Nirvana – Nevermind

As I’ve written this blog over the last couple years, I’ve managed to open myself up to a few bands that I once hated, disliked or expressed great disdain for. So, in that spirit(yet again) let’s explore another band(and album) that I really didn’t want to like. I’m talking about the 1991 culturally proclaimed, game changing, landmark album of the 90’s….Nirvana’s Nevermind

In the fall of 1991, my life faced a major change. I had been working at the Dustys Records store in Grand Island, NE for a year since my college graduation the summer before. Dusty announced that he was closing the GI Location and that meant I needed to seek out new employment. I found a job with the TransWorld Music Corporation as an assistant manager of Music Avenue which was a “lease operated” store inside the Montgomery Wards store at the Westroads Mall in Omaha. 

In the summer of 1991, I was enjoying Van Halen’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, Metallica’s self titled “Black” Album, Mr. Big’s Lean into It and lots of Blues/Rock type stuff with a big emphasis on guitar heroics like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton.  By the time I had moved into an apartment(in Omaha) and got hooked up with some basic cable(in late October/early November) and some MTV to watch, I was bombarded with a distinct buzz about the band Nirvana. Now, it wasn’t like I hadn’t heard of Nirvana. We had a copy of the album Bleach for in-store play in the GI store. I was a fan of searing high guitar leads executed by technically proficient musicians. So, Nirvana didn’t seem that way to me. It was a bunch of distortion and bashing. It wasn’t long that the video for Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit was in HEAVY ROTATION on MTV. I remember sitting back in my apartment and watching (then MTV VJ) Steve Isaacs in a big chair with very expressive hands talking about new acts and I think he said something like “You Gotta like Nirvana!”  If you’ve read my blog on the debut album from Boston, you’ll recall my attitude when someone tells me “You gotta get/like…..”

All of a sudden, it seemed that the loud and angry bashing music (like Nirvana and Metallica among others) that I had enjoyed in the late 80’s (and had been criticized for)was now being accepted and embraced. What was once considered “alternative” was now becoming the “mainstream”.  Corporate Music stores in shopping malls are much different than independent record stores to me. In the fall of 1991, trendy people who shop in Malls were buying bands liked Nirvana. This was very odd to me. I was now working in a corporate store where I wore a dress shirt and tie to work. When I worked for Dustys, we wore T-Shirts and jeans. The Mall music store felt out of place and I felt like I wasn’t keeping up-to-date with what was going on musically and it was changing into something else that I didn’t really like and couldn’t control the change.

We were encouraged by TransWorld to play the promo cassettes that were sent by the company. It seemed that they rarely sent new stuff and we really couldn’t open new material for in-store play. Occasionally, we’d break a couple of rules and open a couple out of inventory. In my early days of employment, I do remember a spotlight for “new acts” that included Blues Traveler’s Travelers and Thieves (Which I loved) and Nirvana’s Nevermind.  Since this was a Mall store, It just didn’t feel like the right environment to be playing the aggressive sound of Nirvana.  It didn’t feel like something guys in dress shirts and ties with smooth sterile counter tops would listen to.

Eventually, we were allowed to open a cassette copy of Nevermind to have for in-store play.  I popped the cassette in with the part-time kid (who liked everything). Of course, he loved it. I think he even pushed to have a copy opened for in-store play. Obviously, I had heard Smells Like Teen Spirit many times on MTV. This was the first track on the album. Next up was In Bloom and my initial reaction was that Kurt Cobain’s vocals reminded me of Paul Westerberg of the Replacements.  As an employee of a music store, I had become quite the musical snob. I had the attitude that I knew more about popular music than anyone else. An attitude like “These trendy music buyers have no idea who the Replacements are and so they don’t deserve to buy something from Nirvana.”  I was like Jack Black in the movie High Fidelity.  I wouldn’t say I hated Nevermind.  It just didn’t light me on fire and I didn’t relate to the whole “Angry Young Man living in a world of Hate” attitude either. 

(I realize this video is a backwards/mirrored image. It’s a copyrighted thing)

On January 11th, 1992 (20 years ago), Nirvana appeared on Saturday Night Live the same day that Nevermind went to Number 1 on the US Album Sales chart.  The media, the record companies and the tastemakers noticed this and Nirvana was then categorized as “Grunge”. There were other bands out of Seattle along with Nirvana making it big like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. So, these bands were thrown into the “Grunge” category which also became a “look” too. Bands that dressed in jeans and t-shirts and flannel shirts were unconsciously making a fashion statement too.  This category was touted as THE NEW Sound and the new look too.  I wore flannel shirts in the early 80’s during the winters in Nebraska. When this kind of success and hype hits the mainstream media, the record companies start seeing dollar signs and jump on a bandwagon to sign every kind of band that sounds like this and they abandon the bands they had been promoting if those bands don’t fit into the mold of the NEW sound.  I still had great fondness for a lot of the bands that had started in the late 80’s.  Don’t get me wrong. Some of the supposed “Hair” bands of the 80’s were a little ridiculous. I know that many music fans were sick of them too. There were good bands from that era too. But, they soon got overshadowed by these new “Grunge” style bands and completely written off as something from the 80’s.

As a music fan, you have a tendency to blame an artist for the overexposure they get or if your favorite band is suddenly unpopular and out of the national spotlight, you have a tendency to blame that “new” band for everything.  I know I did. Nirvana was selling and the bands I liked and felt that had more talent on their instruments were being pushed to the side.  Looking back, it’s not the Kurt Cobain or Nirvana’s fault. For years, there have been scores of tales that musicians, songwriters and bands have told of the overpowering RECORD COMPANY that tells the artist what they should do with their look, their sound, their songs just to sell more records. Most musicians just want to play music and write music to satisfy their own musical expression.  It’s those other factors that oversaturate the public consciousness with those songs. The record company comes across something successful, they see dollar signs and it gets played incessantly and it’s also imitated ad nauseum too.

It’s that pressure and the skyrocketing popularity that probably led to the suicide of Kurt Cobain.  The rise of Nevermind to heights of popularity soon turned everyone in the band to bigger than life celebrities and “Rock” stars. Not in their own eyes, but in the eyes of the public that watched their every movement.  I remained skeptical of the “greatness” of Nirvana. I didn’t like the way Dave Grohl played drums. I had a love of drummers who play with a certain “groove”. To me, Grohl was all about bashing plain and simple. Soon, he was heralded as being “groundbreaking” and “influential”.  I knew drummers in college who could thrash and bash too. I didn’t find them to be influential.  Even one of my favorite drummers Chad Smith proclaimed in a 1993 issue of Modern Drummer that Grohl was the best drummer out there.  The band followed up with the album In Utero in 1993. Of course, there was great expectations for this album. They even recorded an episode of MTV’s Unplugged. By this time, I was tired of the greatness that had been bestowed on Nirvana. 

Then, in April 1994, Kurt Cobain committed suicide and killed himself. There were all kinds of news stories leading up to this about his heroin addiction, his marriage to Courtney Love and their daughter Frances Bean. I was so tired of hearing about Nirvana. On that day in 1994, I was actually in a store called CD Warehouse that specialized in used CD’s when I heard the news that Kurt Cobain had killed himself. My initial thought was “Oh Great! Now, this will make him an even bigger icon in death than he was in life”   Sure enough, MTV News director Kurt Loder made the announcement and made the comment that Kurt Cobain was the “John Lennon of his generation”.  As a giant Beatles fan, I hated that assessment! I was born the same year as Cobain. He was the same age as me. I didn’t see it.  Cobain was then featured as the cover story on Rolling Stone magazine.  This enraged me because (4 years before) when Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed in a helicopter accident, he didn’t get a Rolling Stone cover.  Stevie’s death seemed much more tragic than Cobain’s. Stevie had overcome drug and alcohol addiction and was riding high in his career when he died. John Lennon was killed by a crazed stalking fan. Kurt Cobain killed himself.

In June 1994, I moved back to Kearney and back to work at Dustys Records.  But, my experiences in Omaha had changed me and the music I listened was different too. The early 90’s seemed to filled with the alternative scene and (as my friend Mick said) “young toughs living in a world of hate”.  The clientele of Dustys were now college students that grew up on the grunge movement of the 90’s. They loved it. I didn’t.  So, now I felt like some kind of old fogie that was preaching about how the acts I loved were so much better than what was coming out. I was into blues artists and jam bands like Blues Traveler and classic rock artists putting out new material.  But, what I didn’t see is that I was angry about the music that was now popular and I wore that distaste on my sleeve.  I had always been so passionate about the music I like.  I’m a fan that becomes so passionate that I become almost possessive about it too.  Like a selfish 4-year old, I don’t want to share. If you don’t share the passion for what I like(or dislike), I can be rather difficult to deal with.  Just ask my old friend Bob about the hour and a half drunken rant I pointed at a girl in my college days for not liking the Who. I’m not proud of this.  As I write this, I am beginning to see how “unlikable” I could be.

Now, it’s 2012.  It’s been 20 years since Nirvana’s rise to “greatness”.  So, I figured it’s time to drop any kind of childish jealousy or dislike I had for this band. I have been watching YouTube videos on the making of Nevermind.  I’ve watched documentaries on the band and interviews with surviving members Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic.

I look back at those younger days of the band and I’m reminded how smug and sarcastic Kurt, Krist and Dave were in those days. In the 70’s and 80’s, I grew up with bands that championed the “Rock Star” hero. These guys were definite “anti” heroes. That may have been one of the things I didn’t like about them. As a drummer, I wanted to be in the spotlight. I wanted to be on a stage playing even if it meant doing interviews etc. These guys seemed like some of biggest jerks when it came to public appearances and interview segments. I’m sure it was part of their love of the punk scene and attitude. But, when I think back to how I was at the time, I was the same. I was a sarcastic smart-ass too.  I was working in a record store and I was a giant music snob. Like many of the fans of rock music, I was tired of the Guns N’ Roses look alike bands with the whole “Bad boy” image with tattoos and bandanas look too. But, I wanted musicians with great technical proficiency on their instruments to be the new music of the 90’s. So, here was Nirvana that were minimalists on their instruments and the public was buying this stuff up. 

As I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve consciously tried to drop any pretenses I had for this music 20 years ago. I have continued to listen to the music. Sirius XM radio did a “Town Hall” discussion with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and producer Butch Vig on the 20th Anniversary of the Nevermind album. They were interviewed by comedian John Stewart along with fans asking the guys questions about the songs and the album. Of course, the idolism questions are asked like “Did you know when you recorded this album that it would change the face of popular music and rock n’ roll?” The band inevitably answers almost in unison “NO!”  They all seem so humble about what they did.  Dave Grohl is very humorous about his drumming and his inability to keep the tempos in check. As a drummer myself, I used to hate the thought of a “click track” to keep my timekeeping contained. But, as I’ve grown as a drummer, I’ve realized the need to control the tempo when the other band members have a tendency to rush their bass lines or guitar riffs. The guys also discussed the timeline from when the album was released to the heights of hysteria that followed. As they conveyed the timeline of events, I reflected to where I was at that time in my own personal history.

The album was released in late September 1991. The Dustys store in Grand Island closed in early September. I started my new job in Omaha on September 30th. I lived with my older sister and her family for the month of October until I found an apartment to live. My nephew and niece were 6 and 5 years old at the time. So, I didn’t listen to a lot of my music with a heavier edge around the youngsters. By the time I moved into my own apartment in November, the album was entering the Billboard Top 40 albums. I was dealing with my own stuff.  For a guy like me who would pay attention to the new releases of the day and what was going on, I was completely sideswiped by this new musical movement.  Looking back, I think that was one of the reasons why I was so against this album. The other reason may have been that because I was from the same age group as Kurt, Dave, and Krist, I was dealing with my life and working in a store and wasn’t really complaining about life. These guys just seemed angry at everyone and everything.  I wasn’t that angry…or was I?

