The original title was Sheep, Dave Grohl didn’t drum on all the tracks… and 5 more things you never knew about Nirvana’s Nevermind album
The grunge classic has sold over 30 million copies worldwide - but while the songs may be familiar, the stories behind them are less so
IT’S hard to believe it’s been 25 years since Nirvana released their seminal classic Nevermind.
It was the album that launched the Seattle rockers to stardom, propelled the grunge movement from the underground to the top of the mainstream charts and became the soundtrack to a generation.
Upwards of 30 million copies of the iconic 1991 collection have been sold around the world, but few will be aware of these little known stories behind the album...
Their original title for the album was Sheep
Aware of their growing popularity, frontman Kurt Cobain wanted to call it Sheep – in reference to the masses he predicted would flock to buy the album.
Dave Grohl didn’t play drums on all the tracks
The band’s former drummer Chad Channing – who performed on first album Bleach – was still in the line-up when they began the Nevermind sessions with producer Butch Vig, and his original contribution to the song Polly remains on the album.
Cobain was talked into double-tracking his vocals... because John Lennon did the same
Vig managed to persuade Cobain to record two tracks of lead vocals for each song because John Lennon always did it with The Beatles. Cobain was initially reluctant to do so - fearing it would sound fake.
Hidden track Endless, Nameless was left off the initial pressings of the album… by accident
The aural outpouring of a frustrated Cobain venting during a fruitless recording session for Lithium, where he struggled to get his guitar parts right, Vig wanted the song to follow final track Something In The Way. However, engineer Howie Weinberg forgot all about the conversation and left it off. It song was added to the line-up later on.
Cobain was “embarrassed” by the final mix
The singer was scathing of the album’s sound after it had launched up the charts, clearly wanting to distance himself from the polished mix. He said in one interview: “It's such a perfect mixture of cleanliness and nice, candy-ass production. It may be extreme to some people who aren't used to it, but I think it's kind of lame myself.”
The iconic cover came about because of Cobain’s obsession with water births
After watching a documentary on the phenomenon with Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic, Cobain wanted to feature a snap of a water birth on the cover – but the record label deemed it too graphic. Instead, they went to a swimming pool for babies with photographer Kirk Weddle, who captured a shot of his mate’s son Spencer Elden floating toward a dollar bill.
Cobain claimed there’s a picture of the band KISS on the back sleeve
The frontman created a disturbing collage for the back sleeve – behind the monkey – which featured gruesome pics of diseased genitals, images from Dante’s Inferno and, according to Cobain, the rock band KISS standing on a slab of beef... but it can only be seen “if you look real close”.
