Rather like the later Radiohead documentary "Meeting People Is Easy," this commissioned video is a statement of loathing by a band towards the insane overexpansion of popularity, venues and scrutiny that followed their unexpected big hit album. Of course, appropriately, "People" expresses that alienation in coolly distanced, aesthetically terms means (even being shot in B&W), whereas "Live!" is the editorial equivalent of Nirvana's most cacophonous audio moments--a yowl of protest in an abrasive mash-up of concert, interview and entertainment-media footage.
The documentary is packaged like a concert film, but the songs are culled from numerous different performanes, often heard just in fragments. Two are heard in performances that reflect the band's exhaustion with their own popularity: We only hear "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in its entirety in a TV version where Cobain ridicules it with a lower-register, lounge-singer vocal (which is not only funny, but makes the lyrics a lot easier to understand) as the other two band members purposely flub miming to a pre-recorded track, while "Come As You Are" he massacres by basically screaming through (not in a good or even funny way).
The video includes lots of footage of them being used as fodder for trivial "Entertainment Tonight"-type coverage, being asked trite questions by interviewers, alternately goofing, being incredibly bored and trying to give sincere answers in response. It's a good companion piece to the documentary "Hype!," as a view of how the "grunge" phenomenon helped, then ultimately backfired against the bands lumped together under that umbrella.
To a point, despite its somewhat bitter tone, this is still a great reflection of how great Nirvana was, and remains. Then in the last 15 minutes or so it goes out of its way to alienate even the viewer by a long final barrage of scenes in which the band onstage expresses its general disgust by destroying instruments and (in Kurt's case) spitting at the camera lenses. This package was conceived by Cobain and finished by the others after his death. Even in its final air of self-destruction and self-loathing, it's a terrific testiment not only to what was brilliant about Nirvana, but what in retrospect looks like their inevitable implosion. They probably would have lasted decades as a moderately popular indie band, but turning into a huge commodity was exactly what they didn't need.
The documentary is packaged like a concert film, but the songs are culled from numerous different performanes, often heard just in fragments. Two are heard in performances that reflect the band's exhaustion with their own popularity: We only hear "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in its entirety in a TV version where Cobain ridicules it with a lower-register, lounge-singer vocal (which is not only funny, but makes the lyrics a lot easier to understand) as the other two band members purposely flub miming to a pre-recorded track, while "Come As You Are" he massacres by basically screaming through (not in a good or even funny way).
The video includes lots of footage of them being used as fodder for trivial "Entertainment Tonight"-type coverage, being asked trite questions by interviewers, alternately goofing, being incredibly bored and trying to give sincere answers in response. It's a good companion piece to the documentary "Hype!," as a view of how the "grunge" phenomenon helped, then ultimately backfired against the bands lumped together under that umbrella.
To a point, despite its somewhat bitter tone, this is still a great reflection of how great Nirvana was, and remains. Then in the last 15 minutes or so it goes out of its way to alienate even the viewer by a long final barrage of scenes in which the band onstage expresses its general disgust by destroying instruments and (in Kurt's case) spitting at the camera lenses. This package was conceived by Cobain and finished by the others after his death. Even in its final air of self-destruction and self-loathing, it's a terrific testiment not only to what was brilliant about Nirvana, but what in retrospect looks like their inevitable implosion. They probably would have lasted decades as a moderately popular indie band, but turning into a huge commodity was exactly what they didn't need.
