 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||
This article is about the 1980s-1990s grunge band Nirvana. See Nirvana (1960s band) for the British psychedelic rock band of the 1960s of the same name, or Nirvana (disambiguation) for other meanings.
Nirvana was a band founded in 1987 in Aberdeen, Washington. Their music was an offshoot of punk and alternative rock and was labeled grunge rock by the mainstream press and media of the time. The group disbanded in 1994 upon the death of its leader, Kurt Cobain. Many critics and historians hail Nirvana as the "flagship band" of "Generation X."
Cobain and Krist Novoselic met in 1985. Both were fans of The Melvins, and both were interested in forming a band. They worked with a series of drummers (Aaron Burckhard, Dan Peters and Dale Crover of The Melvins, who played on their first demos), before settling on Chad Channing. Channing played on their first album, Bleach, released by Sub Pop records. Sub Pop had previously released albums or singles by Seattle, Washington-area groups like Mudhoney, Soundgarden and Green River.
Bleach was highly influenced by Cobain's then-favorite band, The Melvins, as well as the heavy dirge-rock of Mudhoney.
Though he did not actually play on the album, Jason Everman was credited as playing guitar on Bleach because he put up the money for the recording sessions. After the album's completion, Everman had a brief and contentious tenure with the band as a second guitar player, but was ousted following their first US tour. Not long after, he briefly played bass with Soundgarden, and later formed the band Mindfunk.
In early 1990, the band began working with producer Butch Vig on recordings for the follow-up to Bleach. During the sessions, Kurt and Krist realized that Chad wasn't quite the drummer the band needed, and he was let go after the sessions were complete. After a few weeks with Dale Crover of The Melvins filling in, they drafted Mudhoney drummer Dan Peters, with whom they recorded the song "Sliver". Dave Osbourne of The Melvins later hooked them up with Dave Grohl, who drummed with D.C. Hardcore punks Scream. Grohl joined Nirvana in 1990.
Nirvana continued touring, including a stint with Sonic Youth chronicled in the documentary, 1991: The Year Punk Broke.
Following repeated recommendation by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, David Geffen signed Nirvana in 1990 and the band began recording their first major label album. The result, Nevermind, is now regarded a classic. The album was produced by Butch Vig, who had previously worked with Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins.
Vig was initially set to record and mix the album, but when recording delays took away the downtime needed for Vig to rest his ears, DGC opted to bring in mixer Andy Wallace. To the band's displeasure, Wallace added a more produced sheen to the album. In doing so, however, he tempered the band's indie rock leanings, creating a mainstream-ready rock sound that others would attempt to duplicate for the next decade.
Nevermind was a massive, unexpected success, selling millions of copies. (DGC Records had reportedly hoped Nevermind would sell as well as Sonic Youth's Dirty, which had seen profitable and respectable sales of some 250,000 copies.)
The highly infectious single Smells Like Teen Spirit received heavy airplay on MTV, inspiring a slew of imitators, bringing the grunge sound, as well as so-called alternative rock and alternative culture, into the mainstream. The popularity of "alternative" rock--as well as the sidelining of hair metal--is often credited to Nevermind.
In February of 1992, following an Australian tour, Cobain married Courtney Love in Hawaii. Courtney gave birth to a daughter, Frances Bean, in August.
Citing exhaustion, the band decided not to undertake another US tour in support of Nevermind, instead opting to make a handful of performances later that year.
Just days after Frances Bean's birth, Nirvana put on a memorable performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. MTV had wanted the band to play "Teen Spirit", but the band wanted to play a new song called "Rape Me". MTV was appalled at the idea of a song called "Rape Me", and eventually agreed that the band could play "Lithium" instead. When the band began their performance, Kurt strummed the first few bars of "Rape Me", giving the MTV execs a solid shock before jumping into "Lithium".
Just weeks later, Nirvana performed arguably its greatest concert, headlining at the Reading Festival. Cobain entered the stage in a wheelchair as a practical joke, then proceeded to get up and join the rest of the band in tearing through an assortment of old and new material.
Incesticide, a collection of B-sides and rarities, was released in December of 1992, ostensibly to beat bootleggers to the punch.
1993's In Utero, was recorded in two weeks and was produced by Steve Albini. It proved less accessible to the mass market due to its rawer, unpolished sound. This was reportedly due in part to a deliberate move on Nirvana's part: They wanted to alienate or distance some of their new "mainstream" audience who'd paid little or no attention to the alternative, obscure or experimental bands Nirvana saw as their forbearers. A song on In Utero featuring long periods of shrill feedback noise was titled, ironically, "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter," a term used by some record company executives to describe an "ideal" album: An album capable of heavy radio play, and ultimately selling many copies, or "units."
While popular perception after the fact was that the band wanted this distorted masterpiece, they were actually unhappy with certain aspects of Albini's mixes. Specifically, they thought the bass levels were too low, and Cobain felt that "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies" didn't sound "perfect". Scott Litt, sometime R.E.M. producer, was called in to help remix the songs, with Cobain adding additional instrumentation. (Litt also remixed "Pennyroyal Tea", but Albini's version was used on the album. The Litt mix was to appear on the "Pennyroyal Tea" single, aborted after Kurt's death, and didn't see wide release until the Nirvana greatest hits compilation in 2002.)
