Young Marble Giants N.I.T.A. (1980)
“The jokes on you so kill yourself.” Kurt Cobain’s Journals are heavy to digest. The book, which was released in 2002 and entered at the top of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list, contains a collection of writings and drawings—or more precisely, as the Seattle Weekly put it, “shocking confessions, sweetly eloquent letters to brilliant friends, hard-nosed band plans, fulminating political screeds, obscene cartoons, haunting video treatments, and lyrical poetry of tremulous Romantic sensitivity, Bukowskian crudity, dadaist flippancy, and modernist opacity.” Journals also contains various lists, including Cobain’s favorite music. One of his two favorite bands, as revealed in the Journals, is Young Marble Giants. Although the Welsh post-punk outfit only released one album, Colossal Youth in 1980, the band made a lasting impression on Nirvana’s mastermind, as he stated in an interview with British music magazine Melody Maker: “This music relaxes you, it's total atmospherics. It's just nice, pleasant music. I love it.” Colossal Youth is characterized by prominent bass lines, the sounds of a rhythm guitar and a self-made electric organ, as well as Alison Statton’s naive-sounding vocals. The lyrics, however, are cryptic and tend to drift off into existentialist reflections, as is the case with “N.I.T.A.” The title of the melancholic song is an acronym for “Nothing is the Answer”, and it invites listeners to reflect on interpersonal relationships—and what they’re all about.
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