Customer Reviews

With The Lights Out

5 star:		(166)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

For anyone who has not gotten the new 3CD/1DVD box set "With The Lights Out" from Nirvana... This set is absolutely amazing. Many of the songs and demos that are on the set I have had for years now on cassettes that have found their way to me but on this set they have been cleaned and mastered fantastically. Then there are the songs and demos that have never seen the light of day... They speak for themselves.

There is some great humor here starting right off Disc 1 with the band at their very first gig about to launch into Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" and Kurt can be heard yelling in the background "I don't know this song!" Kurt's trippy demo of "Beans", with his harmonized vocal is hilarious. There are great "Bleach" era demos ("If You Must", "Pen Cap Chew"), to some killer sessions with Mark Lanegan doing Leadbelly covers. But here is where it hits the hardest...

The very last song (rumored) to have ever been recorded is a demo included here called "Do Re Mi" (sometimes referred in the past as "Dough, Ray and Me"). This demo (along with the acoustic "You Know Your Right") is the clear example of where Kurt was about to go musically... The melody is breathtaking, and the beauty of the composition is absolutely devastating knowing what was to come. The recording is Kurt himself with an acoustic guitar (probably at home, Courtney can be heard talking to him in the background as the song finishes) and the starkness of his voice with his lone acoustic sets up a landscape of undefinable melodic beauty. This song is worth the price of the entire set.

All you need to be reminded of the value of this set is to turn on the radio... Today's rock music genre is a a soul-less desolate landscape of 4th and 5th generation imitators of previous forms. This box set historically shows the most important band since the Beatles before and during the most important time in musical history since the fab four walked off the plane at JFK airport. Who else came along, sent a music genre before them to the graveyard, defined a generation, opened the gates for a whole new genre of musicains, and left a void in it's wake a generation wide? Exactly.

The bullet that killed Kurt Cobain didn't just kill a person, it blew a hole thru a rock n roll in a way that no one could have ever imagined, even more so than John Lennon. Imagine if Lennon or McCartney had died at the height of their skills? You don't have to, it happened in Seattle in 1994.

When you listen to "Do Re Mi" the "What could have been" is absolutely heartbreaking...

After many years of waiting, Nirvana fans have what Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, at one time refered too as "the Holy Grail Of Rock Music." That has turned out to be absolutly no understatement. This 4 disc compilation (3 CD's + 1 DVD) is a must for any rock fan. With rare demo's, solo Cobain recordings, a few live tracks, some late 80's radio perfomances, and a few B-side's thrown in also. Whether you've been a Nirvana fan for years, or are just beginning to appreciate the music of this wonderful band, you will get everything in this package. It's not all polished, it's not all perfect, it's raw. It's rock. It's Nirvana.
Most compelling on this album is disc 3. Which hosts at least 3 unreleased demo's that Cobain made just previous to a concert tour in early 1994, which ended with him in a coma in Rome. Following his release from the hospital in Rome, within weeks, the enevitable happened. Cobain swallowed a shot-gun shell in the home he shared with his wife and child. Resulting in his tragic death and a brutal punch in the gut to music as we new it.
Included with these 1994 demo's is the much talked about song: "Do Re Mi," which can clearly show some of Cobain's influence from the poppy Beatles, which he adored through his whole life. The track begins with what seems like someone banging against a wall, perhaps a suitcase, or maybe just a box, to simulate the drums that aren't present. The vocals are pristine. Serious. Haunting. The acoustic guitar that Cobain plays reflects his not so perfect, but yet delicate guitar skills. At the end of the track, if you listen carefully, you can hear the entushiastic voice of Cobain's wife, Courtney Cobain, telling him: "That Was GREAT!"
The album then goes into an acoustic version of "You Know Your Right" which was only played live once under the title, "On The Mountain," and recorded on a cold afternoon at Lange Studios in what is said to be 1 take. The lyrics are very different then the one's fans heard on the studio version that was released in the fall of 2002. The vocals are far from perfect. At times you can nearly feel the pain Cobain muct have felt as he strained his voice. His lyrics are extremly haunting, considering the suicide that followed, including the line: "I Could Never Die Again/I Won't Loose Another Friend/She Will See Another Me/When I'm Through........" The vocals then become hard to understand. Maybe on purpose. As a part of the mystery. To hide his secrets. His pain. His love.
The most hard to listen to track has to be the electric demo of "Rape Me." Which begins with the shrill cries of a 2 month old Frances Bean Cobain. On her fathers lap in the studio, he holds her up to the mic, he passes her off, maybe, to his wife perhaps, and the intro begins. The cries of the child overlapping the vocals of a man she'd never really know. During the second refrain they return. Louder and even harder to listen to. Father & child crying out together. In the angst of a child who wants her bottle, maybe just a diaper change. In the angst of a man who just wanted to disappear.
There's also some funny tracks though. Including "Mrs. Butterworth" on disc 1. Where Cobain goes on a tirade about Ply Wood, Burlap, & Seashells. Only to end his story of a beach trip with the ever sarcastic: "But I'm still sleeping on that P*ss stained mattress," before ripping back into the song.
The DVD features rare performences & private band footage. Including a 1988 rehersal taped @ the home of bassist Krist Noveselic's mother. The Sub Pop video of Neverminds "In Bloom." The debut performence of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and a rare look inside the studio with the band as they record "Season's In The Sun" in Rio de Jeniro, Brazil. This performance includes a rare mix-up of the band lin-up. Cobain trading in his guitar for his first insturment, the drums. Drummer Dave Grohl (also of the Foo Fighters) moves outta the drummers seat to pick-up a bass. Krist Noveselic, takes off the weight of his bass for an all white Fender Strat. The music is at it's best. What we loved. What we lost. Cobain has freshly dyed brown hair. Wearing a ratty old sweater. His boyish giggle can be heard through his vocals towards the end of the song. A rare smile spreading across his face. It's an emotional final farewell from an epic part of musical history. As Cobain sings: "Goodbye Papa It's Hard To Die/When All The Birds Are Singing In The Sky." You just have to wonder.
Why couldn't something as simple as a bird save him?

