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100Mostly great. [Jan 2005, p.96]
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It's no surprise that most of it's raw; it is a surprise that most of it's worth hearing. [10 Dec 2004, p.89]
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90It's the way "With The Lights Out" fleshes out the plot that makes it so compelling.
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One of the band's finest releases and arguably the most comprehensive statement to date on just where the musicians were coming from, the roads they took to get where they ended up, and even possibly where they were headed.
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For the fan-atic, WTLO's scrapbooklike discography unveils both a gold mine of (still) unreleased material and the Seattle trio's penchant for dashing off B-sides, tributes, and noise at the smash of a guitar.
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80A hardcore fan's wildest dreams fulfilled. [Jan 2005, p.134]
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80With 81 chronologically ordered tracks... With the Lights Out can be a slog. But for Nirvana fans, it's also a necessary rite. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.119]
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While there is much good music here, there isn't much that adds to Nirvana's legacy, nor is there much that's revelatory.
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80As the set progresses, the trademark Nirvana sound begins to take shape. [Dec 2004, p.152]
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If you think you want it, you do. [9 Dec 2004, p.184]
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80Nirvana's feat of moulding indie-band attitude, heavy metal, post-industrial noise and classic pop into an intense incandescent eruption has now been analysed to death. To rip away the posthumous repackaging and expose the band's raw nerve-endings is an amazing feat.
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80A revelatory, emotional listen from start to finish, "With the Lights Out" crystallizes Cobain's tortured genius.
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So, in theory, this big Christmas stocking of demos, B sides, compilation tracks, and curiosities is mostly useful for its historical value, as context. The context, it turns out, rules.
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It's a collection of odds and ends, yet the music can be cathartic and it can be achingly intimate. [29 Nov 2004]
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The three audio discs... are a mixed bag at best.
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If you're after better versions of classic songs, think again. But as a humanising, comprehensive and often heartbreaking document of a man who, in five years, changed the face of music, almost by accident, it's essential. [20 Nov 2004, p.55]
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Manages, despite an excess of throwaway material, to be an appropriately eccentric testament to Cobain's talent.
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The crown jewel for those without the patience or proclivity to wade through sketches of songs better heard in full, the fourth disc is a DVD of live footage from the beginning to the end.
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67For hard-core fans, there's a wealth of rare gems here.
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63Those hoping for a trove of overlooked gems will be disappointed, as too much of With the Lights Out sounds like nothing so much as a dull-edged instrument lifting flakes of material from the bottom of a barrel. Simply put, there's enough good stuff here for a solid single disc.
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There isn't a doubt in anyone's mind that this collection plays it way too safe to satisfy the über-devoted.
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60Not the Holy Grail that was promised... But considering what material is present, the set plays like a fairly compelling musical narrative. [Dec 2004, p.120]
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So by all means pick up With the Lights Out, but go ahead and trash the curiously un-Nirvana-like packaging, discard the heat-sensitive (!) box, pitch the liner notes, maybe even throw away the DVD.
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50The majority of the material presented here will appeal only to a select group of hardcore fans, music historians and critics.
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The Nirvana box set isn't the Holy Grail. The Nirvana box set isn't even Incesticide. [Jan 2005, p.105]
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40This collection is the antithesis of anything Kurt Cobain would have authorized, right down to the shiny metal packaging.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 35 out of 45
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Mixed: 3 out of 45
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Negative: 7 out of 45
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FirstNameLastName8The greatest comfort of Nirvana is that the music is so uncomfortable.
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Sloaneraced10