What’s That Sound? How a cello revolutionised the sound of Nirvana
In 1991, Nirvana released their seminal second album Nevermind, a record which hit number one on the US Billboard 200 the following year. As a critical and commercial hit, Nevermind cemented the grunge band as one of the decade’s most significant alternative rock outfits.
Since its release, Nevermind has sold over 30 million copies, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. Nirvana’s impact on the younger generation was phenomenal. The success of Nevermind helped to end the dominance of hair metal and brought sophisticated alternative rock to the mainstream, with Nirvana boasting progressive values and sensitive lyricism.
Lead vocalist Kurt Cobain became the voice of a generation, using music to express feelings of frustration and alienation, championing anti-capitalism and anti-authoritarian values. In Michael Azerrad’s book Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, the biographer wrote: “Nevermind came along at exactly the right time. This was music by, for, and about a whole new group of young people who had been overlooked, ignored, or condescended to.”
Put simply, Nevermind was a revolutionary release. The album, produced by Butch Vig, was not only impressive because of Cobain’s lyrics, but instrumentally, each track was packed with awe-inspiring guitar riffs and basslines and, of course, Dave Grohl’s breathtaking drumming.
However, despite most tracks featuring a genre-defining intensity, ‘Something In The Way’, the album’s final song (excluding bonus track ‘Endless Nameless’), takes a distinctively mellow approach. Initial attempts to record the track’s instrumentals with the whole band were unsuccessful, leading Cobain to sit down with his acoustic guitar and play Vig the song in a stripped-back manner.
The producer was impressed and decided to record Cobain’s acoustic guitar and whispered vocals, which formed the track’s core. From there, Vig overlayed the rest of the instrumentation, which Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic found challenging to record. The frontman had performed his acoustic rendition with an untuned guitar which Novoselic found hard to tune his bass to match. Furthermore, Grohl was forced to play his drums much quieter than he was used to. Vig recalled: “Kurt and I wanted the drums to be very understated. Dave was used to playing much louder; plus, it can be very difficult to go back and lay drums over an acoustic guitar track, as the meter may vary a bit.” Finally, the track was completed with the addition of a cello, heightening the tender, emotive mood of the song.
The classical instrument can be heard in the chorus as Cobain laments his depressive state, living under a bridge, with “something in the way” of him getting better. The cello was played by a friend of the band, Kirk Canning, married to L7’s drummer Dee Plakas. Despite Canning’s last-minute addition to the track, his work brings the haunting composition together, adding another level of despair and melancholy laid down by Cobain’s hushed vocals and slightly discordant guitar.
Although the track debuted over 30 years ago, it peaked at number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022 following its inclusion in The Batman. ‘Something In The Way’ is arguably one of the greatest songs on Nevermind, proving Nirvana to be just as capable of evocative stripped-down tracks as they were aggressive, high-octane bangers.
