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Nirvana (band)

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Performers and composers

   Nirvana
   Nirvana, left to right: Dave Grohl, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic
   Nirvana, left to right: Dave Grohl, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic
   Background information
   Origin United States Aberdeen, Washington, United States
   Genre(s) Alternative rock
   Grunge
   Years active 1987– 1994
   Label(s) Sub Pop
   DGC Records
   Associated
   acts Sweet 75
   Foo Fighters
   Eyes Adrift
   Website Universal: Nirvana
   Members
   Kurt Cobain
   Krist Novoselic
   Dave Grohl
   Former members
   Aaron Burckhard
   Chad Channing
   Dale Crover
   Dave Foster
   Dan Peters

   Nirvana was a popular rock band from Aberdeen, Washington, United
   States. With the lead single " Smells Like Teen Spirit" from their 1991
   album Nevermind, Nirvana exploded into the mainstream, bringing along
   with it a subgenre of alternative rock called grunge. Other Seattle
   grunge bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden also
   gained in popularity, and, as a result, alternative rock became a
   dominant genre on radio and music television in the United States
   during the early-to-middle 1990s.

   As Nirvana's frontman, Kurt Cobain found himself referred to in the
   media as the "spokesman of a generation", with Nirvana the "flagship
   band" of " Generation X". Cobain was uncomfortable with the attention
   and placed his focus on the band's music, challenging the band's
   audience with their third studio album In Utero. While Nirvana's
   mainstream popularity waned in the months following its release, their
   core audience cherished the band's dark interior, particularly after
   their 1993 performance on MTV Unplugged.

   Nirvana's brief run ended with the death of Cobain in 1994, but the
   band's popularity expanded in the years that followed. Eight years
   after Cobain's death, " You Know You're Right", an unfinished demo that
   the band recorded two months prior to Cobain's death, topped radio
   playlists around the world. Since their debut, the band has sold more
   than fifty million albums worldwide (see also Best selling music
   artists), including more than ten million copies of Nevermind in the US
   alone. Nirvana remains a consistent presence on radio stations
   worldwide.

History

Early years

   Cobain and Krist Novoselic met in 1985. Both were fans of The Melvins,
   and often hung out at the band's practice space. After a couple of
   false starts at forming their own band, the duo recruited drummer Aaron
   Burckhard, creating the first incarnation of what would eventually
   become Nirvana. Cobain later described the sound of the band when they
   first started as "a Gang of Four and Scratch Acid ripoff." In the
   initial months, the pair worked with several drummers, including Dale
   Crover of The Melvins, who played on their first demos. At the same
   time, the band went through a series of names, including Skid Row, Pen
   Cap Chew, and Ted Ed Fred. The band finally settled on Nirvana in early
   1988, playing their first show under the name that March. A couple of
   months later, the band finally settled on a drummer, Chad Channing.

   Nirvana's first official release was the single " Love Buzz/Big Cheese"
   in 1988. In 1989, the band released its first album, Bleach, on Sub Pop
   Records. The record had a limited first pressing of 1000 white vinyl
   records that were sold at the Lamefest in Seattle on August 8, 1989.
   Bleach was highly influenced by The Melvins, by the heavy dirge-rock of
   Mudhoney, and by the 70s rock of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
   Novoselic noted in a 2001 interview with Rolling Stone that the band
   had played a tape in their van while on tour that had an album by The
   Smithereens on one side and an album by the black metal band Celtic
   Frost on the other, and noted that the combination probably played an
   influence as well. Bleach became a favorite of college radio stations
   nationally, but gave few hints of where the band would find itself two
   years later.

   The money for the recording sessions for Bleach, listed as $606.17 on
   the album sleeve, was supplied by Jason Everman. Everman was introduced
   to Cobain by Dylan Carlson, but had known Channing since the fifth
   grade. He started hanging out with the band, and offered to loan the
   money to them for the recording. Though he did not actually play on the
   album, Everman was credited for playing guitar on Bleach because,
   according to Novoselic, they "wanted to make him feel more at home in
   the band." After the album was completed, Everman had a brief and
   contentious stay with the band as a second guitar player, but was
   sacked following their first US tour. Not long after, he briefly played
   bass with Soundgarden before joining the band Mind Funk.

