| Negative Creep | |
| Artist: | Nirvana |
| Album: | Bleach |
| Released: | June 15, 1989 |
| Recorded: | December 29–31, 1988 |
| Length: | 2:56 |
| Label: | Sub Pop |
| Producer: | Jack Endino |
"Negative Creep" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist, Kurt Cobain. It is the seventh song on their debut album Bleach, released in June 1989.
"Negative Creep" was written by Cobain in 1988. To date, no demo version of the song has appeared on official releases or bootlegs.
"Negative Creep" was one of nine songs recorded during Nirvana's third studio session, in December 1988 and January 1989 at Reciprocal Recording in Seattle, Washington, that were released on their July 1989 debut album, Bleach.[1] According to producer Jack Endino, the band, featuring then-drummer Chad Channing along with Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic, recorded as quickly as possible, with the intention of recording a full album rather than an EP as requested by their then-label, Sub Pop. In a 2004 interview with Rob Nash of The Independent, Endino recalled that the band would record the instruments "in one or two takes," and Cobain would then record the vocals in usually a single take.[1]
"Negative Creep" was debuted live on February 25, 1989, at the Husky Union Building at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. The song remained a set list regular for the next four years, until its final live performance on April 9, 1993, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, California. It was jammed on briefly during Nirvana's MTV Unplugged appearance in November 1993, after being requested by an audience member, but both Cobain and Novoselic said that they no longer knew how to play it.
"Negative Creep" has been described as one of the "Sub Popiest" songs the band ever recorded,[2] and "a text book example of Seattle's true grunge sound".[3] The studio version is the only Nirvana recording that employs an extended fade-out while the vocals are still present.[4]
Several critics have noted the intensity of Cobain's vocals on the studio recording, with Mark Richardson of Pitchfork writing:
"Cobain's voice through the second verse terrifies me. There is no concern for his physical well being or even his future as a vocalist in a rock band. He sings as intensely as he can possibly sing. Sometimes, when I'm listening loud, I think my headphones might be breaking up from the volume only to realize that the membrane being excited to the point of distortion is actually Cobain's larynx."[5]
In his 1993 Nirvana biography , Michael Azerrad described "Negative Creep" as "a first-person narrative from an antisocial person," with that person being Cobain himself.[6] James Jackson Toth of Stereogum called it a "chilling ode to social awkwardness" during which "Cobain, sounding like a cross between Lemmy and a gargoyle, acknowledges his position as a shadowy outsider–even revels in it."[7]
Steve Fisk, who produced Nirvana's Blew EP in 1989, offered an alternate theory of the song's meaning, saying that "I got told it was about the guy who lived across the street from the duplex and would come over while Kurt was gone to try to smoke [Cobain's then-girlfriend] Tracy [Marander] out."[8]
The song received some criticism from members of the Seattle music scene in the late 1980s because of the lyric, "Daddy's little girl ain't a girl no more," which closely resembled the lyrics to "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More" by Nirvana's Sub Pop label mates Mudhoney. According to Azerrad, Cobain claimed the similarity was an example of "subconscious theft."[6]
In a July 1989 review of Bleach, Edwin Pouncey of the NME called the song "glorious" and wrote that it was "a leash strainer of a song that eventually gets loose and goes on the rampage like a rabid Rottweiler. Fab!"[9]
In 2015, Rolling Stone placed "Negative Creep" at number 15 on their ranking of 102 Nirvana songs.[10] In 2022, Revolver named it one of the "10 Heaviest Grunge Songs of All Time," with Eli Enis writing that "for every glimpse at future pop-rock supremacy on Bleach, there's another song like this, a motorik, almost thrashy ripper that sees Kurt Cobain spitting back his own ugly self-perception — 'I'm a negative creep and I'm stoned' — with the wiry wrath of the picked-on kid finally taking a swing at his bully."[11] In 2023, PopMatters included it on their list of "The 10 Heaviest Nirvana Songs," with Dean Brown calling it "one of the most violent songs in Nirvana’s back catalogue" and "metal to the bone."[12] The same year, the A.V. Club ranked it at number 25 on their list of Nirvana's "30 greatest songs".[13]
"Negative Creep" appeared in the 1996 grunge documentary, Hype!, and was included in the film's soundtrack. It also appeared in the bonus CD included with the 1995 book Screaming Life: A Chronicle of the Seattle Music Scene, which collected the photographs of acclaimed music photographer, Charles Peterson.
| Year | Publication | Country | Accolade | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Kerrang! | United Kingdom | 20 Great Nirvana Songs Picked by the Stars[14] | 9 |
| 2023 | The A.V. Club | United States | Essential Nirvana: Their 30 greatest songs, ranked[15] | 25 |
| Year | Artist | Album | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Tura Satana | Relief Through Release | |
| 1997 | Machine Head | Take My Scars | |
| 2001 | Dee Dee Ramone | ||
| 2004 | Velvet Revolver | Slither |