Love Buzz

Infobox Single
Name = Love Buzz


Artist = Nirvana
from Album = Bleach
B-side = "Big Cheese"
Released = November 1988
Format = 7"
Recorded = June-September 1988 at Reciprocal Recordings in Seattle, Washington
Genre = Grunge
Length =
Label = Sub Pop
Producer = Jack Endino
This single = "Love Buzz"
(1988)
Next single = "Sliver"
(1990)

"Love Buzz" is a song written by Robbie van Leeuwen of Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. The American grunge band Nirvana recorded a cover version of the song for its debut single, released on Sub Pop in 1988. It was the first single in the Sub Pop Single of the Month club, a marketing gimmick which helped Sub Pop stay temporarily financially solvent. A different mix of the song would also appear on Nirvana's debut album, "Bleach", along with the single's b-side, "Big Cheese".

The "Bleach" version of Love Buzz was mixed differently and is missing a 10-second sound collage introduction put together by Kurt Cobain. "Love Buzz" was later released on the "Blew (EP)".

In a 1989 review for British music magazine "Melody Maker", Everett True enthusiastically wrote, "Nirvana are beauty incarnate. A relentless two-chord garage beat which lays down some serious foundations for a sheer monster of a guitar to howl over. The volume control ain't been built yet which can do justice to this three-piece!" True also made "Love Buzz" joint-US Single Of The Week. [True, Everett (2007). "Nirvana: The Biography". Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81554-6. p. 111.]

Live versions

A "violent" performance of the song can be seen on the 1994 home video "Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!". Earlier in the show (not seen on the video), Cobain, drunk, angry and high on cough syrup, smashed the PA system at the club with his guitar, frustrated that it had consistently malfunctioned. (Viewers can see a pallet covering the PA, which was added in case Cobain decided to take a second shot.) Unbeknownst to Cobain, the PA belonged to a friend of the bouncer, who, when Cobain dove into the crowd, decided to exact some revenge by punching Cobain in the head. Cobain responded by hitting the bouncer in the head with his guitar, drawing blood, after which the much larger man hurled Cobain to the floor and the performance came to a halt with band members and crew separating the two. In a performance in Amsterdam, Dave Grohl sings "Macho macho man! I wanna be a macho man!" after Cobain has an altercation with a cameraman. This is also seen on "Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!", but this part is muted out possibly because of copyright reasons.

A rehearsal of Love Buzz from 1988 can be found on the DVD with the 2004 rarities box set "With the Lights Out".

Trivia

*The etching on the run-out groove - "Why Don't You Trade Those Guitars For Shovels?" - was, according to Krist Novoselic, uttered by his dad when he walked in on an early Nirvana rehearsal. The phrase stuck with the band and was subsequently etched on the run-out groove of their debut single. The etching is oftentimes used to determine whether an encountered Love Buzz single is authentic or not, due to many bootleggers not being aware of this fact.

* The 7" Sub Pop Singles mix is noticibly different to the version released on "Bleach" in the fact that there are extra vocalizations in the middle of the song, as well as a speaker panning effect used on the scream from Cobain at the song's climax. This panning effect on the The 7" Sub Pop Singles mix makes Cobain's scream gradually pan to the front of the speakers, thereby making it an unexpected and jolting experience for the listener as the scream reaches its peak at the front of the speakers. The 7" Sub Pop Singles mix also has noticible reverb added to Cobain's voice to mask his inexperience as a vocalist.

*The version released on the "Bleach" album is not the same as the 7" single. Throughout the song's verses, the 7" mix uses several vocal takes not used in the "Bleach" version. The ten-second noise collage is also not present on the "Bleach" mix because Cobain had forgotten to bring the collage tape with him to the mixing session. The recording used all available eight tracks on the tape machine and thus the noises present on the single mix were added manually, with Cobain pressing play on a tape recorder at exactly the right moment on every mixing run of the song, adding a virtual ninth track to the mix.

References

*cite book
last=Cross
first=Charles
title=Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain
origyear=2001
publisher=Hyperion
isbn=0-7868-8402-9
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:dzfwxquhldfe allmusic.com]
* [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,306295,00.html ew.com]
* [http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/26119/shockingblue-athome/ popmatters.com]
* [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,304762,00.html ew.com]
* [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,298112,00.html ew.com]

Footnotes