The best song on ‘Nevermind’, according to Courtney Love
Before all else, Courtney Love is most culturally significant as the frontwoman and guitarist of the influential alternative rock outfit Hole.
A group that put a distinctive spin on the loose grunge blueprint, not only was their gritty, attitude-laden music appealing to Generation X, but they were significant in a broader sense because of their genre.
With only one man in the group, Love and her revolving cast of bandmates railed against the male-dominated industry with verve, energising listeners of her own era and ensuing ones down the line. Their passion was perhaps defined by the fan-favourite line, “How are you so burned when you’re barely on fire?”
Hole emerged from a line of female trailblazers. Alongside the vital punk acts that Love has mentioned over the years, such as Joy Division and Dead Kennedys, she has also cited the likes of Patti Smith, The Runaways, The Pretenders, Joni Mitchell, and Kate Bush, as well as others as formative influences.
She took the attitude of the abovementioned and fused it with her own style, making Hole one of the most exciting acts of the wave of guitar bands that the 1990s produced. They might have released only four albums, but it speaks to Love and the group’s power that they have such a status relative to a small oeuvre.
Unfortunately for Love, though, not only was she a woman in a man’s world back then, but she also happened to marry the biggest star of the 1990s, Kurt Cobain. The late musician was the frontman and genius behind Nirvana, the most impactful band of the 1990s, whose cultural significance nears Beatles levels.
In a wickedly ironic manner, Love’s talent is often overshadowed by her late husband’s story, which is one of the most highly mythologised in music history, cemented by his tragic suicide in 1994. No matter how hard she has tried, there is simply no way Love can outrun the cultural consequence of Cobain.
Whether this be people constantly speculating about their relationship, the songs he may or may not have written about her, or the downright disrespectful conspiracy theories about her supposed role in his death, Love has bore the brunt of much of the aftermath of his passing.
Love and Cobain’s marriage is widely reported to have been a hectic one, filled with moments of pure love and others of aggravated intensity, all witnessed under the unrelenting glare of the media. With immense commercial success and heavy touring added to the mix, it made it a relationship like no other. Despite the madness, though, Love looks back on the time with nostalgia and, naturally, misses her husband dearly.
She’s even been asked on numerous occasions to name her favourite Nirvana tracks. Once, when reflecting on her life and times as part of an Instagram Q&A, she was again drawn into debating her ultimate numbers by the trio. In the chat, she chose three from the band’s third and final album, In Utero: ‘Heart-Shaped Box’, ‘Serve The Servants’ and ‘Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle’. She even revealed that the iconic riff of the album’s lead single was written in “five minutes”.
However, maybe most importantly, Love’s final choice was not from In Utero but from their 1991 era-defining record, Nevermind. While the darkness, backstory, and grit of the 1993 Steve Albini-produced album take the crown for the most socially acceptable effort in the trio’s oeuvre, there is no denying that its predecessor changed the direction of music forever.
Love is aware of this, and she knew she would be remiss not to mention at least one track from the iconic album for which her partner is remembered. While she didn’t provide any reason why, she aptly chose her favourite song from Nevermind as the one that Cobain wrote to subtly mock the pop-loving fans his band were fast acquiring, ‘In Bloom’.
She did later clarify that she was “very firmly in the club that says ‘In Bloom’ should have been the first single” from Nevermind, and even went on to hail it as “a far better song” than ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, despite being eclipsed by the latter classic when it comes to popularity.
A piece augmented from its original state by the bass drum groove of new drummer Dave Grohl, for many, this is the ultimate anthem from the album, as it’s a distillation of what made Cobain such a tremendous songwriter. It is raw, gripping, and full of the group’s trademark introspective angst.
In many ways, it defines what Nirvana were all about. As Krist Novoselic explained, the track started out with Cobain attempting to copy the band’s firm favourite hardcore group Bad Brains before his love for The Beatles entered the mix and inevitably made it more of a pop assault.
Catchy and gripping, it also pointed out their own fans of a more bandwagon persuasion, stating clearly in the lyrics, “He don’t know what it means, don’t know what it means.” That in itself embodies the punky spirit that Love loved about the band and her late partner.
