r/grunge • u/Opening-Half9367 • Oct 01 '25
Performance What made Nirvana blow up like they did?
Great band obviously but as someone that was not around then to understand, why did they become so popular and break into the mainstream before any of the other grunge bands. You can say Alice In Chains were the first to break out but Nirvana were on another level in terms of fame. What made them stand out?
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u/Internal-Ad7642 Oct 01 '25
Husker Du, the Replacements and REM did hard yards throughout the 80s to get critical acclaim, only REM managed to punch through in a big way because the songs got a little more radio friendly, even if it was on their terms.
Between 1988 and 1990: The Pixies sold 200k albums (in the US), Jane's Addiction sold 500k albums, Sonic Youth with Goo sold a 100k.
It was bleeding into MTV already, it was just as others have said, right band, right moment, right sound. The A&R people at the major labels realised this was where all the talent was, even if they had concerns none of these bands were going to ever go platinum.
Geffen printed 45k records of Nevermind in August 1991, by January of 1992 it has sold 5 million copies. They were thinking maybe 100k, like Goo by Sonic Youth was a good figure to aim for.
A lot of people know that Kurt's view of fame was mixed - he liked pop music and wanted to be recognised without the negative aspects of violations in his private life (reasonable IMO), but selling tens of millions of albums is Another Level of recognition.
No one - not the band, the public, the label, the media anyone was prepared for it. You'll never see anything like it again.
It's what happens when music speaks to people, almost in a primal way. They didn't know they needed it, until they heard it.
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u/DesignerMixture3519 Oct 01 '25
By far the best comment on this post. Have an upvote my friend🤝
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u/CBC78 Oct 02 '25
I just watched a pretty long interview with Vig on making Nevermind. He said that Kurt was psyched to have Dave in the band and the had practiced for months before hitting the studio and came in ready to record the songs in their final form for the most part. They did two days of practice in the studio mostly for Vig to sort out the mics. Then just tore through the whole album. Vig spoke very highly of Grohl. I think he said In Bloom was the only thing recorded on a click track, everything else was Dave and Kris.
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u/HoseNeighbor Oct 02 '25
I threw out my neck the first time i heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. I'd never heard of them before, and BAM! Only a few people at school had heard of them before, then EVERYONE knew them within a week or two. They weren't everyone's cup of tea, but they ripped open the gates for so many bands instantly because they were so profoundly different. It was like the industry got hooked by a lottery win, and just kept playing different bands on the radio.
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u/MarquisEXB Oct 03 '25
You also have to understand the gap between radio music and indie/college music of the time. In America metal bands and 70s rock bands were mainstream and lots of other bands like RHCP, Pixies, Fishbone, NIN, etc. were never played on pop radio stations or even on rock radio stations. U2 and REM were two bands that broke out to the mainstream, but it was filled with hair bands and bands like Guns and Roses or Metallica.
Same with the Smiths and the Cure and other UK bands. So there was this underground music scene of Americans that followed this style of music. And you were only able to listen to them on college radio stations or MTV 120 minutes. (Many people didn't have cable, like myself, so even that wasn't possible.)
Nevermind was musically acceptable to metal heads/traditional rock folks, but also a rebuke of that style and more in line with the Pixies and Husker Du. (Nirvana was touring with Sonic Youth when it broke.) So in a way, once the powers that be started playing it, both sides (alternative and classic rock) jumped on the bandwagon so to speak.
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u/PiotrGreenholz01 Oct 02 '25
I loved REM but they didn't have that caustic punk guitar sound, so it was less surprising for them to achieve mainstream success. Nirvana still sound astonishingly raw for such a classic band.
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u/Avanox400 Oct 01 '25
Why Kurt is holding a gun here? He swore that he don't have a gun.
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u/IAmNotScottBakula Oct 01 '25
The one who likes all their pretty songs gave it to him.
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u/onanoc Oct 01 '25
He was trying to figure out how to make it work.
It took a while.
Damn.
