NIRVANA - bleach TAPE

When it first appeared, Bleach seemed like a tuneful approximation of what grunge rock in the Northwest United States was supposed to sound like--gruff, enraged, sometimes tuneful, sometimes silly. Singer Kurt Cobain had the pipes to belt out such power trash as "Mr. Moustache" and the Shocking Blue's "Love Buzz," but considering the sheer volume of frustrated tuneage coming out of Seattle in 1989, it was easy to miss Bleach's subtler textures. In retrospect, "Negative Creep" and "About a Girl" are the obvious standouts that point toward the strum and bang attack that would catapult Nirvana to the top of the charts.