Black Sheep Hit: "Aneurysm" from Incesticide. The song was only a B-Side and later was ranked in third place for best Nirvana song, right under "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Heart-Shaped Box". Made all the more impressive since it was the final track on the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single and the final track on their 15-song compilation album released in 1992.
While Dave Grohl's next band Foo Fighters is generally acknowledged not to have had as much cultural impact as Nirvana, for him personally, it was a breakout from being virtually anonymous as "just the drummer" in the background to the leader and frontman of one of the most popular, commercially successful and critically acclaimed rock bands of the late '90s and early 21st century.
Live guitarist Pat Smear got his Breakup Breakout in this band, (he was previously the guitarist of The Germs before their lead singer committed suicide via heroin overdose) until Cobain's death. Amazingly, he managed to get a second one when Grohl brought him on to play with the Foo Fighters, whom he's still a member of to this day.
Channel Hop: The band were originally signed to Sub Pop, but when the label fell into financial hardship in 1990, the band left out of fear that they'd get bought out by a bigger label prone to Executive Meddling. At the recommendation of Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, they moved over to DGC Records, an imprint of Geffen Records that had signed Sonic Youth earlier that year.
Colbert Bump: Kurt loved to talk about his favorite bands in interviews. Some of these bands received a lot of attention after Cobain plugged them. The Vaselines were virtually unknown in the United States until Cobain declared them to be his favorite band.
Corpsing: You can hear Kurt struggling to avoid laughing right before "Milk It"'s final chorus.
Kurt eventually got so fed up with the excessive focus on "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nevermind that he would purposely trick and antagonize crowds at some of the shows, if they insisted that the band play the song. Most often, he would play the intro to "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and go right into "Rape Me" (with a similar opening riff) instead.
In the UK on Top of the Pops (which is known for its making bands mime performances to a pre-recorded backing track — basically one step above lip-synching), Kurt sang in a deep voice to annoy the people insisting he play "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and to imitate Morrissey.
Krist Novoselic hated the original solo for "Heart-Shaped Box", saying it "sounded like a fucking abortion hitting the floor". Cobain re-recorded it for the single version.
Not for the song itself, but Cobain hated the Nevermind version of "On a Plain", saying that it sounded "too clean" and that it comes off better live.
It has been noted that Nirvana's explosive success did this to many of the rock musicians of The '80s, setting off a paradigm shift that left many of those artists feeling like relics unless they were able to either reinvent themselves or otherwise find a way to fit in with the times. The Wrestler has a famous scene where Randy and Pam, both fans of '80s Hair Metal, blame Nirvana for "ruining" rock music, and Todd in the Shadows, while coveringBilly Idol's Cyberpunk on his Trainwreckords series about creator-killing albums, notes that the words "Nirvana killed my career" can sum up the trajectory of a great many '80s artists trying to stay relevant in the '90s. Todd would later say this about many rock bands from the late '80s and early '90s in his "One-Hit Wonderland" series, particularly Australian alt-rock band Midnight Oil and late hair metal band Mr. Big.
Twice on Nevermind regarding the cover artwork. The first was a more positive example, with Kurt being talked out of using a very graphic image of a water birth, complete with blood and placenta, in favor of the now-famous "naked baby" photo. However, there were concerned about the head of the baby's penis being visible. Kurt fought to keep it visible and when the label suggesting putting a sticker on the outer casing so as not to offend record-store shoppers, Kurt said he'd only agree if the sticker said "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile."
"You Know You're Right" was this for a long while back in the day. Dave and Krist garnered in a lawsuit with Courtney Love due to their interest in releasing the song in a box set, but Love argued the song would be wasted in a box set. The song was eventually released in a greatest hits compilation simply entitled Nirvana as an agreement between Love and Dave/Krist, although a box set of the band was released a few years later under the name With the Lights Out.
False Credit: Rhythm guitarist Jason Everman was both credited and featured on the cover of the band's debut album Bleach, despite not appearing on any of the album's tracks. Everman's credit was both to thank him for both paying for the album's recording, as well as to "make him feel at home in the band", according to bassist Krist Novoselic.
Genre-Killer: As Todd in the Shadows put it, Nirvana killed a lot of careers. Nirvana's explosion onto the mainstream and the ushering in an era dominated by Alternative Rock pretty much killed any of the "slicker" styles of music that were predominant in the previous decade, namely hair- and glam-metal and dance pop. (The Milli Vanilli lip-synching incident had happened less than two years prior, sending the message that pop music had officially become as synthetic as it'd ever be and that it was time for more earthy styles of music. This also led to the rise of Gangsta Rap.) The band's breakthrough also killed off pretty much any alternative band that wasn't grunge or at least grunge-adjacent, though some of the bigger acts from the '80s like U2, R.E.M., The Cure, Depeche Mode and New Order managed to hang on. Kurt Cobain's suicide was considered the beginning of the end of Grunge in turn.
