- #NIRVANA NEVERMIND COVER PHOTO 26 YEARS LATER FULL#
- #NIRVANA NEVERMIND COVER PHOTO 26 YEARS LATER CRACK#
#NIRVANA NEVERMIND COVER PHOTO 26 YEARS LATER CRACK#
The sound of Cobain’s voice and guitar slamming into the rhythm section of Novoselic and Grohl, such as the lightning crack of drums that precede the unforgettable chorus of Come As You Are, is thrilling.
#NIRVANA NEVERMIND COVER PHOTO 26 YEARS LATER FULL#
Punk demanded relentless self-questioning, and in On a Plain he even challenges his own relevance as a musician: “What the hell am I trying to say?”īut while the lyrics are sarcastic and full of self-doubt, the music soars with supreme, delinquent glee. The 13 songs on Nevermind highlight the musical diversity of US punk, shifting from psychedelic walls of sound (Come As You Are) and howling thrash (Stay Away) to a chilling acoustic song about homelessness (Something In the Way).Ĭobain’s lyrics are allusive and surreal, ironically touching on themes like narcissism (“the finest day that I ever had/ was when I learnt to cry on command”). Ironically, this anti-consumerist image has now become the source of a lawsuit filed by Spencer Elden, the baby whose photo was on the cover. For Nevermind’s cover, they chose an image of a baby boy swimming to a dollar bill attached to a fish hock, a symbol of the corrupting influence of money.
The band chose to pre-empt allegations of being sellouts in a suitably self-mocking and punk way. This move was motivated partly by the fact that, despite its anti-commercial stance, Sub Pop failed to pay its musicians a liveable wage. In a song from the same period, Cobain’s musical heroes, Sonic Youth, attacked Reagan’s successor, George Bush, with the line “Yeah, the president sucks, he’s a war-pig fuck”.Įarlier that year, Nirvana had left their Seattle-based independent label, Sub Pop Records, to sign with a subsidiary of Geffen Records. Cobain had originally wanted to title it Sheep, in reference to what he saw as the unquestioning jingoism of the American public around the 1991 Gulf War. Nevermind, Nirvana’s second album, was released on 24 September 1991. Some used the chaotic aspects of punk as a pretext for violence, such as the neo-Nazi punk gangs that sprung up in the southern California hardcore scene. Alongside a general questioning of social values, there was a cynicism and nihilism expressed in depression and the abuse of hard drugs. ( The Teen Spirit video even includes a reference to Cobain’s time working as a high school janitor.)īut the obsession with selling out could turn into its own kind of restrictive puritanism. To Cobain and Novoselic, punk became a beacon of emancipation in their conservative, working-class hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. There was a powerful mistrust of the established music industry, with artists preferring small, independent labels and control of their own work over “selling out”. In a highly conservative time, US punk maintained a brash anti-corporate, anti-authoritarian stance, with songs and visuals that condemned police brutality, US imperialism and even sexism. In becoming a nightmare, you could find your dreams.” It had, in Savage’s words, “an infernal power that offered the chance of action, even surrender – to something larger than you – and thus possible transcendence. Punk mocked power, while offering its own form of autonomy and participation. As Jon Savage wrote in his acclaimed book England’s Dreaming, released in 1991, “punk was an international outsider aesthetic: dark, tribal, alienated, alien, full of black humour”. From Eastern Europe to Asia, punk became a beacon for those who felt outcast from the dominant class and gender structures. This process was mirrored across the world. But, while it failed to achieve mainstream commercial success, it slowly seeded itself city by city, state by state. Punk had arrived in the US in the late 1970s, after British bands like the Sex Pistols had scandalised the United Kingdom with their outrageous interviews and anti-establishment lyrics. Teen Spirit’s grimy aesthetic reflected the underground American punk scene in which singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl had been active participants in the 1980s. The video featured scenes of chaos inside a high school auditorium, complete with cheerleaders clad in anarchist symbols.
The group hired video director Samuel Bayer because they liked the lo-fi quality of his earlier work, finding it “not corporate” and “punk”. WARNING, this article contains strong language.Īmerican rock band Nirvana, with a crowd of riotous extras, gathered on 17 August 1991 at a soundstage in Los Angeles to film a music video for their upcoming single, Smells Like Teen Spirit.For Nirvana, punk was a beacon of emancipation in their conservative, working-class hometown.So in the United States, punk became a bastion of leftist values during the conservative Reagan years.During his reign, Ronald Reagan implemented economic policies that reduced the power of the working class.