Bleach

Recorded with Jack Endino at Reciprocal Recording in Seattle, starting with a five-hour session on 24 December 1988 and continuing on 29 to 31 December and on 14 and 24 January. Floyd the Barber, Paper Cuts and Downer came from a January 1988 session with the Melvins' Dale Crover on drums. Endino billed thirty hours at $606.17, which Jason Everman paid. Everman is credited, although he did not play on the record. Cobain said there was pressure from Sub Pop and the grunge scene to play rock music. He told Spin in 1993 that he wrote about 80 percent of the lyrics the night before recording. The working title was Too Many Humans. It became Bleach after Cobain saw an AIDS prevention poster in San Francisco that read Bleach Your Works.

NME's Edwin Pouncey gave it eight out of ten, and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth found it primal. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine judged it a debut from a band with potential it had not yet realized. The 1992 reissue reached 89 on the Billboard 200 and 33 in the UK. It is certified Platinum in the US and remains Sub Pop's best-selling album. A 20th anniversary edition on 3 November 2009 added a live recording of a 1990 show at the Pine Street Theatre in Portland.