Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disgraceful, November 1, 2005
This release represents the worst kind of record company greed. The With The Lights Out box set had about a disc worth of quality material and a lot of filler. Theoretically, a "best of the box" release would be a very good idea for more casual fans who don't want to sift through all of the garbage that shouldn't have been released in the first place.
The problem is that this release doesn't at all live up to its name. In fact, I would go so far as to say that what's here is almost the worst of the box! The only tracks here that definitely deserve to be here are: "Clean Up Before She Comes (demo)", Ain't It A Shame", "Old Age", "Oh The Guilt" and "Do Re Mi" (even though the sound quality is crap). You could make a case for a handful of the other tracks but that's it. What about "Pen Cap Chew", "They Hung Him On A Cross", "Grey Goose", "Even In His Youth", "Here She Comes Now", "Aneurysm", "Verse Chorus Verse", "D-7", "Scentless Apprentice" (the extended jam, which is fantastic), "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die", "M.V.", "Marigold" and "Sappy"??? All of these tracks are far better and more worthwhile than what is supposedly the "best of the box". It's a complete joke and an insult to the music buying public. But you know why they've done it like this? So that you can't just buy this release to get the really good stuff. So that you have to buy the box as well. Or if you've already bought the box (which you probably have), so that you can't offload it (with all its filler) and be content with this "best of". Thanks a lot guys.
Oh yeah, there are 3 more rarities on here to entice (or rather force) hardcore fans to re-purchase this rubbish. The 1990 demo of "Sappy" is here, but really it should have been on the box in the first place (along with the version that was on the box). The Fecal Matter "Spank Thru" demo is the most enticing thing here (and it is a worthwhile track) but why not put the rest of the Fecal Matter tracks on here as well? Or maybe some of the other rare tracks named in the liner notes of the box set which many of us have never heard? Instead we get yet another pointless version of "Come As You Are" - the "Boom Box Version", which sounds just as awful as the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Boom Box Version that was included in the box set (and amazingly on this release as well).
Given that the tracklisting is a joke, the new "Come As You Are" version is worthless and there is a version (albeit slightly inferior in my opinion) of "Sappy" already in the box set, the only reason to purchase this release is for "Spank Thru". But do you really think that the record company isn't going to release all of the Fecal Matter tracks along with some other rarities sometime in the not too distant future? Of course they are. Save your money until they give you something worth buying. This is trash and a cynical money-making exercise, nothing more. It has nothing to do with the fans or the legacy of the band or great music. It has everything to do with money.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
For an inside look, and if you're on a budget, November 3, 2005
"Sliver: The best of the box" is a compilation of material from 2004s four-disc box set "With the Lights Out." This new compilation, as its title suggests, curls the best material from the larger box set. Three additional songs, demos of "Spank Thru," "Sappy," and Come as you are" are also included.
The CD includes home demos, radio appearances, and live recordings. The CD flows chronologically, from Cobain's earliest demo with Fecal Matter, to demos recorded in 1994, right before Cobain's death. Some songs are studio demos, while others were recorded on just a boom-box; therefore the quality of these songs varies from poor to good.
"Sliver" both sees the evolution of Cobain as a songwriter, as well as looks at some of his best known songs in their embryonic stage. Some songs, like the stripped down "Sliver" are fantastic and rival the finished product. But even the songs that are of poor-to-fair quality are of historical importance and give the listener an inside look at the songs as works-in-progress.
"Sliver" contains some lost gems that never made it onto the studio albums, like the subdued "Clean up before she comes" and the off-beat rock-a-billy "Ain't it a shame." "Old Age" sounds a bit like a sped-up "Something in the Way," and is up-to-par with the rest of "Nevermind." A home demo of one of Cobain's last songs, "Do Re Me" had great potential. It's a little rough-around-the-edge, but could have been a classic if it had been touched-up and recorded in the studio. Other tracks like Fecal Matter's "Spank Thru" and "Oh the Guilt" don't quite measure up, but should be of interest to fans of the band.
Being mostly a CD of demos, these songs posses an atmospheric, eerie low-fi intrigue, akin to the sound of the Velvet Underground. While the finished songs are ultimately better, these demos are well worth a listen.
Both the demos and live recordings see the band at its rawest, it not finest hour.
If you don't have time and/or money to invest in the larger "With the Lights Out" box set, but are interested in Nirvana's songs as works-in-progress, this CD is highly recommended. The inclusion of the excellent "Old Age" and "Do Re Me," alone is enough reason to buy this album. Fans should also be interested in hearing Cobain's earliest recording, "Spank Thru" (1985) when he was still a teen.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An abridged version of with the lights out, November 1, 2005
Kurt Cobain is Kurt Cobain, and I'm sorry if anyone disagrees with me but that is enough to give him five stars out of the gate. I would pay twenty bucks to hear the man sing the alphabet. And to a degree that is kind of what this album is. In case there are fans out there that are unfamiliar with the box set, "With the lights out" it was a collection of rehearsels and rough demos that Nirvana had accumulated over the years. The audio was extremely rough, but worth every penny. What this album is is basically taking the best of the best and repackaging them into a 22 song format.
Now, as a reviewer I feel that it is my responsibility to be honest. I love Nirvana more then should be humanly possible, but I was still a little dissapointed with this disc. For months I've heard hype about how this disc would have two new songs, and I was lead to believe that they would be of the same caliber that "you know you're right" was on the greatest hits disc. Not so. "Sappy" sounds decent, and is a very good song, in fact it could stand to be a good "new" song, if I haven't had it on CD for about three years now. (It comes on a B-side disc with the track "Laundry room" a great song that for some damn reason hasn't made it onto any of these albums, wonder why?)
The "come as you are" demo is cool for the first couple of run throughs but isn't amazing. What this release basically comes down to is this. THIS IS NOT A GREATEST HITS CD! The songs DO NOT SOUND LIKE THEY DID ON NEVERMIND, INCESTISCIDE, BLEACH, OR IN UTERO.There for casual radio fans of Nirvana need not apply to this release. This is a cd for the die hards, the ones like me who can get by the rough edge of the recordings and hear the talent that Cobain had. If you think you can do that, and don't have "With the lights out" then you should get this as soon as you can.
Finally I must say this, Cobain was a legend. Nirvana were musical saviors. So STOP! releasing albums like this for just the die hards. If somewhere in a vault there are tracks from the Nirvana album that never got finished because Kurt died, then mix those tracks and release them on an Ep, if they don't exist, then stop doing this to great music. Kurt would turn in his grave to know that his demos were being constantly regurgitated onto different discs so a group of suits can make as much cash as possible off of Nirvana. And the sad thing is that it will take awhile before that formula fails, because Nirvana meant so much to so many people, and they will contiuosly poor money into Nirvana in order to feel that connection again. And taking finnancial advantage of people like that is wrong. So please, just let the legend rest and don't taint people's view of Nirvna by releasing numerous DEMO discs.
Thank you for your time.
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