While "Heart-Shaped Box" was received warmly by alternative radio, and In Utero debuted at number one on the Billboard Album chart, the album didn't enjoy the same success as Nevermind. When the band embarked on a US tour, its first major tour of the States since the success of "Teen Spirit", it regularly played to half-filled arenas, stymied by the lack of tour support for Nevermind and the challenging new release.
(For the In Utero tours, the band added Pat Smear of punk rockers The Germs as second guitarist.)
In November of 1993, the band decided to change direction, and sat down for an appearance on MTV Unplugged. The sessions revealed the depth of Cobain's songwriting, which had often been buried under the sonic fury of the band's sound, and demonstrated his broad musical interests in his choice of cover songs. It became a hallmark moment of Nirvana's history, if not amplified by the tragedy soon to follow.
In early 1994, the band embarked on a European tour. While the tour started off well, the performances gradually declined, with Kurt looking bored and distracted during the shows. Following a tour stop at Terminal Einz in Munich, Germany, on March 1st, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. The next night's show at the same venue was canceled.
On the morning of March 4th, Cobain was found unconscious by Courtney Love and rushed to the hospital. The doctor told a press conference that the singer had reacted to a combination of prescription Rohypnol and alcohol. The rest of the tour was canceled, including a planned leg in the UK.
In the ensuing weeks, Cobain's heroin addiction resurfaced. An intervention was organized, and Cobain was convinced to check into rehab. After less than a week in rehab, Cobain climbed over the wall of the facility and flew back to Seattle.
A week later, on Friday, April 8, 1994, Cobain's body was discovered at his Seattle home, dead of an apparent suicide, effectively dissolving Nirvana. (Some have disputed the suicide verdict; see below.)
Several Nirvana albums have been released since Cobain's death, including From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, a compilation of concert recordings, and a subdued and eerily morbid performance for MTV Unplugged, Unplugged in New York. (This album includes guest appearances by members of the Meat Puppets and cover versions of Meat Puppets, Leadbelly and David Bowie material.)
In the years following his death, there has been much controversy over the ownership of Nirvana's music. The two surviving band members, Grohl (now a member of the band Foo Fighters) and Novoselic (who went on to form Sweet 75 and later Eyes Adrift), fought with Cobain's wife Courtney Love over the issue of releasing a new album containing rare or unreleased tracks.
An MP3 of "You Know You're Right"--one of Nirvana's final recorded songs--surfaced on the Internet. Soon afterwards a greatest hits album was compiled.
On October 29, 2002, following a grueling legal battle, the album Nirvana was released containing several hit singles and one previously unreleased track, "You Know You're Right". (A live version of this song can be found on various bootleg albums including Outcesticide V(5) Disintegration, which was released prior to the album Nirvana. The live version comes from October 23, 1993, when Nirvana played at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.)
It was revealed in the liner notes of the Nirvana album that Cobain was concerned as he had not been able to write during their last tour and had no material with which to go into the studio. He had always made a point of working on new material during the tour and playing it differently every night so that by the time the tour ended they would have the songs worked out, ready to be recorded. This also proved popular with fans, as they got to hear material they had never heard. For example, a 1989 performance of the Nevermind song Breed can be found on the From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah album, a full 2 years before it was released. In fact, the first time they played Teen Spirit, Nevermind had not been released and they received a standing ovation.
According to some, notably public access host Richard Lee of Seattle, Kurt Cobain was murdered. His ongoing documentary has been running since the week after Cobain's demise. There is also a documentary film called "Kurt & Courtney" was made by filmmaker Nick Broomfield which suggests that Courtney Love had Cobain killed.
In addition, Tom Grant, a private investigator once employed by Love, adamantly believes that Cobain's death was homicide; he has since started somewhat of a crusade to prove it. Grant was hired by Courtney to find Kurt after his disppearance from rehab, and was still under her employ when Kurt's body was found. Grant cites the official toxicology report, which claims that Kurt's heroin level was three times the lethal dosage at the time of his death, as the key piece of evidence of murder, arguing that Kurt could not have injected himself with such a dose and still be able to pull the trigger. (see website link below)
However, the official verdict of death by self-inflicted gunshot wound is generally accepted by the public, though the murder theories remain popular among hardcore fans of Nirvana.
Cobain wrote in a journal often, leaving 22 notebooks filled with his writing when he died. In November 2002, a sampling of these writings was published as Journals. The book is 280 pages with a simple black cover; the pages are arranged somewhat chronologically (although Cobain generally did not date them). The journal pages are reproduced in color, and there is a section added at the back that has explanations and transcripts of some of the less legible pages. The writings begin in the late 1980s, around the time the band started, and end in 1994.
| Year | Title | Label | Other information |
| 1989 | Bleach | Sub Pop | |
| 1991 | Nevermind | Geffen/Mobile | |
| 1992 | Hormoaning | Geffen/Mobile | Australia and Japan only |
| 1992 | Incesticide | Geffen | |
| 1993 | In Utero | Geffen | |
| 1994 | MTV Unplugged in New York | Geffen | |
| 1996 | From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah | Geffen | |
| 2002 | Nirvana | Universal | also called Best Of 1988-1994 |
|
||||
| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
||
