Nirvana

Kurt Cobain’s first musical contribution was hauling gear for the Melvins, whose early work was key in Grunge’s development. That gig led Cobain to Krist Novoselic. Their initial effort had Cobain on drums and Novoselic playing guitar. When Melvins’ drummer Dale Crover joined, Cobain moved to guitar and Novoselic handled bass. Starting out as Ed, Ted, Fred and later, the Fecal Matter, they finally settled on Nirvana.

Playing the Northwest club circuit they built a dedicated following. That, in turn, resulted in Nirvana signing with the Seattle based Sub-Pop label. Despite Cobain’s numerous compositions, the band’s first release was a cover of Shocking Blue’s “Love Buzz.”

Debut album Bleach” became a college radio staple. Recorded in Seattle, the album contained, in addition to “Love Buzz,” “About A Girl” and “Negative Creep.” It sold 40,000 copies in North America prior to the release of “Nevermind.” Since then, the album has since moved more than 1.9 million copies in the U. S. alone.

“Bleach” was the only Nirvana album released on the Sub Pop imprint and their only studio album to feature drummer Chad Channing.

“Silver” came out in mid ’90. After a series of drummers had come and gone, Nirvana found David Grohl. They also had a demo that caught the attention of producer Butch Vig who subsequently worked on the band’s next album.

“Nevermind” was nothing short of being a landmark creation with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” “In Bloom,” “Lithium” and “On A Plane.” But the best song was “Come As You Are.” Starting with a hypnotic, reverb drenched guitar riff – straight from the bottom of Link Wray’s gene pool. The song built until it exploded with Cobain screaming “No I don’t have a gun.” Of course, he did.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Come As You Are

Primarily written by Cobain, the album was the band’s first release on a major label, DGC. It replaced Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” at #1 on the Billboard 200. and brought Grunge into the mainstream with Cobain the genre’s poster child.

“Insecticide,” released in ’93, was an excellent collection of early Nirvana live and studio recordings containing “Aneurysm,” the B-side of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“Aneurysm” was one of the few Nirvana songs credited to all three members and became a concert staple.

Aneurysm

Heart Shaped Box

Later that year, “In Utero” dropped. The album was not as driving, hard-edged or sonically dense as “Nevermind.” Some attributed this change to Cobain’s growing heroin addiction.

The brooding “Heart Shaped Box,” the acoustic, self-reflective “Dumb” and the remorseful “All Apologies” were the best tracks. But the album’s production was fraught with several false starts and sudden stops.

The original album mix was by Steve Albini but then remixed for what the band and their record label termed a more “desirable sound.” Unhappy with the turn of events. Albini later dismissed Nirvana as “R.E.M. with a fuzzbox” and “an unremarkable version of the Seattle sound,”

Even though the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 180.000 copies retailers were skittish. Wal-Mart said they declined to sell the album due to a lack of consumer demand while Kmart claimed it did not fit with their “merchandise mix.”

Actually, both retailers worried that the album’s back cover would offend customers.

In an effort to de-escalate the situation, DGC issued a new version to the stores with edited artwork and the track “Rape Me” retitled “Waif Me.”

While “In Utero” didn’t match “Nevermind’s” sales numbers it went over 15 million copies.

In Utero

The Man Who Sold The World

Nirvana’s ”MTV Unplugged In New York,” recorded in November of ’93 and released the following year, illustrated the band’s depth and musicianship.

At the time of the taping Cobain was suffering from drug withdrawal. An observer noted: “There was no joking, no smiles, no fun coming from him … everyone was more than a little worried about his performance.”

That performance, which included a cover of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold The World,” proved Nirvana was not solely reliant on Grunge’s wall of sound.

However, in a break with MTV Unplugged tradition, Nirvana used some electric amplification and effects and played mainly lesser-known material and covers and moved over 8-million copies.

When things unraveled, it all went too quickly. Maybe it was life with Hole’s Courtney Love (Kurt and Courtney married in ’92 with Francis Bean born later that year). It could have been the pressures of Rock stardom. Or heroin (Cobain had been in and out – mostly out – of rehab). Maybe there was just a big hole that nobody or nothing could fill.

On April 4th, 1994, Cobain’s mother filed a missing person’s report. A few days later Cobain’s body was discovered at his Seattle residence (ruled suicide by shotgun). He was 27.

The tragedy and the seeming utter senselessness of it broke Grunge’s spell.

Compiled largely by Novoselic, “From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah,” a live album, was released two years after the multi-platinum “Unplugged album.

It was designed to show the band’s harder edge in contrast to the acoustic set for MTV.

The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 selling nearly 159,000 copies in its first week of release and spent 25 weeks on the chart to become the band’s sixth platinum effort in the U.S.

Years later, the furious mud-slinging battle with Grohl and Novoselic pitted against Love and a fleet of attorneys subsided long enough to get the papers signed allowing the release of a retrospective simply titled “Nirvana” featuring the group’s last recording, “You Know You’re Right.”