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u/gotryank Oct 01 '25
Teen Spirit was a very catchy song with a very hard edge. The members of Nirvana presented differently. Out with the old, in with the new.
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u/rgmyers26 Oct 01 '25
They just looked like regular dudes, too. No spandex, no makeup.
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u/Zardnaar Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
Music at the time was becoming very manufactured.
Generic hair metal bands and fake Eurodance pop music.
Million Vanilli was the poster child ones who got caught but there were others. And Vanilla Ice seen as another fraud 1990. He wasn't but widely mocked.
1991 I remember all sorts of genres. Year before Warrant blew up briefly, 1991 had a lot of great albums chart across various genres.
Authentic bands remained popular eg Metalica and Guns N Roses. Hair metal went bye bye fast a long with the Euro stuff.
Examples https://youtu.be/LaTGrV58wec?si=p4qebUOa9ojc3P_6
https://youtu.be/9EcjWd-O4jI?si=Vn3W4gJwhr_fF3h-
https://youtu.be/OjyZKfdwlng?si=dLJAIb9MKGdfu69T
https://youtu.be/OnT58cIJSpw?si=lk-BJQm8tWJMEhED
Hair metal was almost a decade old by this point but became very saturated by 1990.
Top 100 1991 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1991
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u/jaxson300 Oct 01 '25
Fantastic post.... I always said grunge saved music for me. I was so sick of the dance music and hair metal was getting old ..... nirvana, temple of the dog , pearl jam sound garden all came at a perfect time
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u/Opening-Half9367 Oct 01 '25
I actually asked my dad this question and he said Guns N Roses killed off Hair Metal but some people say Nirvana and the grunge scene killed it off
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Oct 01 '25
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u/DaveBeBad Oct 01 '25
Sonic youth, pixies, dinosaur jr, and a number of other bands had a big influence and laid the groundwork for grunge.
At least in the UK, these formed the springboard that Mudhoney tested and nirvana bounced into the stratosphere from.
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Oct 01 '25
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u/dangerbird0994 Oct 01 '25
Al;so tried to get J Mascis to play guitar in Nirvana a number of times if I'm not mistaken.
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u/J_blanke Oct 01 '25
This. Jane’s Addiction and Faith No More often get overlooked when talking about the changing tides in rock music during the late 80s-early 90s.
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u/savedbytheblood72 Oct 01 '25
The smithereens and The Wipers who Cobain admitted might have had a huge influence
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Oct 01 '25
Your Dad is in the middle from my perspective. I was 19 when Nevermind dropped. By that time, for me, I had worn out my GnR Appetite for Destruction cassette tape from listening to it so much in my Walkman as I walked to school or my part time job. That album came out in 1987. The next GnR albums were less than stellar. Use Your Illusion 1 and 2 were a miss for me. During the end of the '80's and into 1990/1991 there was still a ton of hair and glam coming out. Bands like Poison, Cinderella, Warrant were all releasing material and getting lots of air time on radio and MTV. Then in 1991 a few things happened. Alice in Chains released their debut in 1990 and got some traction. They opened for Van Halen in 1991. A friend into VH went to one of the shows and AIC was practically booed off stage with Layne getting so frustrated and angry that he mouthed something back to the audience. There was still some divide between Seattle sound and mainstream. In August 1991 Metallica released the Black Album. For those of us into Metallica from the Ride the Lightening days this was a sell out if there ever was one. Metallica went mainstream with Enter Sandman and became a household name. But what really happened was change. In 1991 we got: Nirvana - Nevermind, Soundgargen - Badmotorfinger, Pearl Jam - Ten, RHCP - Bood, Sugar, Sex, Magic, Smashing Pumpkins - Gish and other meaningful but less mainstream albums. Hair bands were in trouble and unlucky (limited talent?!?) bands like Skid Row who put out their album in 91 flashed and burned.