Magnum Opus Dissonance: Kurt thought of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as a highly polished The Pixies rip-off and was often reluctant to play it. He actually considered "Drain You" to be the best song on Nevermind, as well as one of the best songs he ever wrote.
No Budget: Bleach was recorded on a budget of just over $600. Guitarist Jason Everman supplied the money. He is credited as a guitarist on the album, though he didn't actually play on it.
Guitarist Jason Everman, who was credited on Bleach despite not playing on it because he financed the sessions. Initially hired to lessen the guitar load on Kurt Cobain during tours, he was fired due to his temperament. He later joined Soundgarden for a little while before joining the military.
Aaron Burckhard, the band's original drummer who was kicked out before they recorded any demos due to his unmanageable behavior.
Chad Channing, the band's second longest running drummer before Dave Grohl himself. He quit due to creative differences with Cobain and Novoselic and frustration at his lack of input in the songwriting process.
Promoted Fanboy: Cobain always made sure to plug his favorite bands in interviews and several of them (Meat Puppets, The Melvins, The Vaselines and Shonen Knife, just to name a few) got major label record deals just because Cobain said he liked them. Nirvana also got a record contract thanks to the support of Sonic Youth, a band they were all big fans of and quickly befriended afterwards.
The Red Stapler: After "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was released, sales for the deodorant Teen Spirit rose significantly.
Scully Box: Given Krist is really tall (6'7"\2m), most videos or pictures tried to disguise that so he didn't tower over the average-sized Kurt and Dave.
Sequel First: Bleach only saw a wide international release after the massive success of Nevermind.
Short-Lived, Big Impact: Nirvana helped define the image of rock in the early '90s, and set the stage for the rock scene in the next decade. They disbanded seven years after their formation in 1987, only lasting for three years following their mainstream breakthrough, at the time of which they had put out only three studio albums.
While working on Bleach, the band had been experimenting with D standard tuning (where all six strings are tuned a whole step down from standard). Before recording "Blew", which was normally played in drop D (where only the lowest string is tuned down; "Blew" uses a modified version of this tuning where the highest string is tuned up by a half-step), Krist Novoselic had forgotten that he'd left his bass in D, so he re-tuned it as though it was in standard tuning to begin with, ending up recording his part in drop C, with Kurt also tuning his guitar down to match. This was the take that was used for the album because it just sounded cooler. Similarly, the band accidentally tuned up a half-step to F before recording "Love Buzz", resulting in the song being played in the key of B-flat rather than A.
Nevermind has two mistakes that were left in: on "Polly", Kurt accidentally starts the "Polly says" verse too early, pauses, and then re-starts on the right spot. This became a sort of Ascended Glitch, even appearing on the faster "(New Wave) Polly" version from Incesticide. During double-tracking for "Come As You Are", he similarly sang "And I don't have a gun" before the last "memoria, memoria" section was over, but saved the mistake.
Also from Nevermind, "Territorial Pissings" opens with Krist Novoselic doing an impromptu and off-key rendition of The Youngbloods' "Get Together". (he explained that “I wanted to put some corny hippy idealism into it", and Kurt would say it fit because the happy mood contrasts with the mockery of macho posturing on the rest of the song)
The recordings for In Utero went smoothly and with little trouble. It was when it came to the mixing and mastering process where the real troubles came. The executives at Geffen Records didn't like the initial mixes and felt that it wouldn't sell, deeply dispiriting Kurt Cobain who soon came to have a similar opinion. The band tried employing Bob Ludwig to remix the recordings, but despite Krist Novoselic's approval, Cobain still wasn't satisfied. They then went to producer Scott Litt for additional mixing help, but initial producer Steve Albini wouldn't give the masters to him until Novoselic had to convince him to do so.
The video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" suffered from a clash between Cobain and the video's director Samuel Bayer. Bayer wanted to have a video full of attractive women and a high glossy production, Cobain demanded the women in the video look more average and the video have a dirty, gritty tinge to it. If you've ever asked yourself why the riot in the video looked so realistic, it's because the audience really was rioting. Despite efforts from the director and crew to settle them down, they started tearing the set apart. This ended up doing the video a favor, as it made everything look authentic, but it was a nightmare for the crew and the band. Dave Grohl recalled the situation as a giant headache. Once filming was done, Bayer insisted on showing more footage of the janitor than of Cobain. Cobain had to have a record executive force control out of Bayer's hands to change this. The video proved to be massively popular and almost single-handedly ushered in the alternative age of popular music.
