Bob Mould - Workbook 25

In late 1988, following the dissolution of Husker Du in one of the most acrimonious breakups of the decade, Bob Mould settled into a house in the country and went about making a clean break from the past. He decided the best way to do that was to turn the amps down closer to 1 than 11 and record an album more muted and contemplative than probably even he would have thought himself capable ofa few years earlier.

For Workbook, Mould relied heavily on the 12 string acoustic guitar he starting playing towards the end of Husker Du, replaced his Flying V with a Stratocaster and added strings to his arsenal. Where Husker Du filled its songs with blankets of distortion and rapid drum fills, Workbook is spacious and unhurried.

Of course, none of this is to say that Workbook is the work of a man at peace with himself. In fact, the album's duality lies in the fact that Mould had anger and resentment to spare. There are times when those emotions take centre stage. "Lonely Afternoon" is as indignant as it is introspective, propelled by multi-tracked vocals that complement the notion of a man at war with himself. Mould was Kurt Cobain's first choice to produce Nevermind, and Cobain had clearly taken cues from Mould's self-directed anger. "Poison Years", a merciless attack on Grant Hart, throws subtlety out the window; "treason is the reason for my poison years". For the most part, though, the album benefits from restraint and balance. When the intentionally jarring rocker "Whichever the Wind Blows" comes along to close the album, it feels as though Mould has earned the right to cut loose.

Workbook 25 celebrates the you-know-what anniversary of the album by giving it decent remaster and a bonus track ("All Those People Know") and pairing it with a recording of a concert from May 1989, a month after the album's original release. The set includes every song from Workbook as well as "All Those People Know", and a cover of Richard Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights" and closes with solo acoustic versions of Husker Du's "Hardly Getting Over It", "Celebrated Summer" and "Makes No Sense At All". The stark, vulnerable rendition of "Hardly Getting Over It" is the highlight for me. The reissue also comes with extended liner notes, including contemporary reviews and an essay by Michael Azzerad to which this review owes credit for some of the details of the album's back story.

Nirvana - In Utero (20th Anniversary Edition)

"Serve the Servants" opens In Utero with four stick clicks from Dave Grohl, followed by the crash of a wholly unmusical chord before it launches into its verse riff, which implies 7th chords - an extravagance for Nirvana. Then Cobain declares "teenage angst has paid off well/now I'm bored and old". It's a kiss-off to its Nevermind counterpart. Whereas on Nevermind's fourth track he found it unnecessary to breed, by that point on In Utero he's asking to be raped. The next track on Nevermind is named "Lithium" after the mind-dulling chemical; its opposite number on In Utero is about Frances Farmer, who underwent more primitive treatment in a psychiatric hospital. Almost half of In Utero is taken up by noisier, less hook-oriented songs that people hadn't previously associated with Nirvana, but Cobain hadn't forsaken the classicist side of his songwriting by a long shot; "Pennyroyal Tea" and "All Apologies" employ the soft-loud dynamic that worked so well before, and the radically re-imagined versions on Unplugged in New York confirm their conventionally appealing songcraft, as if it wasn't obvious already. The other In Utero track to make that setlist, "Dumb", is in its element there, being acoustic and adorned with cello in the first place. The first single "Heart-Shaped Box" has arguably the catchiest chorus Cobain ever wrote. These opposing elements are a lot to do with why some found In Utero confounding at the time, yet also why history has been so reverent to it.

The immediately apparent news regarding both the remaster of the original album and the "2013 mix" is that, incredibly, far from being heavily compressed monstrocities, both are actually marginally more dynamic than the original master. In Utero was loud for 1993, but quiet for today. I've compared the original album to its remaster, though not exhaustively, and at this point I'd have to say the differences are nominal at best. The point, though, is that this version, which will be definitive version for future generations, fairly and accurately represents the album. The same is anything but true of the 20th Anniversary edition of Nevermind. The 2013 mix isn't just a different EQ job, but actually utilises different takes of some parts (including a vastly inferior solo for "Serve the Servants") as well as pushing some existing parts back and forward in the mix.

