For the main Trivia page for Nirvana, go here.
- Breakthrough Hit: "Smells Like Teen Spirit," taken from this album, made Nirvana into one of the biggest bands in the world.
- Channel Hop: The band moved over to DGC Records, an imprint of Geffen Records, with this album. Their old label, Sub Pop, was in dire financial straits, and the band feared the possibility of them being bought out by a bigger label who'd subject them to plenty of Executive Meddling. DGC was recommended to the band by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, who signed onto the label in 1990.
- Colbert Bump: "Something in the Way" experienced a boost in popularity after being included in The Batman (2022), with many saying the song complements the film's dark tone perfectly.
- Creator Backlash:
- At first, Cobain enjoyed the mainstream success of the album, but the group's later output desperately tried to avoid the slick commercial sound of Nevermind. He was particularly dismissive of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in later years; the song title "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" from In Utero is meant to describe the song. Rather than drop "Teen Spirit" from the set like other acts, Kurt simply decided to be a Troll and keep playing it in the most droll, mechanical, non-musical way possible.
- Despite initially embracing his status as the album's impromptu cover model, Spencer Elden came to strongly dislike his photo during the second half of the 2010s, eventually filing a lawsuit over it in 2021. After Elden's lawyers did not file an opposition, the lawsuit was initially dismissed by a judge on January 3, 2022, though the judge allowed for future lawsuits to be filed, which Elden did so eleven days later after amending the original suit. A judge ruled against Elden in September 2022 because a ten-year statute of limitations that begins when a plaintiff became an adult at 18 had past after Elden turned 28; Elden appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit four days later and they ruled in favor of him in December 2023, reviving the suit, determining that the album's 30th anniversary republication in 2021 constitutes a new claim that Elden can pursue.
- Dummied Out: An accidental case. The CD version of the album was supposed to have a Hidden Track, "Endless, Nameless", which began playing following roughly ten minutes of silence at the end of the explicit final track, "Something in the Way". It was excluded from the original version due to a mastering error, but was corrected in later CD copies.
- Genre-Killer: The success of Nevermind played a major role in killing off the popularity of Hair Metal. The genre was already none too popular with rock fans who perceived it as agonizingly manufactured, and Nirvana, through its popularization of Grunge, gave rock fans a breath of fresh air with its more dour, experimental, and thematically deconstructive type of rock music compared to the openly hedonistic glam metal. Hair metal hasn't seen any kind of major revival since Nevermind, and it looks likely it will remain that way.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: Of a sort. According to Krist Novoselic, all the audio masters for Nevermind were likely lost in the 2008 Universal Studios Hollywood fire, among countless other grave casualties from throughout music history. This means that any new remasters of Nevermind are highly unlikely, and the only way to hear the album is through already-existing releases and digital transfers.
- Method Acting: In a sense. Kurt Cobain recorded "Something in the Way" while lying back on a couch in the studio's control room because he couldn't project the kind of mood he wanted for it in the recording booth. Butch Vig had to shut off the air conditioner and unplug the phone so it wouldn't get picked up on the microphones.
- Referenced by...:
- "Weird Al" Yankovic parodied "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as "Smells Like Nirvana", riffing on the song's Indecipherable Lyrics. Kurt Cobain approved of the parody, and reportedly was on the floor laughing the first time he saw its music video. The cover for Yankovic's Off the Deep End, the album in which "Smells Like Nirvana" was featured, also parodies the cover of Nevermind, with Yankovic chasing a donut on a fishing line instead of a dollar bill.
- blink-182's "Adam's Song" features a homage to "Come As You Are" in its lyrics:I took my time, I hurried up / The choice was mine, I didn't think enough
- The first Monster Rancher allows the player to unlock the rare monster Karaoke, a singing baby, by scanning a CD copy of Nevermind with "Endless, Nameless" in the PlayStation. CDs without the track simply unlock Stoner, a common monster.
- The last verse of "Heart Songs" by Weezer is about how hearing Nevermind for the first time inspired Rivers Cuomo to start an Alternative Rock band. Interestingly, while the song is otherwise a Song of Song Titles, neither Nirvana or Nevermind are named directly: the lyrics mention listening to a newly released album with a "naked baby" on the cover in 1991, the song's style briefly shifts from acoustic Folk Rock to grunge, and the listener is meant to read between the lines.
- Similarly Named Works: There's a psychological horror video game also named Nevermind.
- Sleeper Hit: Yes. The album was expected to be a minor success at best, and sell around 250,000 units. The record label's plan was to release "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to build up a following, and have "Come as You Are" be their punt towards having a crossover hit. Instead, when MTV's 120 Minutes aired "Smells Like Teen Spirit", it immediately became a monster hit and the defining song of the entire decade, and the album would not only manage to dethrone Michael Jackson's Dangerous and reach number 1 on the Billboard 200, it would eventually be Diamond certified.
- What Could Have Been: The original idea Kurt Cobain conceived for a music video for "In Bloom" was a young girl born into a racist family and growing up to figure out how evil her parents were. Producers felt it was "too ambitious".
