Prior to Nirvana, alternative music was
consigned to specialty sections of record stores and major labels considered it
to be, at the very most, a tax write-off. After the band's second album, 1991's
Nevermind, nothing was ever quite the same, for better and for worse. Nirvana
popularized punk, post-punk, and indie rock, unintentionally bringing it into
the American mainstream like no other band before it. While its sound was equal
parts Black Sabbath (as learned by fellow Washington underground rockers the
Melvins) and Cheap Trick, Nirvana's aesthetics were strictly indie rock. They
covered Vaselines songs, they revived new wave cuts by Devo, and leader Kurt
Cobain relentlessly pushed his favorite bands -- whether it was the art punk of
the Raincoats or the country-fried hardcore of the Meat Puppets -- as if his
favorite records were always more important than his own music. While Nirvana's
ideology was indie rock and melodies were pop, the sonic rush of their records
and live shows merged the post-industrial white noise with heavy metal grind.
And that's what made the group an unprecedented multi-platinum sensation. Jane's
Addiction and Soundgarden may have proven to the vast American heavy metal
audience that alternative could rock, and the Pixies may have merged pop
sensibilities with indie rock white noise, but Nirvana pulled at all together,
creating a sound that was both fiery and melodic. Since Nirvana was rooted in
the indie aesthetic, but loved pop music, they fought their stardom while
courting it, becoming some of the most notorious anti-rock stars in history. The
result was a conscious attempt to shed their audience with the abrasive In
Utero, which only partially fulfilled the band's goal. But by that point, the
fate of the band and Kurt Cobain had been sealed. Suffering from drug addiction
and manic depression, Cobain had become destructive and suicidal, though his
management and label were able to hide the extent of his problems from the
public until April 8, 1994, when he was found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun
wound. Cobain may not have been able to weather Nirvana's success, but the
band's legacy stands as one of the most influential in rock & roll history.
Kurt Cobain (vocals, guitar) met Chris Novoselic (born Krist Novoselic) (bass)
in 1985 in Aberdeen, WA, a small logging town 100 miles away from Seattle. While
Novoselic came from a relatively stable background, Cobain's childhood had been
thrown into turmoil when his parents divorced when he was eight. Following the
divorce, he lived at the homes of various relatives, developing a love for the
Beatles and then heavy metal in the process. Eventually, American hardcore punk
worked its way into dominating his listening habits and he met the Melvins, an
Olympia-based underground heavy punk band. Cobain began playing in punk bands
like Fecal Matter, often with the Melvins' bassist Dale Crover. Through the
Melvins' leader Buzz Osborne, Cobain met Novoselic, who also had an intense
interest in punk, which meant that he, like Cobain, felt alienated from the
macho, redneck population of Aberdeen. The duo decided to form a band called the
Stiff Woodies, with Cobain on drums, Novoselic on bass, and a rotating cast of
guitarists and vocalists. The group went through name changes as quickly as
guitarists, before deciding that Cobain would play guitar and sing. Renamed Skid
Row, the new trio featured drummer Aaron Burkhart, who left the band by the end
of 1986 and was replaced by Chad Channing. By 1987, the band was called Nirvana.
Nirvana began playing parties in Olympia, gaining a cult following. During 1987,
the band made ten demos with producer Jack Endino, who played the recordings to
Jonathan Poneman, one of the founders of the Seattle-based indie label Sub Pop.
Poneman signed Nirvana, and in December of 1988, the band released their first
single, a cover of Shocking Blue's "Love Buzz." Sub Pop orchestrated an
effective marketing scheme, which painted the band as backwoods, logging-town
hicks, which irritated Cobain and Novoselic. While "Love Buzz" was fairly
well-received, the band's debut album, Bleach, was what began the ball rolling.
Recorded for just over 600 dollars and released in the spring of 1989, Bleach
slowly became a hit on college radio, due to the group's consistent touring.
