(Credits: Far Out / Nirvana)
Wed 17 September 2025 3:00, UK
Despite the underground pedigree, Kurt Cobain was indeed pushing Nirvana toward fame and fortune, but he wasn’t expecting a US album number one.
Famously knocking Michael Jackson’s Dangerous off the Billboard 200 top spot in 1992, Nirvana found themselves semi-unwittingly leading the seismic changes rock was undergoing at a pace. The growing momentum away from spandex hair metal was obvious to anyone paying half-attention to Seattle’s thriving music community across the previous decade, as major labels were already eyeing up the likes of Soundgarden and Alice in Chains with lucrative album deals. Indeed, Pearl Jam’s Ten debut was dropped a whole month before Nirvana’s Nevermind.
But ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’s opening riff attacked well and truly burst open the swelling grunge dam behind them. It wasn’t just a fantastic song. Nevermind’s lead single was a giant sonic leap forward in pop sheen and beefy production, an eager and shrewd embrace of radio accessibility that actively sought to evolve beyond the lo-fi murk of their Bleach debut two years earlier.
Punk, hard rock, and variants of metal all permeate Nirvana’s brief but explosive body of work. Pop stands as a perennial binding agent across their three albums, ensuring Cobain’s gift for a hooky simplicity, whether buried in Bleach’s scuzz barrage or hiding among In Utero’s complex and provocative songcraft. Yet, a love of the janglier end of indie can shine at infrequent moments, often delivering some of their most loved numbers. REM, Mazzy Star, The Vaselines, and The Beatles’ lighter touches imbue cuts like ‘About a Girl’ or ‘All Apologies’.
Cobain had spoken candidly about a perceived pressure in the Seattle underground to avoid such indie-pop numbers on Nirvana’s records, expressing lament at not including more acoustic-driven, softer songs among their blistering grunge records. “We have failed in showing the lighter, more dynamic side of our band,” he told Rolling Stone in 1994. “The big guitar sound is what the kids want to hear. We like playing that stuff, but I don’t know how much longer I can scream at the top of my lungs every night, for an entire year on tour.”
He added, “Sometimes, I wish I had taken the Bob Dylan route and sang songs where my voice would not go out on me every night, so I could have a career if I wanted.”
What could have been. In a different universe, Cobain could have pursued a dedicated jangle-folk project, and Eddie Vedder stands as grunge’s premier poster icon. It’s an intriguing window into a possible trajectory had the Nirvana frontman pulled himself from the brink of suicide, following a road toward personal, intimate performances in the vein into the 21st century, already so fabulously teased by MTV Unplugged in New York, shredded vocals and all.
Cobain and Dylan were mutual fans. Cobain possessed his own affectionate bootleg tape of the folk legend’s 1992 show in Los Angeles’ Pantages Theatre, and Dylan is reported to have caught Nirvana performing the haunting ‘Polly’, remarking that the Nirvana frontman “had heart”.
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