№ 30 of 100
Nevermind
Nevermind by Nirvana (1991), № 30 in The Lead-In’s 100 greatest albums. Nirvana doesn't 'change rock' in the abstract. It changes the specific A&R math that determined which records got signed for the next ten years.
Kurt Cobain at twenty-four, Krist Novoselic on bass, Dave Grohl on drums, in a Van Nuys studio with Butch Vig. The album that ended the 1980s and started the 1990s in twelve weeks. Released September 24, 1991. Sold thirty million.
- Released
- September 24, 1991
- Label
- DGC Records (Geffen)
- Producer(s)
- Butch Vig · Nirvana · Andy Wallace (mix)
- Runtime
- 42:38 (12 tracks)
- Chart peak (US)
- #1 (Billboard 200, dethroned Michael Jackson's Dangerous)
- Chart peak (UK)
- #7 (Official Charts)
- Certifications
- Diamond, 10× Platinum (RIAA, 1999); estimated 30M+ units globally
- Awards & honours
- Library of Congress National Recording Registry (2004); ranked #6 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums (2020); the canonical 1990s rock album
The Aberdeen, Washington trio's second album. Recorded in twelve weeks at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys. The album that ended the 1980s pop landscape and started what would be called alternative rock. The 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' video changed MTV in five minutes.
Kurt Cobain was twenty-four. The band had released a 1989 debut on Sub Pop (Bleach) that had sold approximately 35,000 copies, extraordinary for an indie release but modest in absolute terms. Cobain had been writing songs continuously. Sub Pop's distribution problems had pushed the band to sign with DGC (a Geffen subsidiary) in early 1991. The band, Cobain (guitar, vocals), Krist Novoselic (bass), Dave Grohl (drums, who had joined in October 1990 replacing Chad Channing), moved into a small house in Tacoma in late 1990 and rehearsed the second album's songs.
Recording began at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California, on May 2, 1991. Butch Vig, who had produced Sub Pop bands at his Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, engineered and produced. The sessions ran approximately six weeks. The band had been touring the unfinished material for several months; the songs were tight. Mixing was completed by Andy Wallace (who had produced Slayer, Run-DMC, and other harder bands) in summer 1991. Wallace's mixing approach gave the album its signature polished-but-aggressive sound. The album was completed in approximately twelve weeks total.
The album's signature sonic feature is the contrast between Cobain's quiet verses and the band's loud choruses, the quiet-loud dynamic that descended from the Pixies (Cobain has cited Surfer Rosa as 'the album that taught me everything'). The technique was so widely imitated across the next decade that it became the dominant alternative-rock vocabulary; every band that mattered between 1991 and 2000 used it in some form.
The album's twelve songs are a survey of what the band could do. 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' opens with the four-chord guitar riff that became the most-imitated of the decade. 'In Bloom' is the album's most-melodic. 'Come as You Are' is the second single. 'Breed' is the album's most-aggressive. 'Lithium' is one of Cobain's most-introspective lyrics. 'Polly' is the album's quietest moment, an acoustic song based on the 1987 abduction of a 14-year-old Tacoma girl. 'Territorial Pissings' is the album's most-direct punk track. 'Drain You' is one of Cobain's most-personal lyrics. 'Lounge Act' is the album's most-aggressive bass-driven track. 'Stay Away' is straight punk-rock. 'On a Plain' is the album's most-melodic verse. 'Something in the Way' closes the album with Cobain alone with an acoustic guitar.
Released September 24, 1991, the album sold approximately 46,000 copies in its first week. Sales rose slowly. The 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' video premiered on MTV in late September; by November the video was in heavy rotation. The album climbed steadily through the autumn and reached #1 on the Billboard 200 in January 1992, dethroning Michael Jackson's Dangerous. The Christmas-period sales transformed the album from a modest indie crossover into the year's bestselling rock LP. By summer 1992, sales had passed 4 million; by 1995, 10 million; by 1999, the album was Diamond-certified.
Nevermind belongs at number thirty because it is the album on which a Sub Pop band signed a major-label deal, produced a polished-but-aggressive crossover record, and accidentally became the most-influential rock album of the decade. The album ended the 1980s commercial-pop framework as the dominant rock paradigm; it opened the door for an entire generation of subsequent alternative bands. Cobain died by suicide on April 5, 1994 at age twenty-seven; the album's reputation has only grown since.
Pressing guide — the one to own
Original 1991 US pressing, DGC DGC-24425, art-directed by Robert Fisher with Kirk Weddle's underwater-baby photograph, on black DGC labels with a printed inner sleeve; the deadwax was cut at Masterdisk by Howie Weinberg ('DGC-24425-A ... MASTERDISK'). Note the hidden-track story runs the opposite way to the usual claim: the earliest CD run actually OMITTED 'Endless, Nameless' due to a mastering error and the track was added only on later pressings, and the US first-press vinyl did not carry it at all. The hidden track is a CD-era phenomenon, not a first-press vinyl feature. Sealed US first-press LPs are genuinely valuable, comfortably £400 and up.
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