Though Jason Everman was credited as a second guitarist on the sleeve of Bleach,
he didn't appear on the record; he only toured in support of the album before
leaving the band at the end of the year to join Soundgarden and then Mindfunk.
Bleach sold 35,000 copies and Nirvana became favorites of college radio, the
British weekly music press, and Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, and Dinosaur Jr., which
was enough to attract the attention of major labels.
During the summer, Nirvana released "Sliver"/"Dive," which was recorded with
Mudhoney's Dan Peters on drums and produced by Butch Vig. The band also made a
six-song demo with Vig, which was shopped to major labels, who soon began
competing to sign the group. By the end of the summer, Dave Grohl, formerly of
the D.C.-based hardcore band Scream, had become Nirvana's drummer and the band
signed with DGC for $287,000. Nirvana recorded their second album with Vig,
completing the record in the summer. Following a European tour supporting Sonic
Youth in the late summer, Nevermind was released in September, supported by a
quick American tour. While DGC was expecting a moderately successful release, in
the neighborhood of 100,000 copies, Nevermind immediately became a smash hit,
quickly selling out its initial shipment of 50,000 copies and creating a
shortage across America. What helped the record become a success was "Smells
Like Teen Spirit," a blistering four-chord rocker that was accompanied by a
video that shot into heavy MTV rotation. By the beginning of 1992, "Smells Like
Teen Spirit" had climbed into the American Top Ten and Nevermind bumped Michael
Jackson's much-touted comeback album Dangerous off the top of the album charts;
it reached the British Top Ten shortly afterward. By February, the album had
been certified triple platinum.
Nirvana's success took the music industry by surprise, Nirvana included. It soon
become apparent that the band wasn't quite sure how to handle their success.
Around the time of Nevermind's release, the band was into baiting their audience
-- Cobain appeared on MTV's Headbanger's Ball in drag, the group mocked the
tradition of miming on the BBC's Top of the Pops by Novoselic constantly
throwing his bass into the air and Cobain singing his live vocals in the style
of Ian Curtis, and their traditional live destruction of instruments was
immortalized on a Saturday Night Live performance that ended with Novoselic and
Grohl sharing a kiss -- but by the spring, questions had begun to arise about
the band's stability. Cobain married Courtney Love, the leader of the indie
rock/foxcore band Hole, in February of 1992, announcing that the couple was
expecting a child in the fall. Shortly after the marriage, rumors that the
couple were heavy heroin users began to circulate and the strength of the rumors
only increased when Nirvana canceled several summer concerts and refused to
mount a full-scale American tour during the summer. Cobain complained that he
was suffering from chronic stomach troubles, which seemed to be confirmed when
he was admitted to a Belfast hospital after a June concert. But, heroin rumors
continued to surface, especially in the form of a late-summer Vanity Fair
article which implied that Love was using during her pregnancy. Both Love and
Cobain denied the article's allegations, and publicly harassed and threatened
the article's author. Love delivered Frances Bean Cobain, a healthy baby girl,
on August 18, 1992, but the couple soon battled with Los Angeles' children's
services, who claimed they were unfit parents on the basis of the Vanity Fair
article. The couple was granted custody of their child by the beginning of 1993.
Since Cobain was going through such well-documented personal problems, Nirvana
was unable to record a follow-up to Nevermind until the spring of 1993. In the
meantime, DGC released the odds-and-ends compilation Incesticide late in 1992;
the album reached number 39 in the U.S. and number 14 U.K. As the group prepared
to make their third album, they released "Oh, the Guilt" as a split-single with
the Jesus Lizard on Touch & Go Records. Choosing Steve Albini (Pixies, the
Breeders, Big Black, the Jesus Lizard) as their producer, Nirvana recorded their
third album, In Utero, in two weeks during the spring of 1993. Following its
completion, controversy began to surround Nirvana again. Cobain suffered a
heroin overdose on May 2, but the event was hidden from the press. The following
month, Love called police to their Seattle home after Cobain locked himself in
the bathroom, threatening suicide. Prior to debuting In Utero material during
the New Music Seminar at New York's Roseland Ballroom in July, Cobain had
another covered-up overdose. By that time, reports began to circulate, including
an article in Newsweek, that DGC was unhappy with the forthcoming album,
accusing that the band deliberately made an uncommercial record. Both the band
and the label denied such allegations. Deciding that Albini's production was too
flat, Nirvana decided to remaster the album with R.E.M.'s producer, Scott Litt.
