5/17/2023 0 Comments Nirvana debut album![]() ![]() Kurt Cobain performing with Nirvana in Amsterdam in 1991. A Nevermind outtake became a proper release for Hole. But Channing’s ride cymbal can be heard on the acoustic ballad “Polly,” a holdover from the Smart Studios sessions. Channing was replaced by Dave Grohl, who played on virtually all of Nevermind. At the time, the lineup still included drummer Chad Channing, who wound up leaving a few months later. In April 1990, before signing with a major, Nirvana went to Madison, Wisconsin, and made a series of demo recordings with producer Butch Vig at Smart Studios. Dave Grohl isn’t the only drummer heard on Nevermind. Elden had previously made headlines for recreating the Nevermind photo several times, most recently in 2016, when both he and the album turned 25. According to the suit, Elden has suffered “extreme and permanent emotional distress,” among other things. In August 2021, as the albums’ 30th anniversary approached, Elden announced lawsuits against Cobain’s estate and Nirvana’s surviving members, alleging sexual exploitation. Elden’s family was reportedly paid $200 for the 15-second shoot, and as of 2016, Elden had never met any members of Nirvana. ![]() Photographer Kirk Weddle chose as his cover star 4-month-old Spencer Elden, the son of a friend. So Nirvana went with plan B, the album’s now-iconic image of a naked baby swimming toward a dollar bill on a fishhook. He originally wanted to use an actual photo of a water birth, but the record label wasn’t too psyched about the graphic image. The baby on the cover of Nevermind is all grown up-and litigious.Ĭobain began brainstorming ideas for the Nevermind cover after watching a documentary about underwater births. Nevermind returned to the top of the chart for one more week in February 1992-right before Brooks reigned for another eight straight weeks. It was a symbolic victory for both Nirvana and the rising alternative rock movement, though Nevermind was unseated a week later by country superstar Garth Brooks’s Ropin’ the Wind, the year’s top album. In reaching the summit, the LP dethroned Michael Jackson’s Dangerous, which had held the pole position for four consecutive weeks. Kurt Cobain during a Nirvana performance at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. Nevermind topped the charts and toppled the King of Pop. All told, it has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. By 1999, it had been certified 10x platinum in the United States. At the peak of Nirvanamania, the album was selling 300,000 copies per week. ![]() Then “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit and blew all sales projections out the window. The upper-level predictions were that Nevermind would achieve gold status and move 500,000 units. The label was hoping to sell 250,000 copies-the same as Sonic Youth had with 1990’s Goo. When Nevermind came out, Geffen shipped a mere 46,521 copies to American retail outlets. ![]() Geffen had low expectations for Nevermind. This was apparently a snide commentary about the people who might buy the album, as Cobain drafted some ad copy in his journal that read: “Because you want to not, because everyone else is.” Bass player Krist Novoselic has said the title was a reflection of the band’s cynicism. Nirvana’s working title for their sophomore LP was Sheep. The album wasn’t originally going to be called Nevermind. In addition to Nevermind, the new release shelf that day would’ve featured Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, Red Hot Chili Peppers’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory. If you went to your local Sam Goody or Tower Records on September 24, 1991, there’s a good chance you blew your entire allowance on CDs. Niels van Iperen/Hulton Archive/Getty Images A portrait of the band Nirvana, taken in Rotterdam on August 31, 1991. ![]()
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