Clas ic Al ums Nirvana: Nevermind
RELEASED: September 24 1991 PERSONNEL: Kurt Cobain (Lead vocal, guitars, Dave Grohl (drums), Krist Novoselic (Bass) PRODUCER: Butch Vig VOTED NUMBER 1 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Best albums of the Nineties
the US band’s fi rst album for their new record label DGC. The trio from the tough working class town of Aberdeen in Washington State had already released their fi rst album Bleach on their previous label, the Seattle-based independent Sub Pop but Bleach had failed to make any signifi cant mark on the charts despite positive reviews in the more switched-on elements of the Music press. Ironically, once Nevermind was a hit the re-released Bleach eventually made Platinum status, selling over four Million units worldwide and serving as Sub Pop’s most successful record to date. When Nirvana signed to DGC– an
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offshoot of the Geffen label – the band enjoyed a now sadly gone major label culture whereby an act would be given time to develop rather than expected to deliver a huge hit LP or single at their fi rst attempt. Nirvana unwittingly introduced a change in this nurturing
irvana had relatively modest expectations for their second LP, Nevermind, which was
attitude. The fi rst single from the LP, Smells Like Teen Spirit, exploded onto the scene, propelling its parent album to the top of the charts where it displaced Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album from the top spot by January 1992. In the wake of Nevermind’s instant success record companies scrambled to sign virtually any band from the Pacifi c Northwest that they could get their hands on. Metal bands cut their hair and started ditching their leathers for ripped jeans and lumberjack shirts in an effort to emulate the new fashion unwittingly created by Cobain, whose rugged dress sense simply refl ected his upbringing in the damp oceanic atmosphere of a seaport town.
In Bloom Nevermind was recorded at Sound City Studios in LA with producer Butch Vig at the helm. The band had held out for Vig, citing his patience and good chemistry with the band but the recording sessions still overran, resulting in a hurried fi nal mix that neither the band or record company were satisfi ed with. Ace
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Once in every generation a landmark LP comes along that changes the entire musical landscape. In 1991 a little known underground punk rock band from America took the world by storm, rewriting the book on how rock and pop could combine to create an irresistible force…
rock producer Andy Wallace was drafted in to sort out the mixes and his experience working with heavy band bands, most notably Slayer, delivered an incredible sounding record that was thunderously powerful whilst also pushing Kurt Cobain’s fi nely tuned pop sensibility to the fore. Most people can remember where they were when they fi rst heard Smells Like Teen Spirit, so startling was its impact
clogging up MTV, helping to open the doorway for an exciting new generation of young rock bands and reinvigorating previously disaffected music fans. The downside was that Nevermind also helped to kill the practice of record companies giving their acts time to develop; instead everyone expected their new ‘grunge’ signings to instantly rake in the big bucks, inevitably resulting in many decent bands being
Nevermind helped to kill the record company practice of giving their acts time to develop…
and the album went on to sell over seven million copies in the US alone, far outstripping the more modest 250,000 sales prediction set by DGC prior to its original release. The huge impact of Nevermind can be measured in positive and negative ways: the album helped to blow away the hoards of slack- jawed dissolute ‘hair metal’ bands
unceremoniously dumped when they failed to meet the targets set by Nevermind’s unprecedented success. Of course the fi nal tragedy was that Nevermind ultimately set Kurt Cobain on course for an early death but his and Nirvana’s legacy is forever enshrined in the most visceral, thrilling and infl uential LP to emerge during the 1990s. PM
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