With The Lights Out is Nirvana's best release. Its combination of gritty home recordings, demos, b-sides and outtakes make any hard-core Nirvana fan love the band even more (if possible). But when I say "hard-core," I really do mean hard-core. With The Lights Out contains many unfinished songs, some poorly recorded, others too short or too long. Songs like Oh The Guilt and Curmudgeon were so overly grunge that they weren't released on Nirvana's maintstream albums. Very Ape, in the middle of a verse, was recorded over with Kurt Cobain randomly singing "A da da dum da da da da." This truly is Nirvana's greatest release, but for those who aren't regular listeners, don't waste your money.

For the fans, especially bootleggers, With The Lights Out is a dream. The set features the rarest of available bootlegs. Even the most avid bootleggers will only have 15 of these songs. Multiply that by 4 and you've got 60 extraordinarily rare songs, a bootlegger's heaven. I had only six of the tracks featured in the set, and i searched for hours. Most of the songs are better than those released mainstream. All the songs, rare or different versions, are amazing.

With The Lights Out serves two purposes. First, any songs that hadn't been released finally are. Second, it tells the short history of Nirvana. The first CD is filled with raw songs, horrible vocals and guitaring, and even worse drumming. The second CD is much better. Many of the songs are put together better and they sound great. The third CD is just as amazing, but it's also very emotional. As I listened to it, particularly You Know You're Right, Kurt Cobain's voice was incredible. The emotion in that CD, the knowledge that Kurt Cobain would kill himself, it makes listening madly depressing. When All Apologies (the last song) finished, I sat in silence for a really long time. It was the first time I gave serious thought to how horrible Kurt Cobain's life had been when he killed himself. In the songs near the end, he sounded weak, almost like he out-did himself and lost his voice. But he hadn't lost his voice. These songs were still unbelievably great, even in his depression. With The Lights Out is a great CD, especially if it can evoke such emotion.

Overall, the music is great, emotional, and explains a lot about Nirvana's history. Its poorly recorded songs, which so many people complain about, are only bad for about 10 seconds in each song. These rough parts are no worse than a CD with minor scratches that makes one song have a few pops for 2 seconds. I am not trying to defend Nirvana. Some of the rough songs are horrible, but it is so brief that there really isn't any reason to complain.

The DVD is horrible except for the last three videos which are awesome. It is horribly edited, terrible sound, etc. But the last three, Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam, Talk To Me, and Seasons in the Sun are great. In Jesus..., Dave Grohl's symbol collapses in the middle of a concert. It is also profesionally recorded, so the sound is DVD quality. Talk to Me has good sound, and it was performed well. Seasons in the Sun is hilarious. The band spoofs it so much, pretending to get emotional. Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic are really funny. The DVD is screwed up at one point. The order is different than printed in the 60 page booklet. The In Bloom video isn't in the right place on the DVD. When i watched the DVD for the first time, I almost fell asleep. But the last three videos pull it back up to 5 STARS.

