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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Bleach: Deluxe Edition
Universal acclaim
Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
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Album Info
Label: Sub Pop
Release Date: 03 November 2009
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative
Summary
The debut album for the grunge band is remastered and reissued with a 1990 live recording of a concert at Portland, Oregon's Pine Street Theatre.
Also By This Artist: Live At Reading With The Lights Out
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
NOW Magazine
I remember being disappointed after subsequently discovering Bleach, the band’s debut. It didn’t have Nevermind’s hooks, precise quiet/loud dynamics or Butch Vig’s glossy production. Years later, it’s those attributes that make Bleach so endearing.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
Sure, it’s valuable as a blueprint for music that would change everything (for a while, anyway), but also as a repository for the perfect synthesis of grunge’s anger and Kurt Cobain’s pop sensibility.
Read Full Review >No Ripcord
Even if the songwriting didn’t completely explore the full scope of Cobain’s capabilities, Bleach also represents that point in time when money was an object and the music was all that mattered, a precursor to a cultural shift that made Sub Pop a national brand.
Read Full Review >Billboard.com
Bleach is freshened up with remastered versions of unusually heavy songs like the haunting "Negative Creep," where Cobain howls about alienation and being stoned, and the pounding "Floyd the Barber," where the main subject of the eerie track is a man being strapped down and tortured by characters from "The Andy Griffith Show.
Read Full Review >Under The Radar
This music has history in its chords, and it is as powerful today as it was 20 years ago. [Holiday, 2009, p.80]
Austin Chronicle
Toasty as vinyl, comparable to Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's CDs of Nevermind (1991) and In Utero (1993), firstborn Bleach reiterates its place not at the front of the line but in between its two older brawlers.
Read Full Review >The Phoenix
Rock-stardom is not necessarily what you hear beckoning on Sub Pop’s 20th-anniversary reissue of Bleach, which comes with a sludgy live set taped at Portland’s Pine Street Theatre in 1990. In a way, though, that only makes this program of lumpen lumberjack-metal moves more interesting.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
Though briskly paced, Bleach is a front-loaded record, the maniacal/melodic contrasts of its stellar first half--anchored by the epochal anti-love song 'About a Girl'--ceding to the more period-typical grunge of its second.
Read Full Review >Prefix Magazine
Listening to Bleach now, the main thing that comes across is how little it sounds moored to a specific time.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
Bleach's grooviness is intrinsic to its enduring appeal, just as much as the cankerous layers of noise. [Dec 2009, p.128]
Uncut
One small quibble, though: while it’s great to have documentation of the band’s early live sound (and in many ways the versions of the songs from Bleach are superior thanks to the sprightly energy), you don’t really get a sense of the sheer ferocity and electricity Nirvana generated in a tiny, cramped college bar.
Read Full Review >Delusions of Adequacy
Bleach showed instances of promise and a few songs went on to become some of the best they ever wrote, but in comparison, it pales to the band’s later work. So take it all in stride because Bleach is surely for fanatics but certainly not for everyone.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
Beginning with a feedback overture and ending with full-on instrument destruction, the live set is a snapshot of a menacingly feral band about to become a beast.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
Ironically, this package was always going to be one for the completists, but those who’ll actually get the most from Bleach are still the "Nevermind" fans left feeling alienated by the gnarled triumph that was "In Utero."
Read Full Review >Tiny Mix Tapes
At the end of the day, Bleach is still the weakest of the band’s full-length albums, but there’s enough good stuff to merit a spin.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
That Nirvana sound forceful isn't a surprise, but they also sound surprisingly tight--a little bit looser than they would sound within a year, but they're clearly marshaling their forces, gaining strength and skill.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
Bleach is a stronger record than it is commonly perceived to be, and does deserve to be checked out in some form by fans of heavy riff-driven rock. Regardless, this reissue is underwhelming, seemingly more concerned with enticing Nirvana completists to purchase it for the live material than in illuminating why Nirvana’s first album was an important step in a career that has helped define rock music for the last two decades.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.7 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