   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 was not 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 hired Mudhoney drummer Dan
   Peters, with whom they recorded the song " Sliver". Later that year,
   Buzz Osborne of The Melvins introduced them to Dave Grohl, who was
   looking for a new band following the sudden break-up of D.C. hardcore
   punks Scream.

Nevermind

   Following repeated recommendations by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, David
   Geffen signed Nirvana to DGC Records in 1990. The band subsequently
   began recording its first major label album. The result, Nevermind, is
   now widely regarded as a classic.

   For the album, the band decided to continue working with Vig. Rather
   than recording at Vig's Madison studio as they had in 1990, the band
   shifted to Sound City Studios in Los Angeles. For two months, the band
   worked through a variety of songs in their catalog. Some of the songs,
   including " In Bloom" and " Breed", had been in the band's repertoire
   for years, while others, including " On a Plain" and " Stay Away",
   lacked finished lyrics until mid-way through the recording process.

   After the recording sessions were completed, Vig and the band set out
   to mix the album. However, after a few days, both Vig and the band
   realized that they were unhappy with how the mixes were turning out. As
   a result, they decided to call in someone else to oversee the mixing,
   with DGC supplying a list of possible options. The list contained
   several familiar names, including Scott Litt (known for his work with
   R.E.M.) and Ed Stasium (known for his work with The Smithereens).
   However, Cobain feared that bringing in known mixers would result in
   the album sounding like the work of those bands. He decided to choose
   the guy at the bottom of the list next to the name ' Slayer': Andy
   Wallace. (Wallace co-produced Slayer's 1990 album Seasons in the
   Abyss.)

   Wallace brought to the album a completely different mindset, adding
   layers of reverb and studio trickery to give the album a glossy polish.
   A few months after the album's release, Cobain complained in the press
   that Wallace had made Nevermind sound too slick, even though Wallace
   had been his own choice and the band themselves had been involved in
   the mixing process. Even if the band was disappointed at the sound of
   the album, Wallace had successfully tempered the band's indie rock
   leanings and created a mainstream-ready rock sound that others would
   attempt to duplicate for the next decade.

   Initially, DGC Records was hoping to sell 250,000 copies of Nevermind,
   which was the same level they had achieved with Sonic Youth's Goo.
   Instead, the album was certified triple-platinum (three million copies)
   in the US less than six months after its release. " Smells Like Teen
   Spirit" received heavy airplay on MTV, inspiring a slew of imitators
   and bringing the grunge sound into the mainstream. The popularity of
   alternative rock, as well as the sidelining of hair metal, is often
   credited to Nevermind. In January of 1992, the album reached the top of
   the Billboard album charts, replacing Michael Jackson's album
   Dangerous, an act often considered the defining symbol of the rise of
   alternative music over pop. 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.

   In February 1992, following the band's Pacific Rim tour, Cobain married
   Courtney Love in Hawaii. Love gave birth to a daughter, Frances Bean,
   the following August. Just days after Frances Bean's birth, Nirvana
   performed one of its best-known concerts, headlining at the Reading
   Festival in England. 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. At one point
   in the show, Cobain related to the crowd the recent birth of his
   daughter, and succeeded in having the crowd chant "Courtney, we love
   you!" in unison. Dave Grohl related in 2005 on the radio program
   Loveline that the band was genuinely concerned beforehand that the show
   would be a complete disaster, given all that had happened in the months
   leading up to the show. Instead, the performance ended up being one of
   the most memorable of their career.

   Less than two weeks later, Nirvana put on a memorable performance at
   the MTV Video Music Awards. MTV had wanted the band to play "Smells
   Like 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, the
   band's then-current single. When the band began their performance, Kurt
   strummed and sang the first few bars of "Rape Me", giving the MTV
   executives a solid shock before jumping into "Lithium". Near the end of
   the song, frustrated that his amp had stopped functioning, Novoselic
   decided to toss his bass into the air for dramatic effect. He misjudged
   the landing, and the bass ended up bouncing off of his forehead,
   forcing him to stumble off the stage in a daze. As Cobain trashed their
   equipment, Grohl ran to the mic and began yelling "Hi, Axl!"
   repeatedly, referring to Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose, with whom the
   band and Courtney had had a bizarre encounter prior to the show.

   Nirvana released Incesticide, a collection of rarities and B-sides, in
   December 1992. Many of Nirvana's BBC radio sessions and unreleased
   early recordings were starting to circulate via trading circles and
   illegal bootlegs, so the album served to beat the bootleggers to the
   punch. The album contained such fan favorites as " Sliver", " Dive", "
   Been a Son", and " Aneurysm" as well as covers of songs by The
   Vaselines, a band that became more popular as a result of Nirvana's
   covers.

