Nirvana, Nevermind

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Nirvana Nevermind​

Produced by Butch Vig.

Kurt Cobain

Krist Novoselic

Dave Grohl

Released September 24, 1991

Budget $65,000 ($141,394.57 in 2022)

Rating: google users: 96% RYM 3.95/5. ON spotify Nirvana has around 24M listerner a month. On Youtube Nevermind album has 4,9M views

Nevermind is the second studio album by the american grunge band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991 by DGC Records. It was Nirvana's first release on a major label and the first to feature drummer Dave Grohl.

Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind features a more polished, radio-friendly sound then the band's prior work. Recording took place at Sound city studio in Van Nuys, California, and smart studios in Madison Wisconsin in May and June -91, with mastering being completed in August of that year st The Mastering Lab, California.

Written primarily by frontman Kurt Cobain, the album is noted for channeling a range of emotions, being noted as dark, humorous, and disturbing. Thematically, it includes anti-establishment views, anti-sexism, Frustration, alienation and troubled love inspired by Cobain's broken relationship with Bikini kill's Toby Vail. Contrary to the popular hedonistic themes of drugs and sex at the time, writers have observed that Nevermind re-invigorated sensitivity to mainstream rock. According to Cobain, the sound of the album was influenced by bands such as Pixies, R.E.M, The Smithereens, and the Melvins. While the album is considered a cornerstone of the grunge genre, it is noted for its musical diversity, which includes acoustic ballads ("Polly" and "´Something in the way") and Punk-inspired Hard Rock("Territorial Pissings" and "Stay Away").

Nevermind became an unexpected critical and commercial success, charting highly on charts across the world. By January 1992, it reached number one on the US Billboard 200 and was selling approximately 300,000 copies a week. The lead single "Smells like teen spirit" reached the top 10 of the US Billboard Hot 100 and went on to be inducted into the Grammy hall of fame. Its video was also heavily rotated on MTV. Three other successful singles were released: "Come as you Are", "Lithium", and "In Bloom". The album was voted the best album of the year in Pass & Jop critics' poll, while "Smells Like Teen Spirit" also topped the single of the year and video of the year polls. The album also garnered the band three Grammy Award nominations in total across the 34th and 35th Grammy Awards, including Best Alternative music album.

Awards

Here cometh thine shiny awards Sire. My Lord Tucker the Wanker second Earl of Wessex. Lord of the Furries. Heir of Lord baldy the one eyed snake wrestler. Protector of Freedom units. Step Sibling with funny feelings down stairs. Entertainer of uncles. Jailor of innocent. Spanker of innocent milk maids and stable boys.

Nirvana has 1 win and 6 Nominations

Nominations

Best Alternative Music Album

Nevermind (Album)

Wins

Best Alternative Music Performance

MTV Unplugged In New York

Tracks

1) "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Written by: Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl 5:01 Released September 10, 1991 as the lead single for the album.

-One of the catchiest intro hooks of all time.

-Very nonsensical and def full of contradictions; but it give the feeling of angst its supposed to.

-Cobain said it was an attempt to write a song in the style of the Pixies, a band he admired:

"I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard."

When Cobain presented the song to his bandmates, it comprised just the main guitar riff and the chorus vocal melody. Cobain said the riff was "clichéd", similar to a riff by Boston or the Richard Berry song "Louie Louie". Bassist Krist Novoselic dismissed it as "ridiculous"; in response, Cobain made the band play it for an hour and a half. Eventually, Novoselic began playing it more slowly, inspiring drummer Dave Grohl to create the drum beat, which drew from disco artists like The Gap Band. As a result, it is the only song on Nevermind to credit all three band members as writers.

2) "In Bloom" Written by Kurt Cobain 4:14 Released November 30, 1992 "In Bloom" was released as the album's fourth and final single in November 1992

-The lyrics are just making fun of listeners who don't understand what Cobain is talking about. Never realized that.

