Nirvana
Nirvana was a popular American rock band founded in 1987 in Aberdeen, Washington. With the lead single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from the band’s 1991 album Nevermind, Nirvana exploded into the mainstream, bringing along with it an offshoot of punk and alternative rock that the mainstream media of the time referred to as grunge. Other Seattle bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden also gained in popularity, and grunge became the dominant genre on radio and music television during the early-to-middle 90s.
As Nirvana’s frontman, Kurt Cobain found himself referred to in the media as the “spokeman of a generation”, with Nirvana the “flagship band” of “Generation X”.[1] Cobain declined the position, and placed his focus on the band’s music, challenging the band’s audience with their third album In Utero. While Nirvana’s mainstream popularity waned in the months following its release, their core audience cherished the band’s dark interior, particularly after the band’s 1993 performance on MTV Unplugged.
Nirvana’s brief run ended with the death of Cobain in 1994, but the band’s popularity expanded in the years that followed. Eight years after Cobain’s death, an unfinished demo that the band recorded two months prior to Cobain’s death topped radio playlists around the world. Since their debut, the band has sold more than fifty million albums worldwide (see also Best selling music artists), including more than ten million copies of Nevermind in the US alone. Nirvana remains a consistent presence on radio stations worldwide.
Cobain and Krist Novoselic met in 1985. Both were fans of The Melvins, and both were interested in forming a band. They worked with several drummers (including Aaron Burckhard and Dale Crover of The Melvins, who played on their first demos), before settling on Chad Channing. Nirvana’s first album, Bleach, was released by Sub Pop Records in 1989. Bleach was highly influenced by Cobain’s then-favorite band, The Melvins, by the heavy dirge-rock of Mudhoney, and by the 70s rock of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Novoselic noted in a 2001 interview with Rolling Stone that the band had played a tape in their van while on tour that had an album by The Smithereens on one side and an album by the black metal band Celtic Frost on the other, and noted that the combination probably played an influence as well.[2] Bleach became a favorite of college radio stations nationally, but gave few hints of where the band would find itself two years later.
Though he did not actually play on the album, Jason Everman was credited as playing guitar on Bleach because he put up the money for the recording sessions: $606.17. After the album was completed, Everman had a brief and contentious stay with the band as a second guitar player, but was sacked following their first US tour. Not long after, he briefly played bass with Soundgarden before joining the band Mind Funk.
In early 1990, the band began working with producer Butch Vig on recordings for the follow-up to Bleach. During the sessions, Kurt and Krist realized that Chad wasn’t the drummer the band needed, and he was let go after the sessions were complete. After a few weeks with Dale Crover of The Melvins filling in, they hired Mudhoney drummer Dan Peters, with whom they recorded the song “Sliver”. Later that year, Buzz Osbourne of The Melvins introduced them to Dave Grohl, who was looking for a new band following the sudden break-up of D.C. hardcore punks Scream.
Following repeated recommendation by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, David Geffen signed Nirvana to DGC Records in 1990 and the band began recording their first album for a major label. The result, Nevermind, is now widely regarded as a classic.
For the album, the band decided to continue working with Vig. Rather than recording at Vig’s Madison studio as they had in 1990, the band shifted to Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. For two months, the band worked through a variety of songs in their catalog. Some of the songs, including “In Bloom” and “Breed”, had been in the band’s repertoire for years, while others, including “On a Plain” and “Stay Away”, lacked finished lyrics until mid-way through the recording process. [4]
After the recording sessions were completed, Vig and the band set out to mix the album. However, after a few days, both Vig and the band realized that they didn’t like how the mixes were turning out. As a result, they decided to call in someone else to oversee the mixing, with DGC supplying a list of possible options. Cobain did not want to use mixers that had worked with other bands that he liked, given that he did not want to sound like them. He decided to call in the guy at the bottom of the list next to the name ‘Slayer’: Andy Wallace. (Wallace co-produced Slayer’s 1990 album Seasons in the Abyss.)
Months after the album’s release, Cobain complained in the press that Wallace made Nevermind sound too slick, even though Wallace had been his own choice and the band themselves had been involved in the mixing process.[5] Even if the band were disappointed at the glossy sound of the album, Wallace successfully tempered the band’s indie rock leanings and created a mainstream-ready rock sound that others would attempt to duplicate for the next decade.
Initially, Nevermind, wasn’t expected to sell more than 500,000 copies. Instead, the album was certified triple-platinum (three million copies) in the US less than six months after its release. The highly infectious single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” received heavy airplay on MTV, inspiring a slew of imitators and bringing the grunge sound into the mainstream. The popularity of “alternative” rock, as well as the sidelining of hair metal, is often credited to Nevermind. In January of 1992, the album reached the top of the Billboard album charts, replacing Michael Jackson’s album Dangerous, an act often considered the defining symbol of the rise of alternative music over pop. Citing exhaustion, the band decided not to undertake another US tour in support of Nevermind, instead opting to make a handful of performances later that year.
In February of 1992, following the band’s Australian tour, Cobain married Courtney Love in Hawaii. Love gave birth to a daughter, Frances Bean the following August. Just days after Frances Bean’s birth, Nirvana performed one of its best-known concerts, headlining at the Reading Festival. Cobain entered the stage in a wheelchair as a practical joke, then proceeded to get up and join the rest of the band in tearing through an assortment of old and new material. At one point in the show, Cobain related to the crowd the recent birth of his daughter, and succeeded in having the crowd chant “We love you, Courtney!” in unison. Dave Grohl related in 2005 on the radio program Loveline that the band were genuinely concerned beforehand that the show would be a complete disaster, given all that had happened during the year and that they hadn’t rehearsed in six months. Instead, the performance ended up being one of the greatest of their career.
Not quite two weeks later, Nirvana put on a memorable performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. MTV had wanted the band to play “Teen Spirit”, but the band wanted to play a new song called “Rape Me”. MTV was appalled at the idea of a song called “Rape Me”, and eventually agreed that the band could play “Lithium” instead, the band’s then-current single. When the band began their performance, Kurt strummed and sang the first few bars of “Rape Me”, giving the MTV execs a solid shock before jumping into “Lithium”. Near the end of the song, frustrated that his amp had stopped functioning, Novoselic decided to toss his bass into the air for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, he misjudged the landing, and the bass ended up bouncing off of his forehead, forcing him to stumble off the stage in a daze. As Cobain trashed their equipment, Grohl ran to the mic and began yelling “Hi, Axl!” repeatedly, referring to Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose, with whom the band and Courtney had had a bizarre encounter prior to the show.[6]
Nirvana released Incesticide, a collection of B-sides and rarities, in December of 1992. Many of Nirvana’s BBC radio sessions and unreleased early recordings were starting to circulate via trading circles and illegal bootlegs, so the album served to beat the bootleggers to the punch. The album contained such fan favorites as “Sliver”, “Dive”, “Been a Son”, and “Aneurysm” as well as covers of songs by The Vaselines, a band that became more popular as a result of Nirvana’s covers.