The song Dave Grohl thought would be Nirvana’s best: “Smash hit”
It’s often assumed that the artist must be the ultimate authority on their music. We assume that they know the best and worst songs, have an idea of which will be the hit and which will become an underrated fan-favourite, or understand how best to package their record to give to the public. But time and time again, that’s proved wrong. In this case, it is Nirvana in the hot scene as Dave Grohl revealed that if they’d been put in charge, one of their most iconic songs would never have got its moment in the spotlight.
There’s a reason why record labels step in when it comes to releasing music. While the artist undeniably knows the music better than anyone else, that doesn’t mean they know what will work. They’re too close to it, too personally attached to these songs to be able to make objective calls about what tracks the public might resonate with best or which song off an album might be the big bestselling hit. So that’s where the suits come in.
Sometimes that is a disaster. Plenty of fan bases would argue that the worst tracks have been given the prime slot of a record’s single, while the best lay forgotten on the tracklist. Sometimes, they get it all wrong, choose a track that completely fails and drag a great album down with it. But sometimes, they do their job perfectly, being able to listen to a whole album of songs and find the gold, even if it’s not where the band themselves thought it was.
In Nirvana’s case, they would’ve put their bets on two tracks rather than the single that was picked. “With Nevermind, I thought ‘In Bloom’ was going to be the ‘smash hit’ off the record, or ‘Lithium’,” Dave Grohl said. But as their first release on a major label, it was the first time they’d had someone step in and say, “No, not those.”
Instead, DGC picked a different track, and thank God they did. “I thought ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was just another album cut,” Grohl said, admitting that if it was left up to the band, that iconic grunge anthem would have just been a forgotten album cut rather than the history-shaking, career-making single it was.
“We recorded it pretty quickly, and I think it was one of [producer] Butch Vig’s favourites, and it soon became pretty clear that it would be the special song on the record,” the drummer said as eventually, the band came round to the idea of letting that track be “the track”.
Luckily, they did, as the album’s opening track and lead single, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, has gone on to be one of the best-selling songs of all time, having sold over 13 million units worldwide. It’s a song that soundtracks an area and sits as the ultimate grunge anthem, defining a whole genre.
But Kurt Cobain never really warmed to it. “Everyone has focused on that song so much,” Cobain once remarked to Rolling Stone, adding, “The reason it gets a big reaction is people have seen it on MTV a million times. It’s been pounded into their brains.” To him, it was a generic and commercial hit and couldn’t hold a candle to the tracks the band themselves had originally backed.
Regardless, the song is a major part of their legacy, and DGC will no doubt still pat themselves on the back for making that history-changing call.
