The Nirvana song their label rejected: “A little too busy”
Aside from the bands who pioneered the genre, Seattle record label Sub Pop were one of the most instrumental forces in the rise in popularity of grunge. Having helped propel the alternative rock subgenre into the spotlight through releases such as the Sub Pop 100 and 200 compilations as well as early records from Green River and Tad, they ought to be revered just as much as the musicians for their role in the movement.
One notable moment in their history came when they signed Nirvana, the band who possibly hold the strongest connection to the grunge movement, and released their debut album Bleach in 1989. They had first brought the band on board to release their cover of Dutch pop group Shocking Blue’s song, ‘Love Buzz’ in 1988, but this wasn’t the label’s first exposure to the band.
Kurt Cobain had been in various other projects prior to forming Nirvana with Krist Novoselic, and in 1985 he made a demo tape with Melvins’ drummer Dale Crover under the name Fecal Matter. The tape, which was known as Illiteracy Will Prevail, featured a number of songs that would eventually become Nirvana tracks, one of which was ‘Spank Thru’.
Having remained part of Cobain’s repertoire in the years following Fecal Matter’s demise, ‘Spank Thru’ became a Nirvana song and was re-recorded as another demo track to send to Sub Pop for their consideration. Despite the fact that it felt like a fully formed and expansive take on the grunge sound of the time, bringing in pop elements and interesting structures, it failed to impress label founders Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman.
Recalling when he first listened to Nirvana’s first demo with Green River and Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, Pavitt said that he thought “the arrangements over a lot of tracks were a little too busy” and focused particularly on ‘Spank Thru’ as having had “a lot of different changes”. Having been rejected by the label, the band went back to the studio with producer Jack Endino and new drummer Chad Channing later in 1988 to record the song once more.
This second Nirvana version of ‘Spank Thru’ would be the version that grabbed Sub Pop’s attention, and after then releasing their version of ‘Love Buzz’ as Nirvana’s debut single, the label included ‘Spank Thru’ on their Sub Pop 200 compilation alongside other artists from the label such as Soundgarden and Screaming Trees.
Reflecting on how Nirvana developed from the overly busy demo that he first listened to, Pavitt said that “as they evolved, they became more minimalist and hypnotic, and that’s where a lot of their power came from. So their songwriting really kept getting better, and their stage performances kept getting better.”
Cobain and Novoselic would stick with Endino and Channing for the recording of Bleach, which would not be particularly successful at the time of its release. However, once Nirvana moved labels over to Geffen and their second album Nevermind took them into the mainstream, Bleach would see a surge in sales, and in the years since has become the label’s biggest-selling album.
‘Spank Thru’, on the other hand, remains a hidden gem in the band’s early career. It failed to find its way onto a studio album and was removed from the live setlist early on in the band’s life, relegating it to being an artefact for the true fans to pick up on and for Sub Pop to be thankful they gave a second chance to.
