(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sat 21 February 2026 22:15, UK
At the height of the 1980s hair metal movement, Kurt Cobain seemed like the last person to dethrone the poodle-haired legends.
This was the kind of guy that seemed way too cool for school whenever he even tried to enjoy bands like Van Halen, and yet as soon as he arrived on MTV, decked out in a cosy sweater on ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, every single other rock and roll band was rendered obsolete virtually overnight. That didn’t even seem possible, and for a brief moment in time, the grunge naysayers did have a bit of a point about Cobain not becoming a sensation.
After all, Bleach is a fairly decent underground rock album, but there was nothing saying that it was going to be the next Sgt Peppers or anything. Nirvana were still fairly green at this stage, and while the lineup wasn’t even solidified, you can still hear what made them legends coming into formation. They still had their songs of Melvins worship like ‘Negative Creep’, but there were also Beatlesque tunes like ‘About a Girl’ that pointed towards their future.
So when they started work on their second album, Nevermind was meant to be the kind of record that saw them embracing their pop roots. Butch Vig was already interested in producing them ever since hearing their demos, but even when they had songs like ‘Polly’ and ‘In Bloom’ already written, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was the kind of wrecking ball that no one could have ignored once they heard it.
Becoming one of the biggest bands in the world overnight had to be a head trip, but it was all in service to a piece of garbage as far as Cobain was concerned. He knew that he had written some fantastic songs, but since most of them were mixed the same way that every other heavy rock record from the time was, he wasn’t exactly proud to appeal to the same fans that were buying Whitesnake records a few years before.
So when In Utero began, Cobain wanted to move in the exact opposite direction. Vig’s production wasn’t a dealbreaker by any means, but Steve Albini had the kind of sound they were looking for. Every one of his records before then had been extremely dry with a focus on capturing the artist in the room as they’re playing the song, and while the album is a lot more raw as a result, Cobain felt that it was worth it if it meant getting the same sound that he heard on Pixies records.
The underground titans had been one of Cobain’s favourite bands for most of his life, and he felt that Surfer Rosa was the one album that really captured the sound that he had been after since Nirvana had formed, saying, “You would expect people who have supposedly well-developed ears to be able to handle such a drastic step, but a lot of people can’t stand the sound of the first Pixies record. I don’t understand it. I think that’s one of the best-sounding records I’ve ever heard. It’s just a matter of opinion.”
Then again, maybe the public just wasn’t ready for Pixies when they were just working their way into the underground. ‘Where is My Mind’ might be one of the greatest indie songs ever made now, but it took a long time to get there, and if that meant Cobain ripping off their quiet-loud dynamic on nearly every other song that he made, it was worth it to get people to check out bands they might have never given a chance to before.
Because, really, that was always Cobain’s superpower once he reached the big time. Not everyone was ready for a no-name kid from Seattle to write the best rock and roll songs ever made, but while he had his time in the spotlight, the least he could do was try to get some more of his favourite bands through the door with him.