In Utero was released in September of 1993 to positive reviews and strong
initial sales, debuting at the top of the U.S. and U.K. charts. Nirvana
supported it with a fall American tour, hiring former Germs member Pat Smear as
an auxiliary guitarist. While the album and the tour were both successful, sales
weren't quite as strong as expected, with several shows not selling out until
the week of the concert. As a result, the group agreed to play MTV's acoustic
Unplugged show at the end of the year, and sales of In Utero picked up after its
December airing. After wrapping up the U.S. tour on January 8, 1994, with a show
at Center Arena in Seattle, Nirvana embarked on a European tour in February.
Following a concert in Munich on February 29, Cobain stayed in Rome to vacation
with Love. On March 4, she awakened to find that Cobain had attempted suicide by
overdosing on the tranquilizer Rohypnol and drinking champagne. While the
attempt was initially reported as an accidental overdose, it was known within
the Nirvana camp that the vocalist had left behind a suicide note.
Cobain returned to Seattle within a week of his hospitalization and his mental
illness began to grow. On March 18, the police had to again talk the singer out
of suicide after he locked himself in a room threatening to kill himself. Love
and Nirvana's management organized an intervention program that resulted in
Cobain's admission to the Exodus Recovery Center in L.A. on March 30, but he
escaped from the clinic on April 1, returning to Seattle. His mother filed a
missing persons report on April 4. The following day, Cobain shot himself in the
head at his Seattle home. His body wasn't discovered until April 8, when an
electrician contracted to install an alarm system at the Cobain house stumbled
upon the body. After his death, Kurt Cobain was quickly anointed as a spokesman
for Generation X, as well as a symbol of its tortured angst.
Novoselic and Grohl planned to release a double-disc live album at the end of
1994, but sorting through the tapes proved to be too painful, so MTV Unplugged
in New York appeared in its place. The album debuted at the top of the British
and American charts, as a home video comprised of live performances and
interviews from the band's Nevermind-era, titled Live! Tonight! Sold Out!, was
issued at the same time (the project began prior to Cobain's passing and was
completed by surviving bandmembers).
In 1996, its electric counterpart, From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, was
released, debuting at the top of the U.S. charts. Following Cobain's death,
Grohl formed the Foo Fighters (early rumors that Novoselic would also be a
member of the band ultimately proved to be false) -- releasing their self-titled
debut album in 1995, followed by The Colour and the Shape in 1997 and There Is
Nothing Left to Lose in 1999. Novoselic formed the trio Sweet 75, releasing
their debut in the spring of 1997, and also appeared along with former Dead
Kennedys' frontman Jello Biafra and former Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil on
the 2000 live set Live From the Battle in Seattle under the name the No W.T.O.
Combo.
By the late '90s, research began by Novoselic for a proposed box set of
previously unreleased songs from throughout Nirvana's career. The project was
supposed to surface in the fall of 2001 (to coincide with the tenth anniversary
release of Nevermind), but legal problems began to surface. In 1997, Grohl and
Novoselic formed the Nirvana L.L.C. partnership with Courtney Love (who manages
Cobain's estate) -- a company that required a unanimous vote by all three
regarding future albums, photos, and anything else Nirvana-related. When all
three couldn't agree on the songs to be included on the box set, the matter was
taken to court as Love attempted to dissolve the partnership. The project was
ultimately shelved indefinitely as any legal decision was tied up in court. ~
Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Greg Prato, All Music Guide