, simplest sets of chords, and lets you fill in the blanks.

This one song may actually be qualified to hold Surfer Rosa's jockstrap.

Weekly Shuffle Scoreboard (Best to Worst):

1. "Rock N Roll Radio V2," Derailleur
2. "Back from Somewhere (live)," Husker Du
3. "Powderfinger," Neil Young
4. "Sliver (live)," Nirvana
5. "Gassed & Stoked," Lou Reed
6. "Nicotine & Gravy," Beck
7. "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (live)," Wilco
8. "The Calming Sea," Beachwood Sparks
9. "John, I'm Only Dancing," David Bowie
10. "Take It or Leave it," The Strokes
11. "Monkey Dot," Money Mark
12. "I Wanted to Tell You," Matthew Sweet
13. "Soldier's Joy," Mark O'Connor
14. "Masoko Tanga," The Police
15. "We Got The," The Beastie Boys
16. "The Big Foist," The Minutemen
17. "Climbing up the Walls," Radiohead
18. "That's When I Reach for My Revolver," Mission of Burma