Thursday, Sep. 22, 2011
'Heart-Shaped Box' (1993)
Anton Corbijn's video for the first single off Nirvana's coruscating final studio album, In Utero, is a masterpiece (and included on our list of The 30 All-TIME Best Music Videos). But anyone with Nirvana nostalgia should also check out the version from Nirvana Live and Loud (available in its entirety on DVD and on YouTube), filmed at a December 1993 Seattle concert and aired on MTV that New Year's Eve. Remember what Bono said about Nirvana "splitting the atom"? They do it on every single song on the astonishing Live and Loud — and Dave Grohl does it every time his drumsticks pummel their target. It's difficult to believe that a band so vital, so confrontationally perfect, would no longer exist less than four months later.