I’m not a big fan of compilation albums anymore. I know there was a time when I was in favor of them because the first CD I ever bought with my own money was The Offspring’s Greatest Hits (awesome album, regardless if it’s a compilation).

Since then, I haven’t really bought any because it seems all compilations follow the same format. They start off with a new, unreleased track and then follow up with the “greatest hits” from the band. Next come the lesser-known greatest hits, perhaps some songs that the band particularly liked or one or two tracks from albums that didn’t sell as well or weren’t as well known but received a little radio play.

Finish the album off with one or two live tracks and you’ve got yourself your standard, cookie-cutter compilation album ready to be sold to the masses that don’t have anything from the band’s catalogue for $12.99.

I wonder what Kurt Cobain would say if he were alive today (probably ‘Help! Get me out of this box!’).

This compilation album from the Washington grunge band of 1990 lore put out this album in 2002 and follows standard procedure with many other greatest hits albums. They start off with an unreleased track, You Know You’re Right, not without much legal insanity delivered from whom else but Courtney Love.

There are a few more previously released tracks thrown in there (even Sliver, a track from a previous compilation album titled Incesticide) before getting to the biggest Nirvana hit, Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Other Nirvana staples like Come As You Are, Lithium, In Bloom, and Heart-Shaped Box. There are a few more tracks before live tracks of All Apologies and The Man Who Sold the World (a cover of the David Bowie song by the same name which Nirvana does great justice to – a great cover) make appearances. 

I’ve never been a fan of live tracks (if I wasn’t at the show why would I want a recording of everything I missed?) and I would have much preferred the studio version of All Apologies.

When I bought this album for a couple bucks at a CD sale on the quad in the beginning of last semester, I instantly recognized the cover. I don’t have the widest range of musical knowledge for Nirvana but I have seen that particular cover so many times that I though it was just a regular album, not a comp.

Had I known it was a compilation album I would have most likely passed it up. It’s a good album to own if you don’t have any other Nirvana albums and just want the bare basics from the band but you lose a lot of the power and feeling from a track when you get it on a comp and not in the original way it was intended to be. If you have the option, I would say buy a different Nirvana album that isn’t a compilation.

A word to the wise: if you’re going to sing Rape Me by Nirvana, be sure you’re alone and not in a public place. I barely caught myself before belting out the lyrics in Milner the other day…oops…

Final Score: 3/5