GET THIS CD IF YOU'RE A FAN.

Finally a Nirvana album with most of the unreleased material they have ever made! This is a truly incredible box-set showing how diverse of a band Nirvana really were. Most of the tracks here have been heard by us hardcore nirvana fans before on bootlegs but what makes this really special is the quality of the tracks.

On disc 1 the opener is a scorching rendition of one of Nirvana influences Led Zeppelin with the cool guitar riff of "Heartbreaker"! Also included on disc 1 are some cool ledbelly covers that most people have never heard. "Aint It A Shame" is incredible! Kurt gives the vocal performance of his life on this song! Also the never before heard song "Mrs Buttersworth" is also a real highlight on disc 1. Why it was never put on their first album "Bleach" we'll never know.

Disc 2 and 3 are also include some amazing material from the never before heard "Verse Chorus Verse" Nevermind studio outtake which completely blew me away! And "Old Age" which sounds so crisp and clear here compared to the short bootleg we fans had for so long. The "Smells Like Teen Spirit" demo is also here and it gives you a sense of how much the band evolved the tune to where it now resides on the masterpiece "Nevermind" album we all know and love. To top it off we get a DVD filled with early rare performances of Nirvana when they were just an indie band on the rise. The home camera quality vibe gives you this cool underground perspective of Nirvana when they were still the best indie band out there in the late 80's to early 90's before they blew up. To end the DVD there's a really poignant moment with the band covering the beautiful song "Seasons In the Sun" with Dave Grohl playing bass with Kurt on drums and Krist on guitar. The part when Kurt sings "Goodbye my friend it's hard to die" is really sad and touching.

All in all this box-set is truly a must-have for any hardcore nirvana fan looking to hear some incredible unheard material from the greatest band of the past 15 years.

It's about time. The fans finally get their long awaited boxed set. No thanks to Courtney Love.
Anyways, it's been a long time since I've been so pleased with a music purchase. Granted, I've heard most of these "previously unreleased" songs before on my various bootleg releases, but those were all pretty awful recordings. "With the Lights Out" cleans these tracks up and makes them more listenable which was worth the $50 for me. Still, don't buy this boxed set and expect to hear "Nevermind" quality recordings.I can imagine that there will be some displeased listeners. I can picture some little kid listening to "Beans" for the first time and saying "What the hell is this? THIS doesn't sound like 'Smells Like Teen Spirit!' GRrrrrr!!!! I want my money back!" Then that same kid will write a review for Amazon saying that he is the biggest Nirvana fan ever but the boxed set sucks because he was expecting 60 brand new studio quality songs, but instead got demos and solo recordings JUST LIKE THE BACK OF THE BOX SAYS!!!
Sorry for that little tangeant. As I was saying, "With the Lights Out" is a great purchase for Nirvana fans. If you want to hear some relatively high quality recordings of Nirvana material you may not have heard before, or want to hear some different versions of the songs you know, go ahead and pick it up. If you only like the Nirvana songs they play on the radio or if "Incesticide" was too weird for you, then don't bother.

I can comepletly agree with some of the negative reviews of this. So far I think I have only read one review that is typical nirvana-hate retard who says the same crap "kurt complain was a coward and sucked at guitar, go listen to a real guitar player blah blah blah blah blah" I wish that those people not Kurt would have killed themselves. They are just taking up space.
With that said let me give my own opinion on this. for what it's worth I LOVE this box set. It's a good look into the more raw elements of this band. It's cool to hear home demos and them jamming around trying to get it just right. It's deffinetly not for everyone. If you don't have much of an emotional attachment to this band I can see how you wouldn't care much for hearing home demos and live stuff or Kurt joking around. I LOVE LOVE LOVE "Do Re Mi" , "Aint it A Shame" the best.
Some of my grumbles on this are that there are plenty of other songs that they have recorded that I had hoped to be included. And then there's the DVD. It is cool but I think Live! Tonight! Sold Out! is much better. I was hoping for more footage of them in the studio, and goofing around. Plus there was NO in utero-era footage which is some of the best live footage of them.Oh Well maybe there is more on the way. I'd like it becasue the weeks before this came out was so exciting and it sucks that that is over. All in all this is a great collection to have if you really like Nirvana.