In Utero

   For 1993's In Utero, the band brought in producer Steve Albini, perhaps
   best known for his work on the Pixies album Surfer Rosa. The sessions
   with Albini were productive and notably quick: the initial version of
   the album was recorded and mixed in two weeks, a far cry from the
   months spent recording and mixing Nevermind.

   Bringing in Albini appeared to be a deliberate move on Nirvana's part
   to give the album a rawer, less polished sound, as if the band wanted
   to alienate or distance some of their new "mainstream" audience who had
   paid little or no attention to the alternative, obscure, or
   experimental bands Nirvana saw as their forebears. For example, one
   song on In Utero that featured long periods of shrill feedback noise
   was titled, ironically, " Radio Friendly Unit Shifter". (In the
   industry, a "radio-friendly unit shifter" describes an "ideal" album:
   one capable of heavy radio play and ultimately selling many copies, or
   "units".) However, Cobain insisted that Albini's sound was simply the
   one he had always wanted Nirvana to have: a "natural" recording without
   layers and layers of studio trickery.

   Following its release, fans fell under the impression that the band
   wanted this distorted masterpiece. However, in reality, the band was
   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". Longtime
   R.E.M. producer Scott Litt was called in to help remix those two songs,
   with Cobain adding additional instrumentation and backing vocals. Litt
   also remixed " Pennyroyal Tea," but Albini's version was used on the
   album. (DGC later planned to release Litt's remix as a single.)

   With In Utero, the band also faced corporate censorship. Giant store
   chains Kmart and Wal-Mart refused to carry the album, citing song
   titles like "Rape Me" and Kurt's plastic-fetus collage on the back
   cover as too controversial for the "family-oriented" chains. The band
   decided to abide by the request, and compiled a version of the album
   with "clean" artwork and "Rape Me" retitled "Waif Me". Other than the
   inclusion of Litt's mix of " Pennyroyal Tea", however, the music on the
   album was identical to the wider release. When asked about the edited
   version, Kurt noted that he could relate to the small-town residents
   that had no other local music stores and were forced to buy their music
   at Kmart.

   While "Heart-Shaped Box" was received warmly by alternative and
   mainstream radio, and In Utero debuted at number one on the Billboard
   Album chart, the album did not enjoy the same success as Nevermind.
   When the band embarked on the US In Utero tour, its first major tour of
   the States since the success of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", it regularly
   played to half-filled arenas, stymied by the lack of tour support for
   Nevermind and the challenging new release. (For touring in support of
   In Utero, the band added Pat Smear of the punk rock band The Germs as a
   second guitarist.)

   In November 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. The song selection also demonstrated Cobain's
   broad musical interests through 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, particularly during the
   Italian leg of the tour. Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in
   Munich, Germany, on March 1, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and
   severe laryngitis. The next night's show at the same venue was
   cancelled. On the morning of March 4, Love found Cobain unconscious and
   he was 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 cancelled, 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 drug
   rehabilitation. After less than a week in rehabilitation, Cobain
   climbed over the wall of the facility and flew back to Seattle. A week
   later, on Friday, April 8, 1994, Cobain's lifeless body was discovered
   by an electrician at his Seattle home, effectively dissolving Nirvana.

After Cobain's death

   Several Nirvana albums have been released since Cobain's death. The
   first came in November of 1994 with the release of the band's
   performance for MTV Unplugged, MTV Unplugged in New York. This album
   included guest appearances by members of the Meat Puppets, as well as
   cover versions of songs by the Meat Puppets, Leadbelly, The Vaselines,
   and David Bowie.

   Two weeks after the release of Unplugged in New York, a video
   compilation of Nirvana performances, titled Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!,
   was released. Cobain himself had compiled a significant part of the
   video, which documented much of the Nevermind tour. Memorable footage
   from the video included an infamous incident with a bouncer at a Texas
   club in October 1991, as well as the band's performance of "Aneurysm"
   donned in dresses at the Hollywood Rock Festival in Rio de Janeiro,
   Brazil in January 1993.