R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe has said that Nirvana's fourth album would've been softer and folkier, with some string arrangements, similar to his own band's Automatic for the People. Stipe also badly wanted to collaborate with Cobain, partly as an excuse to get Cobain away from drugs. Reportedly Cobain cancelled with Stipe right before he went into rehab.
In 1993, the band wanted to enlist a second guitarist for live shows, and chose Pat Smear, who toured with the band and appeared on MTV Unplugged in New York. According toDave Grohl, they also considered asking Steve Turner or Buzz Osborne, but "didn’t want to break up Mudhoney or the Melvins". Aside from potentially splitting up the aforementioned groups (or just forcing them to work around Nirvana's touring schedule), this also could have affected Foo Fighters: It's possible Pat Smear wouldn't have ended up in the band if he hadn't already worked with Dave Grohl.
Dave had already begun writing songs before Kurt died, and some of the songs that ended up on the first Foo Fighters album had been demoed and played for Kurt who loved them. According to Dave Kurt was quite fond of "Alone + Easy Target" in particular, so much that he thanked Dave for taking some of the songwriting pressure off of him. It's safe to say some Dave Grohl compositions would have started popping up on future Nirvana albums before too long.
Kurt also had a liking of "Exhausted" and wanted to record a Nirvana version with himself on vocals. Ultimately this didn't happen because Kurt didn't feel comfortable replacing Dave's lyrics with his own (or, apparently, keeping them but singing them himself).
Neil Young has said he tried to get in contact with Cobain before his suicide, but was unable to do so. Can you imagine what would have occurred if the two artists had collaborated? The world might not be able to handle that much awesome.
As mentioned previously on the page Nevermind was originally going to be called Sheep, and Cobain wanted do "boy" and "girl" versions of the album with different songs appearing depending on which version you had.
After Chad Channing left Nirvana, Kurt Cobain strongly considered replacing him with his friend Patty Schemel. Then Dave Grohl auditioned. When Hole was looking for a new drummer, Cobain suggested Schemel, and she became part of that band's best known lineup.
"Talk To Me" was a song they occasionally performed live between 1991 and 1992, notable for its catchy New Wave Music-influenced rhythm. The band never brought it to the studio themselves, but Hole attempted a studio version, and Courtney Love once offered it to Iggy Pop, as he had been one of Kurt's favorite singers. Iggy would later explain that although was a fan of Nirvana, he had to turn it down because he was only interested in performing his own original material.
The band was scheduled to headline the Lollapalooza 1994 festival, but on April 4, 1994, the band pulled out of the festival amid rumors that the band were on the verge of breaking up. But only 4 days later, it was found that Cobain killed himself the very next day, ending any chance for them to perform as the band broke up.
Unplugged In New York was originally going to be part of a Distinct Double Album called Verse Chorus Verse - one disc would be the Unplugged performance in full, the other would be a compilation of other, electric live performances as chosen by the band themselves - soon after Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic decided putting together a compilation so soon after Kurt's death would be too emotionally taxing for them, so Verse Chorus Verse was canceled and only the Unplugged portion was released. A few years later, they released From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, a Live Album with the songs and performances chosen by Dave and Krist and roughly based on what the electric disc of Verse Chorus Verse would have been like - notably, the Wishkah track-list excludes any songs that were also performed on Unplugged except for a version of "Polly".
Bleach was Too Many Humans, before Kurt saw a poster for needle disinfection reading "Bleach your works".
Nevermind could have been Sheep and In Utero could have been I Hate Myself And Want To Die.
"Breed" was originally "Imodium" (after an anti-diarrheal medication), and "Stay Away" was originally "Pay To Play". "Pay to play" means a few different things in the music industry, but here it was used to refer to paying radio stations to put a song in heavy rotation. Once Nirvana signed with Geffen Records, they decided it'd be hypocritical for a major label band to protest such things, so they changed the title and chorus.
Amusingly, "Scentless Apprentice" was called "Chuck Chuck Fo Fuck" (and a few variations thereof) before it had proper lyrics: The song's rhythm reminded the band of the '60s novelty song "The Name Game", which famously would have profane results if you tried to add a verse for the name Chuck.
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Kurt Cobain felt lyrics were less important, and would often write or change the lyrics for the band's songs at the last minute. On the other hand, he spent a long time on the music itself, especially the melodies.
to lampshade the similarity between the song's chorus and "Smells Like Teen Spirit".