According to Cobain, the music on "Bleach" conformed with the grunge genre Sub Pop heavily endorsed. "There was this pressure from Sub Pop and the grunge scene to play 'rock music'", Cobain said, and noted that he "it down and [made it sound like Aerosmith." Cobain also felt he had to fit the expectations of the grunge sound to build a fanbase, and hence suppressed his arty and pop songwriting traits while crafting the record. Krist Novoselic said in a 2001 interview with "Rolling Stone" that the band had played a tape in their tour van that had an album by the Smithereens on one side and one by the extreme metal band Celtic Frost on the other, and noted that the combination probably played an influence as well. The songs were described as "deliberately bleak, claustrophobic, and lyrically sparse, with none of the manic derangement or sense of release of the live performance". Cobain said that the song structures were "one–dimensional", and said that he sought to present a more "polished and urbane side of happy".