This collection has so much to offer to every Nirvana fan. Those who aren't familar with the material of Nirvana should listen to the mainstream success 1991 record, Nevermind. What this collections gives you is a colorful palette of songs that are mostly unheard. Those that have bootlegs of these songs will find solice that every song is crisp and produced carefully that makes this worth getting. It contains demos (some of which were never recorded in studios). It contains different versions of songs that give a particular song a different personality than what was released. It contains studio recorded songs that were released only on compilations and singles. It contains live tracks and comes with a DVD. It contains many tracks with Chad Channing on drums (who some prefer over Grohl).

Those that have collected just about everything officially released by Nirvana will notice a few of the recordings are missing (released B-sides) or edited in this collection. "Moist V" from the Heart-Shaped Box UK single is not included (there is a demo instead). "Do You Love Me?" is not included which was released on a KISS tribute album. The original Hormoaning EP version of "Even in his Youth" is also omitted. Lastly, "You Know You're Right" and "Been A Son" understandably are not included since they were released in the Greatest Hits album in 2002. Other songs have been edited although not for worse. Examples includes removed lighter sound effects from the intro in "Oh, the Guilt" and Kurt's unintentional cough before the second verse in "Return of the Rat." These omissions/changes hardly detract from this collection.

In my opinion, the highlights of this compilation are "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For a Sunbeam," "Old Age", "Seasons in the Sun," and "Here She Comes Now." There is so much to listen to that any Nirvana fan should not be deprived from listening to With the Lights Out

It's odd to see people complaining about the inclusion of boombox recordings here when that's the point of it, to include primitive and different versions of the songs. Besides, was Kurt supposed to go to a recording studio every time he had the slightest idea for a new song?, obviously not. If you want "proper" recordings of the already known songs, you know where to find them, and for others such as "Do Re Mi", would you rather not hear the songs at all than hear the, not professional, but fairly enjoyable only-existing recordings of them?
Now, most die-hard fans/collectors are used to listen to and enjoy poor recordings, sometimes worse than the oh-so-bad sounding tracks people think shouldn't have been included here, so we don't have a problem with the dropouts and hiss on the Smells Like Teen Spirit demo as long as we finally get to hear it, just to give an example. The set also offers tracks such as "Ain't It A Shame", "Grey Goose", "Verse Chorus Verse" and "Old Age", the Rio version of "I Hate Myself And Want To Die", which if you take a look at a few internet message boards, you'll realise serious fans were more or less aware of their existance and were dying to hear them. They included stuff they knew we wanted. This also upgrades stuff we had been listening to for years in slightly to much poorer quality, "If You Must", "Pen Cap Chew", "Clean Up Before She Comes", etc.
"Opinion" has an error, but overall it sounds much better than what we had before.
It was also very nice to hear a few soundboard tracks from the 1/23/88 show and know that "Raunchola" was not lost in that poor, echoey audience recording we were used to listen to.
The only complaints I have are that the remixing on the songs from April 1992 ("Oh, The Guilt", "Curmudgeon" and "Return Of The Rat") was not very good, the digital reverb added to some of the instruments just doesn't fit the songs, they should have just included the original mixes, or not have included the songs at all and put the excellent recording of "Drain You" from the Peel session, "Sappy" from the April 1990 session, and the electric version of "Something In The Way" from the Mark Goodier BBC session instead.

this box set is a great purchase for any nirvana fan. not a great way to get introduced to the band, we would have to suggest nevermind or incesticide for that, but all in all a great collection. kurt's acoustic sets, recorded at the relative time of his death are of great insight while songs such as "pen cap chew" show the band as youngsters just getting started full of fury. the price however is not so cool. at almost 50 dollars i am glad i bought mine at the local target for 27.99 on the release date.

Let me start out by saying that this is by far the best thing that can ever happen to a true Nirvana fan. After 10 longgg years, the Nirvana Box Set has finally arrived. I've been a Nirvana fan since i was 13 years old and today I'm 19, and my love for Nirvana hasn't changed since. The Box Set starts out great with demo songs that Cobain recorded from his early age when Nirvana was just formed and it slowly went from album to album from the year 1987 to 1994. The Dvd is exellent too. It showed great moments that i never thought i would ever see it.
Bottom line is that this Box set is truly very immersive and its worth every penny. Go buy it if u want the real raw taste of Nirvana!!