So, I finally downloaded the album and have been listening to it.  Considering how negative I had become about the album over the past 20 years, I was able to take a positive look at the whole album. I’m still tired of hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit. In 2011, The Muppets did a comedic take on SLTS for the movie The Muppets and did a barbershop version of this song. Since I never had some sort reverential take on this song, I found it very entertaining. The fact that Dave Grohl is in the movie as a drummer in a Muppet tribute band known as “the Moopets” shows that he had a sense of humor about it too.

As I listened to the band reminisce about the recording of the album and track listing for the album, I’m reminded how the album tracks seem to flow from one track to another. From SLTS to In Bloom to Come As You Are to Breed and then Lithium, I find myself really enjoying the songs as I sing along with an album I had never owned before this.  Kurt Cobain may have been portrayed as an angry, troubled disillusioned icon. But, he really had a good ear for melodies.  Krist Novoselic may have become known as being the band member that stepped out of the spotlight. But, he had some memorable bass lines too. I may not laud Dave Grohl as a great drummer. But, as I dive into the playing on this album, it’s a sign of a good drummer to let the songs ebb and flow and breathe.  He plays with subtleties to bring down the tone of the song and then winds himself up to a flurry of flailing sticks and hair behind that simple drumkit.  As I have criticized Dave for being nothing special, I’m reminded how much I absolutely revere Ringo Starr of the Beatles. Ringo also played with a simplicity that was ultimately what led to his signature fills and licks on the drumkit. So, in the tradition of great drummers who know when NOT to play, Dave Grohl could be praised for his work. Butch Vig should be praised as a producer. He took a very ragtag band and augmented their instrumentation and their vocals and crafted something that(in the end) has very catchy songs, choruses. In my Music and Memories blog about the Clash’s London Calling, I talked about the raspiness of Joe Strummer’s voice. For me, there some kind of musicality to it. It’s individualistic and gives the singer some character. I could say the same about Kurt Cobain’s voice. He has a distinct rasp to his voice. But, yet it’s a signature vocal for him.

In the book 1001 Albums,  writer Robert Dimery writes:

The warped pop songs bit with the belligerence of punk, but hit with the cranked-up power chords of metal. The album instantly established Kurt Cobain as one of rock’s most distinctive singers, capable of delivering extraordinary throat-shredding vocals, but also a songwriter of genuine sensitivity and originality

Was this album filled with “warped” songs that had a pop tinge to them? Yes they did. Were the chords passed down from the Metal bands of the 70’s?  Producer Butch Vig has been quoted that Kurt Cobain wanted Nevermind to sound like a Black Sabbath album.  Was this one of the influential albums of the past 20 years? Could be. I grew up playing in garage bands and the first song we would “jam” to would be Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water.  I’ve talked to people who grew up in the 90’s and when they picked up their instruments they “jammed” to Smells Like Teen Spirit.  As for the people in my age group who loved the “bad boy” bands of the 80’s that were pushed to the side by Nirvana and the other Seattle bands, don’t blame them. The record companies and the marketing people backed this band well.  Nirvana was just a 3-piece band of regular guys that wanted to make an album that they thought sounded good to themselves. From an artistic point of view, when you are happy with what you’ve done, that is the first part in satisfying yourself.  The fact that the general public jumped on it. That is another bizarre occurrence and simply a matter of good timing.

There are my musician friends that scoff at the lack of musical proficiency that Nirvana had and the level of fame they achieved with that. There are my peers from the 80’s that loved the GnR copycats and the Motley Crue wannabes and are still mad at Nirvana for pushing “their” bands out of the limelight. But, the guys in these bands have gone on to say what fans they were of many different styles and genres of music….including heavy metal and pop. I’ve quoted Willie Nelson many times when he talks about music. “Music is a spiritual thing. It means different things to everyone.”  Nirvana’s Nevermind meant something different to a lot of people. At the time, I wasn’t one of those people. But, after 20 years, I can definitely respect where they were coming from.