   The original intention was to release the MTV Unplugged set in a
   double-disc package, along with a second disc of live electric material
   to balance the acoustic set. However, for the two surviving band
   members, sorting through the treasure trove of Nirvana recordings so
   soon after Cobain's passing became too emotionally overwhelming. The
   live disc, a compilation of Nirvana concert recordings, finally saw
   release in October of 1996, titled From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah.

   In August of 1997, online music news website Wall of Sound reported
   that Grohl and Novoselic were organizing a box set of Nirvana rarities.
   Four years later, the band's label announced that the box set was
   complete and would see release in September to coincide with the 10th
   anniversary of the release of Nevermind. However, shortly before the
   release date, Love filed an injunction to stop the box set's release
   and sued Grohl and Novoselic, claiming that Cobain's former bandmates
   were hijacking Nirvana's legacy for their own personal interests. What
   followed was a protracted legal battle over the ownership of Nirvana's
   music that lasted for more than a year.

   Much of the legal wrangling centered on a single unreleased song, " You
   Know You're Right", the band's final studio recording. Grohl and
   Novoselic wanted to include the song on the box set, essentially
   releasing all of the rarities at one time. Love, however, argued that
   the song was more important than just a generic "rarity", and should be
   included on a single-disc greatest hits compilation. After more than a
   year of often public and sometimes bizarre legal maneuvering, the
   parties settled, agreeing on the immediate release of the greatest hits
   package including "You Know You're Right", titled simply Nirvana. In
   turn, Love agreed to donate cassette demos recorded by Cobain for use
   on the box set.

   Nirvana fans' first taste of "You Know You're Right" came in early 1995
   when Love played a version of the song with her band Hole on MTV
   Unplugged under the title "You've Got No Right". A live rough draft
   version of the song performed by Nirvana at their October 23, 1993
   concert at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago surfaced in Nirvana
   tape-trading circles a few months later. In the years that followed,
   rumors of the existence of a studio version of the song perpetuated
   through Nirvana's fanbase and grew to almost mythic proportions. For
   fans, the first real confirmation of the studio version's existence
   came in November 2001 when Access Hollywood aired a ten second clip of
   the song as part of an interview with Love. In May 2002, several longer
   clips surfaced on the Internet via an unknown source, who claimed he
   was planning to release the entire song. However, the source backed
   down, fearing legal action. As the court case neared completion in
   September 2002, the entire song unexpectedly leaked, days before the
   announcement of the release of Nirvana. Even though the studio version
   turned out itself to be a rough draft with unfinished lyrics, fans and
   non-fans alike adored the song, leading it to become one of the
   most-played songs on alternative radio in both 2002 and 2003.

   Nirvana was released on October 29, 2002. On top of "You Know You're
   Right", the album contained hit singles from their three studio albums
   as well as several alternate mixes and recordings of familiar Nirvana
   songs. Following its release, many long-time fans complained about the
   song selection, noting that the alternate version of "Been a Son" (from
   the Blew EP) was not the band's preferred version, and that the disc
   lacked songs such as "Sappy" (released as "Verse Chorus Verse") that
   had received significant radio airplay in the US following Cobain's
   death. Fans outside the US questioned the inclusion of the Unplugged
   version of "All Apologies" (as opposed to the single version from In
   Utero) and the Bleach version of "About a Girl" (where the Unplugged
   version was a popular single in 1994). Also, with a running time of
   under fifty minutes, there was certainly ample space to include other
   popular songs, such as "Love Buzz", "Drain You", "Aneurysm", and "
   Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (the latter of which was included on
   some foreign releases of the disc).

   The box set, With the Lights Out, was finally released in November
   2004. The release contained a vast array of early Cobain demos, rough
   rehearsal recordings, and live tracks recorded throughout the band's
   history. Of note to serious Nirvana fans were unfinished studio
   recordings of "Old Age" and "Verse Chorus Verse" (different from
   "Sappy") recorded during the Nevermind sessions. Another notable track
   on the box set was a solo acoustic demo of a song called " Do Re Mi",
   recorded by Cobain in his bedroom. The song showed that even in the
   turmoil of his final days, Kurt still had the gift for melody that he
   had demonstrated so many years earlier in songs like " About a Girl".

   A best-of-the-box compilation titled Sliver: The Best of the Box was
   released in the fall of 2005. The CD compiled nineteen tracks from the
   box set plus three previously unreleased tracks, including a version of
   the song "Spank Thru" from the fabled 1985 Fecal Matter demo tape.
   According to Rolling Stone, Cobain's daughter Frances Bean aided in the
   selection of the title and cover art.

