Somehow, without really planning it, I realized I hadn’t spent any serious time with Nirvana in years. Not just casually, but really listening. That’s a weird thing to admit about a band whose music has been part of the cultural bloodstream for more than three decades. This stuff is over 30 years old now, which feels impossible to say out loud—and yet here we are.

What finally pushed me over the edge was a moment of guilt. One of the streaming services dropped Smells Like Teen Spirit into a playlist, and I instinctively skipped it. I do that more often than I’d like to admit. That song has been played to death, memed, commercialized, and flattened into background noise—but skipping it made me feel bad. Not because the song isn’t still great, but because it reminded me of a time when things felt simpler, louder, and more honest. A time when hearing that opening drum hit actually meant something.

So this week, we rewind.

We start at the beginning with Bleach—raw, noisy, heavy, and very much still figuring itself out. You can hear the influence of punk and metal colliding in real time, with songs that sound like they’re being held together by sheer force of will. It’s not polished, and that’s exactly the point.

From there, we move into Nevermind, the record that detonated everything. It didn’t just make Nirvana famous—it blew a hole straight through the music industry. Suddenly, a band that didn’t play by the rules was on MTV every hour, and alternative rock wasn’t alternative anymore. It’s easy to forget how shocking that shift was unless you lived through it.

The middle stretch leans into Incesticide, the oddball compilation that reminds you how weird, playful, and unhinged Nirvana could be. Covers, B-sides, experiments—this is the sound of a band refusing to be boxed in, even while the world was trying desperately to label them.

We close with In Utero and beyond—the backlash record, the reaction, the refusal to repeat the formula. Harsh, abrasive, intimate, and confrontational, it’s a band pushing back against its own success. From there, we touch on the later live recordings that show just how powerful Nirvana could be when everything was stripped down to nothing but songs and nerves.

This isn’t about pretending Nirvana was perfect. It’s about remembering why they mattered—and still do. It’s about revisiting music that soundtracked a moment when things felt more direct, more dangerous, and somehow more possible. If you’ve avoided these songs because you’ve heard them too many times, this episode is your excuse to come back with fresh ears.

Three hours. No shortcuts. No skipping.

Retro Rewind: Nirvana

Hour 1

Artist – Song – Time – Album – Label

Nirvana – Blew – 02:54 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Floyd the Barber – 02:18 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – About a Girl – 02:48 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Love Buzz – 03:34 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Paper Cuts – 04:05 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Negative Creep – 02:55 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Scoff – 04:10 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Swap Meet – 03:03 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Mr. Moustache – 03:23 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Sifting – 05:22 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Big Cheese – 03:42 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – Downer – 01:42 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Nirvana – School – 02:42 – Bleach – Sub Pop

Hour 2

Artist – Song – Time – Album – Label

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit – 05:01 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – In Bloom – 04:14 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Come As You Are – 03:38 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Breed – 03:03 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Lithium – 04:16 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Polly – 02:56 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Territorial Pissings – 02:23 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Drain You – 03:43 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Lounge Act – 02:36 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Stay Away – 03:32 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – On a Plain – 03:16 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Something in the Way – 07:19 – Nevermind – Geffen

Nirvana – Endless, Nameless – 06:44 – Nevermind – Geffen

Hour 3

Artist – Song – Time – Album – Label

Nirvana – Dive – 03:55 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Stain – 02:40 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Been a Son – 01:55 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Turnaround – 02:19 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Molly’s Lips – 01:54 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Son of a Gun – 02:48 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – (New Wave) Polly – 01:48 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Beeswax – 02:50 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Mexican Seafood – 01:55 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Hairspray Queen – 04:13 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Aero Zeppelin – 04:41 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Big Long Now – 05:03 – Incesticide – Geffen

Nirvana – Serve the Servants – 03:36 – In Utero – Geffen

Nirvana – Scentless Apprentice – 03:47 – In Utero – Geffen

Nirvana – Heart-Shaped Box – 04:41 – In Utero – Geffen

Nirvana – Rape Me – 02:49 – In Utero – Geffen

Nirvana – Dumb – 02:32 – In Utero – Geffen

Nirvana – All Apologies – 03:50 – In Utero – Geffen

Nirvana – Aneurysm – 04:31 – From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah – Geffen [fade out]

Rolling with Scissors airs live every Tuesday from 2–5 AM on 89.9 FM in Madison and streams at wortfm.org. Missed it? You can catch the episode for two weeks after broadcast at archive.wortfm.org or at rwsradio.com.

While the audio disappears after two weeks, the episode notes and playlists don’t. Every deep dive, rant, and full album breakdown stays right here — so you can revisit the details any time.

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