How Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ Changed Music Forever
Though the expectations for Nevermind were high, no one foresaw what was coming.
Nirvana's front-man Kurt Cobain once described Nevermind as an album that was "way too polished" for his taste (and he blamed producer Butch Vig for it). Coming from someone who was friends with integrants of Sonic Youth and the Melvins, this statement made sense. Though Cobain grew up listening to mainstream metal bands and kept a couple of records from The Beatles, he wanted to distance himself and his band from mainstream music as much as possible. At the same time, Nirvana had already achieved a level of popularity that their friends hadn't experienced yet. Their first album, "Bleach," had performed well on college radios across the nation, allowing the band to tour in the US and overseas (the album had been even more successful in the UK). The expectations around the band's sophomore album were as high as they could get. Kurt, who had spent years being the only person pushing his musical career, now found himself surprised when his label, fans, and friends were asking for new music.
Dave Grohl, Kurt Cobain, and Krist Novoselic for the Nevermind album photoshoot.
By the time the recording sessions started in LA in January of 1991, all three members were so anxious about the album that they would drink excessively, and the sessions were filled with problems. Krist Novoselic was arrested for driving intoxicated and had to be bailed out by the band's manager and dragged back into the studio. Cobain kept getting his guitar parts wrong during" Lithium," which caused him to have a mental breakdown and smash his guitar on the floor. The episode was captured and used by producer Vig on "Endless, Nameless," a song hidden at the end of the CD run that wasn't listed on the tracklist. In addition, Kurt's procrastination delayed the final lyrics of most of the songs: all he had written for nearly every track on the album were standalone lines with dismantled thoughts. However, the last song they recorded had been entirely written by him a year before. "Something In the Way" recalls the time Kurt lived under a bridge after being told to leave his mother's house. Though it's believed he never, in fact, slept under the bridge, he did become homeless for a while and spent many nights in abandoned buildings until friends started to offer shelter.
“Drain You,” one of the songs on Nevermind, was written about Cobain’s former girlfriend Tobi Vail after their breakup.
Cobain's procrastination contrasted with his creativity. The singer was so prolific that he would write fragments of songs on the walls of his rented apartment. His place was infested with the various forms of art he created, to the extent that some people would consider him a hoarder: paintings, drawings, journals, redesigned t-shirts, and even disfigured dolls. The band's biggest hit and Nevermind's lead single, "Smell Like Teen Spirit," was a product of that environment. Tobi, Cobain's girlfriend and roommate at the time, had a friend over constantly. Her name was Kathleen Hanna. One day, Hanna spray-painted "Kurt smells like teen spirit" on the wall, jokingly implying that Kurt had Tobi's smell (Teen Spirit was a deodorant brand) all over him. Much of Nevermind was inspired by Tobi, who, by the time the album was recorded, had already become Kurt's former lover. Many other songs on the record describe their relationship, and some were written only after their painful but inevitable breakup. But the album also explored other topics, and though Cobain campaigned against Freudian-like analyses of his lyrics - he often downplayed the meaning of his songs - the record was unmistakably a translation of his wit mixed with the hatred, love, anger, and sadness he felt toward the people in his life and the music business.
Kurt Cobain in the music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” 1991.
Though the expectations for Nevermind were high, no one foresaw what was coming. At the album's release party in Seattle, Nirvana members heard a conversation among executives and employees from GDC Records, the major label that had just signed Nirvana. The label had issued about 47,000 copies for the release week, hinting that even with the anticipation around the album, they did not expect it to be what it turned out to be. When Cobain heard one of the men saying he thought the album could sell 100,000 copies, he raised one of his eyebrows and made a funny face. The album had a moderate debut, entering at #144 on Billboard 200. The world turned upside down when "Smell Like Teen Spirit" was put in power rotation on MTV. The album began to sell out in every record store, and the demand was so high that the label had to develop different strategies to increase production. Two months later, Nevermind reached the number #1 spot on the charts, dethroning Michael Jackson's Dangerous. From that point on, rock—and music in general—has never been the same. 30 years later, the album has sold over 10 million copies in the United States alone, and “Smell Like Teen Spirit” has amassed over 1 billion streams on Spotify.
Listen to Nevermind:
