r/Nirvana

What are some of the things new Nirvana/Kurt fans (and maybe some of the older ones) should know?

I’ll start:

NEVER BELIEVE KURT COBAIN

Quoting him as some sort of appeal to authority is not the flex you think it is.

Whatever he said, assume the opposite was true.

Chances are he was either self-mythologizing, self-deprecating, being sarcastic, screwing with everyone, or straight up lying and even he never knew which one it was.

Anyone see this article in People about Nirvana making the Smells Like Teen Spirit video 35 years later? Hilariously, they neglect to mention where they found the “cheerleaders” in the video, but include two pretty explicit quotes from Courtney Love. Rather odd if you ask me.

https://people.com/nirvana-put-out-a-casting-call-for-high-school-personas-for-the-smells-like-teen-spirit-music-video-and-changed-music-forever-12062866?link\_source=ta\_thread\_link&taid=6a84caa5ceb22e00012b330a&utm\_campaign=peoplemagazine&utm\_content=manual&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=threads.net

Thought I'd share this, with some extra bits of info from studio notes and other internet sources/interviews.

April 2-6, 1990: Sessions at Smart Studios, Madison with Butch Vig producing. Eight songs were recorded, including "Immodium" ("Breed" working title), "In Bloom", "Stay Away", "Lithium" and "Polly"... Songs that were written and performed live over the last 3-4 months, with Chad Channing as drummer.

Original plans were to release an EP, but this idea was soon abandoned and the band would instead use the tracks as demos to ship for a new record deal, eventually landing one with Geffen Records.

By September 1990, Dave Grohl had joined the band as their drummer, after Dan Peters‘ brief stint and Chad Channing’s firing.

late April 1991: Final rehearsals take place ahead of the recording sessions, finalising some of the arrangements at Butch Vig's suggestions.

2 - 24 May 1991: Recording sessions take place at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, CA with Butch Vig co-producing & engineering.

Basic tracks were cut in Studio A for basically all the songs, taking around 5-6 days... Each song usually took two, three or four takes to nail. “Lithium” would be done to a click track at Butch Vig’s request, using an Alesis drum machine although Dave wasn’t pleasedyy. For "Something In The Way", however, they encountered some difficulty recording as a full band...

They soon moved to Studio B at Sound City, where overdubs were completed - bass, guitars and vocals. "Something In The Way" was completed there, where they cut Kurt’s acoustic guitar & vocals and cut bass & drums to that, repeatedly punching in to match the timing. More time was spent on the guitar and vocal overdubs, Kurt still writing lyrics by that stage…

24 - 28 May 1991: Initial mixing took place at Devonshire Studios in North Hollywood... Some last-minute guitar & vocals were also done. They’d fully mixed 3-4 songs, but did not feel satisfied with them. The rest wound up being left as rough mixes... They were relatively burned out from the recording, and felt it was best to bring in a fresh pair of ears.

July 1991: mixing completed by Andy Wallace at Scream Studios in Studio City, California, with some overseeing from the band & Butch Vig. Wallace's approach was applying more EQ, and using samples to drive reverb sounds on the kick & snare without replacing the original sounds. Kurt had chosen Wallace as he liked his work with Slayer, though he later felt the record had too much polish for his liking once Nevermind became so successful…

26-27 July 1991: The album is officially completed, with final masters made and B-sides ready.