Nirvana "The Fourth Album" (fanmade)

I was wondering what you guys would think of this?

The creator took both outtake Nirvana songs, as well as some of Kurt's home demos, and did what he calls a band "mock up"; he lifted Dave's drum tracks from places and added it to a track; he played guitar in a very Kurt-like style to create what he calls the 'fourth' Nirvana album.

Unfortunately and tragically we'll never get to know what a real fourth Nirvana album would've sounded like, but am really curious to hear your thoughts on this. Even though it's not real, it shows me they had enough for a terrific fourth album without even writing anything new. It's sad we never got that product, either way.

 

Haha the "Do Re Mi" band mock up is hilariously great!

 

Yeah, I mean, it's fake but it has that believable grungy mid 90s feel and tone (the electric overdubs I mean) doesn't it?

 

I don't feel the songs on this mock-up really make the grade. They're just not that good. I Know You're Right is the best one. Not sure if the Dave songs would've been put on there either. Doubt they would've put the cover of Sunbeam. I think Do Re Mi is just ok. The rest is rather poor.

 

The guy who does those band mockups has done quite a few off of Montage Of Heck, and they're pretty good!

It's funny that you posted this, as I've been listening to it lately. And I'm pretty sure that only a couple of those tracks were ones that they were 'working on in '94'; YKYR, Do Re Mi, and maybe Poison's Gone. The rest I'm pretty sure were just things Kurt did on his own (except Alone and Easy Target, which is Dave). And I'm pretty sure that the last song isn't really 'Ivy League'.

 

IIRC Kurt actually wanted the other guys wanted to write more material on "the next record", in part because Kurt himself was having problems with writer's block.

 

Yeah, the tracklist is very much a stretch. I've seen a lot of people asking about how to make a fourth Nirvana album, and it's really not possible. The only thing we have is "You Know You're Right", which was meant for an EP for Lollapalooza in 1994. Then you have "Do Re Mi", yeah, that's a contender. And then you probably have "Poison's Gone" since the demo sounds like it was recorded at the same time as "Do Re Mi" demo. That's all we know of, really.

I have heard the Kurt's Writer's Block Theory before, but I don't think I've seen a source for it or even much evidence. We know In Utero came out in September, and several months later Kurt had three complete new songs that we know of, "You Know You're Right", "Do Re Mi" and "Poison's Gone". Courtney claims there's lots more as well. It's very probable that Kurt wasn't concerned with writing a fourth album yet, as he was focused on touring the album they just put out. Besides, we know Nirvana, as a unit, could spontaneously fart out cool jams that could be easily molded into songs by Kurt (see "Curmudgeon", "Oh The Guilt", "Talk To Me", etc.), so the reality is they could write a bunch of jams easily enough.

Regardless, in the early internet days (circa '96 or '97) I remember reading that someone had heard Nirvana soundcheck "Alone + Easy Target" and possibly "Exhausted" in late 1993/early 1994. Of course absolutely no evidence of this has been found, but sure enough those songs (as well as all of that first Foo Fighters album) existed back then and I could easily picture Kurt singing those songs (moreso than the rest of the first Foo album anyways). The question is, would Kurt have allowed it? This was the Kurt & Courtney vs Krist & Dave era, where Kurt was criticizing his band as not contributing and implying he was Nirvana. Because of that, the idea that Kurt asked Dave to contribute songs because he had writer's block seems a bit far-fetched. Possible, but not probable.

But of course, we need to fact check and remember that both Nevermind and In Utero had featured a mix of old and then-new songs. While only 2 of the 12 Nevermind songs were older ("Breed" and "Polly"), a whopping 5 of the 12 In Utero songs ("Rape Me", "Dumb", "Pennyroyal Tea", "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" and "All Apologies") were all older songs. Who's to say the band wouldn't have, again, revived older unused songs for a fourth album? "Opinion", "Talk To Me", "Verse Chorus Verse", maybe even "Clean Up Before She Comes". "Old Age" is unlikely, as it was given to Hole and released as a b-side. "Sappy"'s final resting place was the No Alternative compilation, so that's probably out. I doubt he'd have gone back to anything pre-1990s for material though.

 

Uh .. there are a lot of pretty good NIRVANA songs that were recorded in the studio and officially released, that when compiled make a "fourth album" at least as good as Incesticide. I have my own "fourth album" in a folder I've named "Sheep" - one the names Cobain was toying with before settling on In Utero, the other being Humans Are Dumb - and I'm so used to it now, I'm always expecting Moist ****** to follow Curmudgeon.

1. Curmudgeon
2. Moist ******
3. I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
4. You Know You're Right
5. Marigold
6. Spank Thru
7. D7
8. Return of the Rat
9. Oh, the Guilt
10. Sappy
11. Here She Comes Now
12. Even in His Youth
13. The 'Priest' They Called Him

I know that last track is not a NIRVANA songs, but since the two last albums ended with a "noise track", I tagged it on there for good measure. It works surprisingly well. The whole folder has the cohesiveness of an album, especially the four first tracks. Curmudgeon would have been a killer album opener, too.

 

Right, except those songs were all released. We're talking about songs that he may have worked or been working on after In Utero.

 

Krist said that studio albums are done but live shows are open.