When suggesting to a new listener an introduction to an artist, it’s usually a bad idea to point them towards an expensive, multi-disc box set. There is no better illustration of this point than Nirvana’s long-awaited three-CD/one-DVD set With the Lights Out. Instead of acting as a greatest-hits package on steroids (think the Who’s Thirty Years of Maximum R&B) or a discography, this box can best be described as an extensive behind-the-scenes look at Nirvana’s music. At first glance of the track listing, all the hits are there. But upon listening, you’ll find they’re certainly not the songs that acted as anthems of a generation. With the Lights Out spans the band’s entire eight-year existence, exposing legendary tracks like “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “About a Girl,” and “Rape Me” (in two versions, one disturbingly augmented by a baby’s cries) in their raw, fetal versions as rough demos and live experiments. That’s not to say that the band’s numerous B-sides and non-album tracks have been ignored; most, if not all, of them are here in one form or another. Therein lies my only real qualm with the box set, that it doesn’t do more to collect all of the band’s rarer final cuts that were released to the public on various compilations and singles. (This rough version of “I Hate Myself and Want to Die” can’t hold a candle to the version released on The Beavis and Butthead Experience soundtrack.). And, being mostly demos and home recordings, the sound and visual quality often falter, some of which I could have sworn were factory defects. These qualities would all but alienate casual listeners, but I cannot recommend With the Lights Out more to seasoned Nirvana fans. Major highlights include a nine-song rehearsal video shot in 1987 in Krist Novoselic’s bedroom, and Kurt Cobain’s long-rumored “final song,” the somber “Do Re Mi.”