The inclusion of some early demos provides some insight into how some of the songs were perceived early on. "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle" is somewhat funkier in its original form. "All Apologies", though, is the real treat here. The countryness of the central riff wasn't lost on the band, as it turns out, and this might be the only real glimpse into Cobain's early days leading a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover band. I'd love to have a version of it with proper vocals, but they're nothing but barely audible fragments in this recording.

Related:

Nirvana - Nevermind (20th Anniversary Edition)
Nirvana - Radio Friendly Unit Shifter (MTV Live & Loud)
Nirvana - Icon
My 200 Favourite Albums of All Time

Nirvana - Nevermind (20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition)

There is nothing I can say that so many others haven't thought before, so I won't bother discussing Nevermind as an album. If you've found your way here then you know how to find many contemporary and retrospective reviews, and besides, there's enough content here as it is.

First of all, the original album remastered. Ha. If you're wondering what a remaster of an album from 1991 can improve on from the original, the answer is usually "not much". The remastered Nevermind, as is typically the case these days, is a victim of brickwall mastering. Geffen ignored the opportunity to buck the trend and lead by example. For an example of tasteful, principled remasters, look at the recent round of Pink Floyd reissues. Worse still, they decided to go with the original cover art instead of retaking the iconic shot with a 20 year-old Spencer Elden. That's really the biggest missed opportunity here, and one the record company should be ashamed over. Actually, you can sort of see that here (safe for work): http://sflchronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/spencer-elden-swimming.jpg (sorry for the "bare" url; I had trouble with the hyperlink for some reason). The remastered CD is padded with some previously available b-sides and some live tracks that are duplicates of those available on the Super Deluxe edition, but not the Deluxe.

The second disc consists of The Smart Studio Sessions, The Boombox Rehearsals and BBC Sessions. It's pretty much all academia except for the band's rare cover of The Velvet Underground's "Here She Comes Now" (if you don't already own With the Lights Out) and a decent version of "Sappy" that's a big different from the one you're used to, which you'll only otherwise find on bootlegs.

Disc 3 brings us to the material exclusive to the Super Deluxe edition with the Devonshire Mixes - the mixes Butch Vig made before the album was handed to Andy Wallace. The difference between some songs and their better known counterparts are negligible while others have various trade-offs, but the most noticeable advantage across the board is the more organic drum sound (Vig, as you're probably aware, is a drummer himself).

The Super Deluxe edition comes with a DVD of Nirvana's famous concert at the Paramount on October 13, 1991; if you're inclined to just listen to the audio, that's what Disc 4 is for. As it comes only two years after Live at Reading, probably my favourite live album ever, I can't help but note that it's not a patch on that one. That said, it's still a hell of a concert, and having been performed just over a month after Nevermind came out, probably made lifelong fans of many of its attendees.

Related:
Nirvana - In Utero (20th Anniversary Edition)
Nirvana - Icon

The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street (Deluxe Edition)

The Rolling Stones made Exile on Main Street for somebody's sins, but not mine. It's a double album in the same way that London Calling and Daydream Nation are double albums: they don't fit onto two sides of vinyl, the dominating format at the time. Double albums often come at the peak of a band's creativity, a time when to put out another dozen or so songs seems like a facile endeavour - it's surprising that the late 60s produced as few as it did, it being at time when an album a year was standard.

Exile on Main Street is many people's favourite Rolling Stones album, but I'll take its predecessor, the concise ten song set Sticky Fingers over it any day. Exile lacks the restless eclecticism of London Calling and with Keith Richards as chief songwriter, doesn't play host to the warring personalities of its members as does The Beatles (The White Album). It doesn't even bother with a concept, as The Wall did, and not much of it is given over to experimentation. Pared down its best tracks, Exile makes a very good single album, but still not one that matches Let It Bleed or Sticky Fingers. "Tumbling Dice" vs "Brown Sugar"? No "dice". "Sweet Black Angel" vs "Wild Horses?" Fuck off.

The Deluxe Edition comes with a bonus disc out outtakes. The quality is surprisingly high for such a disc and demonstrates that the Stones weren't the best judges of their own material; Exile could have been improved by replacing some of its duds with some of these songs, especially "Plundered My Soul".

You might be wondering why I hate Exile on Main Street. That's a question I can't answer, because I don't hate it. I actually like it quite a bit. I just like some other Rolling Stones albums a hell of a lot more.