Nirvana’s rock legacy won’t fade away, 20 years on

It’s 20 years since Nirvana released the album that changed popular culture forever. Andy Welch pays tribute to a musical masterpiece.

“It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”

Those nine words taken from Neil Young’s My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue) were written in 1979, but cemented themselves in rock ‘n’ roll infamy when, in 1994, Kurt Cobain quoted them in his suicide note.

The Nirvana frontman had reached the end of his road; unable to deal with the intense pressures of fame, the ubiquity of his music and, of course, the crippling heroin addiction.

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Rewind a few years to the release of the band’s debut album Bleach, and things were very different.

Nirvana were a promising group in the Seattle grunge scene, along with the likes of Mudhoney and The Melvins. The release of Nevermind in September 1991, however, changed everything.

“It sounds ridiculous to say it now, but I always thought Nirvana had potential,” explains music journalist Keith Cameron, one of the band’s early champions during his time at now-defunct magazine Vox.

“After the first album, Kurt started getting a stronger idea of what he wanted to do musically, and was clearly influenced by The Beatles.

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“He was from a background where making a punk-rock statement was more important than writing a good song, but his instinct with melody kicked in when writing Nevermind.”

The build-up to the album was a lengthy one. The trio – Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Chad Channing (who was replaced by Dave Grohl before final recording sessions for Nevermind began) – were in the process of looking to leave their cash-strapped independent label Sub Pop. In April 1990, they decamped to producer Butch Vig’s Wisconsin studios to record a set of demos, eventually using the resulting tape as an advert to attract a major new deal.

BBC 6 Music presenter Steve Lamacq was live reviews editor at NME at the time. “They came over that autumn and played the London Astoria,” he says.

“They stayed at a B&B in Shepherd’s Bush, so I went over to interview them.

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“They were all in one room, and Krist had a cold so he did the interview from bed, under the sheets.

“Occasionally his head would pop out and say something.

“Dave Grohl was relatively new still, so he wasn’t allowed in on the interview

“Halfway through he came in dragging a binbag full of their dirty laundry, went to the bathroom and started washing all their socks and pants in the bath.

“The whole time this was going on, there was a small black and white telly on the wall with the sound down, playing The Wizard Of Oz.”

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By the time Nevermind was actually released, the rest of the world remained largely ambivalent. Even Nirvana’s new record label, Geffen, didn’t know what they had on their hands.

They expected sales of around 250,000, and famously didn’t press enough copies of the album to satisfy demand. It went to No 1 in the US in January 1992 and has since sold 30 million copies worldwide.

“All of that success happened so quickly,” says Dave Grohl, Nirvana drummer and now Foo Fighters frontman.

“We were touring in a van when we went platinum. And I was still living in my friend’s back room by the time we’d sold 10 million records.”

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Thanks to Cobain’s songs, artists had to be sincere again, and self-aware.

Music fans wanted honesty, not stories of late nights with loose women.

MTV was also rejuvenated by Smells Like Teen Spirit, the video becoming one of the most iconic, and most watched, in the channel’s history.

“Nevermind united all the different factions,” adds Lamacq.

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“I reviewed the album for NME in 1991, and I gave it 9/10, calling it a ‘rock blueprint for the 90s’. Not only am I pleased with that, but I still stand by it.”

To mark the 20th anniversary of the release of Nevermind, a special four-CD reissue box-set of previously unreleased Nirvarna material will be released on September 26.

Nevermind the rest – what the album means to us

“The melodies on that album blow my mind. It’s so heavy, but laced with melody. It’s a collection of perfect pop songs.” (Serge Pizzorno of Kasabian)

“It’s an amazing, amazing album. I was too young for it at the time, but have grown to love it. The drums sound brilliant.” (Arctic Monkey Alex Turner)

“If the album came along now its influence would have been equally as profound. That’s what makes it an enduring classic.” (Q magazine editor Paul Rees)