-I like to visualization and juxtaposition of the clean cut 50's style band to them wearing dresses and tearing everything up.

-According to the 1993 Nirvana biography Come As You Are by Michael Azerrad, "In Bloom" was originally written about "the jocks and shallow mainstream types" of the underground music scene the band began to find in their audience after the release of their 1989 debut album, Bleach. In his biography of Cobain, Heavier Than Heaven, Charles R. Cross asserted that the song was a "thinly disguised portrait" of Cobain's friend Dylan Carlson.

3) "Come As You Are" Written by Kurt Cobain 3:38 Released March 2, 1992 as the second single from Nevermind.

-Great song, all of the intros are very catchy and pull you in.

-Interesting visuals in the music video... Lots of sperm swimming around and flowing water.

-The origin of the song's title is unclear, but Charles R. Cross speculated the song may have been named after a motto used by the Morck Hotel in Cobain's hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. The Morck was one of many places Cobain stayed in after leaving home for a time while he was seventeen years old

4) "Breed" written by Kurt Cobain 3:03 Released September 24, 1991

-Much heavier sound than the previous tracks. High energy and poppy.

-Reading the lyrics, it is a bunch of just nonsense.

-Lyrically, the song addresses themes of teenage apathy and fear within the American middle-class. Stevie Chick of Kerrang wrote that lyrics such as "We can plant a house, we can build a tree" displayed Cobain's "gift for crafting witty, purposeful nonsense.

5) "Lithium" written Kurt Cobain 4:16 Released July 13, 1992 as the third single from Nevermind.

-Very chilled vibe from the previous tracks

-It's still got a LOT of energy in the YEAH parts that gets hard.

-As Cobain explained, "In the song, a guy’s lost his girl and his friends and he’s brooding. He’s decided to find God before he kills himself. It’s hard for me to understand the need for a vice like [religion] but I can appreciate it too. People need vices.”

6) "Polly" written by Kurt Cobain 2:57 Released September 24, 1991

-Very downtrodden song. considering the content, not surprising.

-This is a really dark song. Jesus.

-Cobain wrote "Polly" about an incident in Tacoma, Washington involving the abduction and rape of a 14-year-old girl in August 1987. Gerald Arthur Friend kidnapped the girl while she was leaving a rock concert, suspended her upside down from a pulley in his mobile home and raped and tortured her with a blow torch. She managed to escape by jumping from his truck at a gas station, attracting attention from surrounding people. Arthur was later arrested and convicted for his crimes. Cobain's addition to the story was to have the victim fool the kidnapper into thinking she was enjoying what he was doing to her, causing him to let his guard down long enough for her to escape.

-In his Nirvana biography Come As You Are, journalist Michael Azerrad noted that rape seemed to be a consistent theme in Cobain's songs and interviews, as if Cobain was "apologizing for his entire gender." However, Cobain explained, "I don't feel bad about being a man at all. There are all kinds of men that are on the side of the woman and support them and help influence other men. In fact, a man using himself as an example toward other men can probably make more impact than a woman can".

7) "Territorial Pissings" written by Kurt Cobain and Chet Powers. 2:22

-Very punk and heavy.

-I have no idea how Kurt would be able to perform this song live... It hurts my voice hearing his guttural screams.

-this song is a two-and-a-half-minute punk lambasting of the typical "Macho Man." In addition to being about sexism, the song is also about the way Kurt Cobain saw Native Americans treated around his home town of Aberdeen, Washington.

8) "Drain You" written by Kurt Cobain 3:43 Released September 24, 1991 as a promotional single

-
Good song, musically in the same category as the more popular Nirvana tracks. Heavy, but simple and poppy.

-The strangest "love" song I've ever heard.

-In the 1993 Nirvana biography Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Michael Azerrad described "Drain You" as "a love song, or rather a song about love," in which the babies in the lyrics "represent two people reduced to a state of perfect innocence by their love." Cobain told Azerrad that the lyrics made him think of "