Nirvana - Bliss (1995)

 

Side A:
1. You Know You're Right
2. Talk to Me
3. The Yodel Song
4. What More Can I Say?
5. Alone + Easy Target
6. Butterflies

Side B:
7. Ivy League
8. Desire
9. Burn My Britches
10. Exhausted
11. Poison's Gone
12. Do Re Mi
Bonus Track - Chemicals Write My Death Certificate

What would have been on Nirvana's next album? Just like The Beatles but not as much, this is a question that has rocked the music side of the internet for years. However, there are four things that people need to realize:

1. Of course they would've released something in 1994! But not an album, because they only released albums on odd-numbered years. They probably still would've released MTV's Unplugged in New York, the cancelled "Pennyroyal Tea" single, the Lollapalooza EP, etc. They only released 1 thing period in 1990, the "Sliver" single, but they were gonna release their second album Sheep before it got turned into Nevermind.
2. No "In Utero"-era B-side would've ended up on the album. Just because it wasn't released on an album doesn't mean it wasn't released to the public. So that means no "Moist Vagina", no "I Hate Myself and Want to Die", and no "Marigold".
3. Kurt probably would've still been writing songs, so the some of the songs that would've ended up on their next album might not have even been written during his lifetime.
4. Dave Grohl had been writing his own music since 1990, and starting with "Marigold", the B-side to "Heart-Shaped Box", there would've been some Dave Grohl songs on the next album.

And as there are things people don't realize, there are things that could've been on the album: 

1. "You Know You're Right", "Do Re Mi", and "Ivy League" are the only songs we know were recorded in 1994. No full-band studio version of the last two songs are known to exist. Cobain did other basement demos in 1994 that haven't surfaced so we don't know what else is on them.
2. "Clean Up Before She Comes" from WTLO and "Talk to Me" from the DVD were supposedly re-recorded in 1994, but it hasn't been confirmed.
3. A full-band studio version of "Opinion" apparently exists, but it hasn't surfaced so we don't even know what year it's from. I've heard a cover which sounded very Nevermind-era.
4. Eight of the twelve songs from the Foo Fighters' debut album are from Dave's Nirvana days, so that is a lot! And there is also Dave's "Pocketwatch" cassette tape from 1992, whose songs were recorded in 1990 and 1991.
5. There are also all the other old songs that never wound up on an album that could've been re-recorded, such as "Nobody Knows I'm New Wave", which was only played once in 1992, or all the other Fecal Matter stuff like "Bambi Slaughter" or "Punk Rocker".
6. And all of the songs exclusive to WTLO that could've been rerecorded: "Anorexorcist", "Vendetagainst", "Beans", and "Don't Want It All".
7. As well as the songs which we know nothing about, including what year they're from, like the ones Courtney mentioned in interviews like "The Son".

So we have more than enough songs from an album. What else would've happened in 1994?

1. There was a whole slew of concerts that had to be cancelled because of reasons surrounding Cobain's ill health and ultimate death, as late as September 1994 with Nirvana headlining Lollapalooza. Maybe they would've played some "In Utero"-era B-sides for the first time ever.
2. There would've been an EP that coincided with the Lollapalooza concert. Their next album would've likely been something like MTV Unplugged in New York, like acoustic versions of old songs live in the studio instead of in front of an audience, but for now I'm just gathering whatever unreleased material I still have, and I'll probably only make one posthumous album, although Nirvana apparently had a 7 album deal with DGC.
3. The "Pennyroyal Tea" and "Rape Me" music videos probably would've been made, since "In Utero" had more singles than music videos. And Nevermind had more singles than In Utero.
4. The "Serve the Servants" single with "Dumb" would've been released as a kind of double A-side (part-"All Apologies", part-"Heart-Shaped Box") with an edited shorter version of "Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip" (had to go with something from the January 1993 session cause all the non-album stuff from the February 1993 session were turned into B-sides).

I'm surprised there's never been any official posthumous Nirvana albums since a lot of other artists have had official posthumous albums. Like Michael Jackson's "Michael", Jimi Hendrix's "The Cry of Love", or John Lennon's "Milk and Honey". Do they not have enough material to work with or is it a legal issue? I originally thought that the way "You Know You're Right" was created was like "Free as a Bird", where they just took an old demo and made the band play over it. But no, it was just the last real song with vocals to be played in a studio. The reason why no one's done that to any Nirvana songs is because they haven't released any posthumous albums, just the WTLO box set. But the "Montage of Heck" documentary soundtrack kind of fills in that void. And there's this dude on YouTube that's been making band mockups of songs from that album.

This is my idea of the fourth Nirvana album, which would've been released in 1995. It's based on the fan album by Johnny Schizoid instead of Soniclovenoize like usual. I'm making this album 4 years after the last time I worked on this alternate universe Nirvana discography. I wouldn't have been able to make this till 4 months ago when the "Desire" and "Ivy League" band mockups got released to YouTube. And since the last time I worked on it, a channel called The Beginning of Music had been uploading fan-made band mockups of the solo Kurt Cobain recordings from the Montage of Heck album. There would've only been one posthumous album cause there wouldn't be enough material to make an imaginary fifth one. The only material I have left are fan-made covers of obscure Nirvana songs like "Nobody Knows I'm New Wave" and a few Dave songs until The Beginning of Music uploads more band mockups. 

The only tracks that were definitely recorded in 1994 are "You Know You're Right", "Do Re Mi", and "Ivy League", although the last two tracks appear as band mockups, the first one being done by The Beginning of Music and the last one being done by Rarest Nirvana. The Beginning of Music also did band mockups for "The Yodel Song", "What More Can I Say?", "Desire", "Burn My Britches", and "Poison's Gone", all appearing as acoustic demos on the Montage of Heck album from 2015. Also appearing for the first time are 3 tracks by Dave: "Alone + Easy Target", "Exhausted", & "Butterflies". These tracks were originally demoed with Nirvana in 1994 but the first two tracks would later be released on the first Foo Fighters album. And lastly "Talk to Me" is a cover done by a guy named Angel Sander and "Chemicals Write My Death Certificate" is just "The Other Improv" from With the Lights Out.