   In a 2002 interview with Jim DeRogatis, Love described the countless
   rehearsal tapes, demos, and bedroom recordings that were left behind
   after Cobain's death. For example, a four-track version of "Do Re Mi"
   was apparently recorded with Kurt on drums, Pat Smear on guitar, and
   Eric Erlandson on bass. Whether anything from the remaining archive
   will ever see release remains to be seen.

Post-Nirvana

   In the years following Nirvana's disbanding, both of its surviving
   members have remained musically active. Not long after Cobain's death,
   Grohl recorded a series of demos which eventually became the debut
   album for the Foo Fighters. As of 2006, the Foo Fighters have released
   five commercially successful albums. The most recent Foo Fighters
   release, In Your Honour, features a song called "Friend of a Friend",
   which Grohl wrote in 1990 about his first encounters with Cobain and
   Novoselic.

   Beyond the Foo Fighters, Grohl has also drummed for bands including Tom
   Petty and the Heartbreakers, Mike Watt, Queens of the Stone Age,
   Tenacious D, Nine Inch Nails, Garbage, Killing Joke, and Cat Power. He
   also recorded an album of metal songs featuring many of his favorite
   early-80s metal singers under the name Probot.

   After the end of Nirvana, Novoselic formed Sweet 75. More recently, he
   founded Eyes Adrift with Curt Kirkwood (formerly of the Meat Puppets)
   and Bud Gaugh (formerly of Sublime). He also performed in a one-off
   band called the No WTO Combo with Kim Thayil of Soundgarden and Jello
   Biafra of the Dead Kennedys that coincided with the WTO Meeting of
   1999. Novoselic's other credits include playing bass on a song
   performed by Johnny Cash for the 1996 Willie Nelson tribute album
   "Twisted Willie", as well as playing farfisa organ on "Against the 70s"
   for Mike Watt's 1995 album Ball-Hog or Tugboat?.

   Novoselic also became a political activist, founding the political
   action committee JAMPAC to push musicians' rights. In 2004, he released
   a book titled Of Grunge and Government: Let's Fix This Broken
   Democracy, which covered his musical past as well as his political
   endeavors. During the 2004 Presidential campaign, Grohl and Novoselic
   appeared on stage together in support of the John Kerry campaign.

   While Nirvana came to a sudden conclusion following their final show in
   Munich, the remaining members of the band (including Pat Smear) offered
   a bittersweet farewell to the band's fans. At the end of the Foo
   Fighters' 1997 performance at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle,
   Grohl suddenly jumped behind the drum kit, with Novoselic wandering
   onstage with bass guitar in hand. The trio (Grohl, Novoselic, and
   Smear) serenaded the enthusiastic crowd with loose covers of Prince's
   "Purple Rain" and Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown". The short
   performance served as a lighthearted (and loud) nod to Seattle and all
   who supported Nirvana during its short, tumultuous, and unforgettable
   run.

Courtney Love and licensing

   On April 13, 2006, Love announced that she had arranged to sell
   twenty-five percent of her stake in the Nirvana song catalog in a deal
   estimated at $50 million. The purchaser was Larry Mestel, a former CEO
   of Virgin Records and current head of Primary Wave Music Publishing. As
   Love controlled ninety-seven percent of Nirvana's catalog, the deal
   means that Mestel has a significantly larger stake than Novoselic and
   Grohl combined.

   To preemptively squelch backlash from fans worried about the
   overcommercialization of a decidedly anticorporate band, Love sought to
   assure Nirvana's fanbase that the music would not simply be licensed to
   the highest bidder. In her released statement, Love wrote, "We are
   going to remain very tasteful and true to the spirit of Nirvana while
   taking the music to places it has never been before."

Band members

     * Kurt Cobain - vocals, guitar (1987–1994)
     * Krist Novoselic - bass (1987–1994)
     * Dave Grohl - drums (1990–1994)
     * Aaron Burckhard - drums (1987–1988)
     * Dale Crover - drums (1988, 1990)
     * Dave Foster - drums (1988)
     * Chad Channing - drums (1988–1990)
     * Dan Peters - drums (1990)

Touring members

     * Jason Everman - guitar (1989)
     * Pat Smear - guitar (1993–1994)
     * Lori Goldston - cello (1993-1994)
     * Melora Creager - cello (1994)

Discography

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