The classic Nirvana song Kurt Cobain called “a mistake”
Every artist will make at least one creative misstep over their career. These hitches can either prove worthwhile in what they teach moving forward or, on the other hand, supply a snag that is so challenging to out-manoeuvre that it is ultimately their undoing. One band that was highly accustomed to making mistakes was Nirvana, which proved key to their evolution.
According to the band, particularly their late frontman Kurt Cobain, the most significant oversight of their career was Nevermind. This has always been a divisive topic among fans, considering it was their breakout release and major label debut that catapulted the trio to the top of the charts and signalled the arrival of grunge. Not only was Nevermind a significant crossover hit, but it also revitalised the concept of a guitar-driven band and reset the cultural zeitgeist, solidifying Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl as the definitive Generation X act.
Taking cues from The Beatles, Pixies and hardcore punk, Cobain’s fusion of pop melody and fury essentially conceived the alternative rock blueprint, which is still alive and well today. Not since the Fab Four and Led Zeppelin had a group been so popular and instrumental in pulling music forward. Nevermind resonated with audiences far removed from the sweaty dive bars the trio played in at the end of the previous decade when they were just another cult Sub Pop group.
Famously, it was Butch Vig’s sleek production on the 1991 album that really irked Cobain and Nirvana, particularly after they became sick of the songs, which had become ubiquitous almost overnight. Absolutely loathing fame and the intense glare of the spotlight in which the cleanly produced record thrust them into, on their third effort, In Utero, they hired punk stalwart Steve Albini to take them back to the dark fuzziness of their formative years.
According to Cobain, it wasn’t just Nevermind that was a misstep in his eyes. When speaking to DIRT in 1990, during that consequential period between their 1989 debut Bleach and its game-changing follow-up, Cobain named a classic early moment as “a mistake”.
Asked if the group had another album arriving soon, Cobain explained that they did and that Vig had recorded it. He then discussed the sound of the new effort, maintaining that most songs were typically raunchy and heavy in Nirvana’s style, but that it was a little bit more varied in that there were a couple of more depressive numbers, and even what he wryly described as “the token reggae song”, which of course never came to fruition.
The possibility of a cover featuring on the second Nirvana album then arose following the band releasing a rendition of Shocking Blue’s ‘Love Buzz’ as their debut single from Bleach. Cobain revealed that the trio had recorded an unnamed Velvet Underground song and inferred it might not see the light of day but did promise that the other songs would generally be more poppy, which they certainly proved to be after it hit the shelves. This new slant wasn’t them trying to get on the radio either, Cobain maintained; he simply enjoyed pop music and always had.
It was then that Cobain described ‘Love Buzz’ as an error, as he deemed it their best song at the time and much better than the original. He said: “We made a mistake with ‘Love Buzz’ because it’s our best song as far as I’m concerned. There’s nothing worse than when a band does a cover that’s better than the original. Basically we took the rim — the bass line – and rewrote that song. We stripped it down.”
However, despite it being a great cover, ‘Love Buzz’ was soon to be trounced by what followed it, and Nirvana’s propensity for simple pop would change the world.
