Andy Wallace's radio-ready mix certainly helped sharpen this potentially no-concessions, indie-to-major leap into an obvious commercial proposition. But when they got their chance at the brass ring, they went at it with a bubblegum band's canniness, however much Cobain shit on the shiny final product after the fact.

Nirvana began their career with no illusions about their chances for mass success and ended it by seeing just how abrasive a platinum-selling band could get away with being. Yet there's also a concision and clarity that Nirvana hadn't quite mastered on the gnarly-by-necessity Bleach and wouldn't allow themselves on the stark and caustic In Utero. It retains the gleeful pummel of the first album while hinting at the bleakness of the third. But Nevermind was and remains an unrepeatable object.

The precocious Bleach still has its partisans, folks who think its primal bash-and-howl is the be-all-end-all of rock, while In Utero stands as the band's most harrowing statement, where it's a toss-up as to whether the riffs or the lyrics hurt more. Nirvana certainly never made another album like it. Sadly, both expanded versions fall into the latter category, with material ranging from 'interesting' to 'historical curiosity' to 'of zero value to even superfans.' But this mish-mash of sketches, practice-space woodshedding, and alternate-but-not-very mixes does help explain what makes Nevermind so unique. The only question is whether these reissues- a single-disc remaster, a 2xCD 'deluxe' version, and a 4xCD+DVD 'super-deluxe' edition- are that rare essential repurchase that makes you hear an album you've possibly exhausted in new ways, or if it's just another mediocre jumble of odds and ends that inadvertently reveals the flaws and blemishes carefully excised from the original 12-song set. But Nevermind is 20 this week, still a pretty respectable number in a world where any milestone marks an excuse to shift a few more units. After all, 'super deluxe' reissues of classic albums don't even have to be tied to an anniversary these days.

Of course, no diamond-certified, canonical treasure hitting the two-decade mark can be left well enough alone in 2011- especially one that changed the lives of a lot people now approaching middle age, with the discretionary income to prove it. Despite its tremendous influence on the mainstream rock that followed, it's hard to think of another album that sounds much like Nirvana's Nevermind, a record with so much more pop and punk punch than any music it inspired.

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