Nirvana
[#] Sliver: The Best of the Box (2005)
This is why people bought music on iTunes.
Reviewed November 24, 2025
I absolutely go to bat for With the Lights Out. I have issues with it, and whoever put it together didn't really try as hard as they probably should have, but it doesn't feel crass. Sliver: The Best of the Box feels crass. This is a Christmas 2005 struggle purchase. It doesn't match up to its subtitle, filled with a lot of the filler compilation appearances and single b-sides that appeared on the original box and devoid of a lot of its highlights, and its three extra tracks, two of which ain't even that good and one that Nirvana hardcores were desperate for at the time, make this one that completionists grudgingly need to own alongside the wholeass full boxset—and maybe not even them, now that Illiteracy Will Prevail is easily found online.
For every selection that Sliver gets correct, like the barn demo of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Ain't it a Shame" being the best Jury session track and the one to appear here, it misses another ("Dive", "Drain You", "Scentless Apprentice", "Milk It"), ending with the same tired "All Apologies" as the boxset proper to make it feel all the more pointless. Of the exclusives, the unreleased "Sappy" is awkwardly boxy boomy, scuzzy, and bleached of flavor, and the barn demo "Come As You Are" mostly registers as the normal song with cracklier sound quality. It's that fucking Fecal Matter track, that wonderfully punk-by-Aerosmith high school rip of "Spank Thru" with Dale Crover on drums, that proves the sole exclusive highlight. $17, please!
| Essential: | "Spank Thru", "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Old Age" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "About a Girl" |
| Non-Essential: | "Sliver" |
| Rating: |  |