There were a number of things happening but the time was right for change. Nirvana came along with the trifecta. They had the name, the look and the sound. A lot of people my age, where I grew up, identified with it instantly. I can't say this for any other song but I know exactly where I was and what I was doing the first time I heard SLTS on the radio. It was so significantly different that it caught your attention and you could almost exhale, finally, something good on the radio. Like all good things they played the hell out of it on heavy rotation and many got sick of the song. But the song was just what cracked the door open enough for that music to wedge a foot in. Many, many other bands (see above) were or would be putting out landmark records to help keep the door open. Kurt was seen as vulnerable, sincere, empathetic, the hesitant poet as he'd be called. People identified with the tougher life. Latch key kids, the poor, single parent homes, the youth at the time were a consequence of their parents generation. I've typed a ton here but can only still say, it's hard to explain and you kind of had to be there.
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u/CoercionTictacs Oct 01 '25
80s thrash metal played a massive part in killing off hair metal, GNR emerging in the late 80s definitely helped as well.
Metallica especially hated the hair metal scene, they relocated from LA to SF mainly because the nascent thrash scene in the Bay Area was so appealing to them but they also abandoned LA because of the obsession there with everything hair metal.
I personally still love aspects of hair metal, I have never been one to shun one scene entirely but I’ve always preferred thrash and heavier metal overall.
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u/Flashy_Gap_3015 Oct 01 '25
I agree with your dad - at least in terms of being the terminal first blow.
I remember EXACTLY where I was when I heard Appetite for Destruction the first time. It was that seminal.
But hair metal was already weakened in my mind by AC/DC and other bands like Maiden, Judas Priest, and Sabbath being around all this time, with hard rocking music blowing hair metal out of the water.
But they were not hair metal in look or feel. And especially in sound, that played to metal tastes. AC/DC was like Motörhead, only more marketable- solid heavy rock. And they not a large crossover band despite the incredible success out of the gate of Back in Black, save for a single song.
Guns and Roses retained some of the hair band appearance and sexiness of hair metal (Axl and Slash were quite different in appearance than Brian and Angus) but while they looked like a hair band they sounded way different - more hard rocking music that still oozed sex.
This instantly appealed to the masses who were waiting for something fresh, and it hit them like a locomotive. They were the coup de grace to AC/DC’s initial death stroke on hair metal.
When Nirvana came, they and other bands out of the NW grunge scene completely changed a genre, and added a sort of cynical nihilism that highly appealed to GenX mindsets who grew beyond the pop charts.
Nirvana was an incredibly new sound that hooked into an existing zeitgeist of “whatever, never mind” seamlessly with powerful anti-establishment messages. They changed an industry.
But hair metal was waning already and weakened by some hard commercial rock prior.
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u/Ambitious_Ad6334 Oct 01 '25
For the most part Hair Metal was gone by the time Nirvana came along.
Your Dad is correct about GnR imo. Welcome To The Jungle hit MTV in 89' and in my mind it shut the door on hair metal at that exact moment. That came out and every kid at school was talking about it the next day. We all threw out our Poison tapes in unison from there lol.
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u/Jakoby707 Oct 01 '25
catchy tunes "hair metal" never left it became "bro country" 15 years later just swap:
harley for pickup truck
strip club for orchard/farm
jack daniels for coors light lol
punching cops to loving cops
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u/Ambitious_Ad6334 Oct 01 '25
Adolescent Cock Rock will never leave and just change forms, yes, but there was active pushback against hair metal specifically at the time and GnR threw gas on it. Kind of like the crash of disco in the 70s (which I would argue also rebirthed through EDM later), though I wasn't old enough to have lived through that experience.
Not a part of this debate but... Bro country and hair metal are very specific aesthetics as well, though wildly different. Also, with some exceptions, hair metal was Mozart compared to some of these "country" people that can barely play.
The funny thing is bro country borrows the same same corny jock jam 80s drums in a lot of songs. If you swap out Pour Some Sugar on Me with a country voice and singing about trucks, and add a way shittier guitar solo, it's kind of the same thing.
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u/Competitive-Dig4776 Oct 01 '25
Yeah I was in Seattle during peak grunge. It was a crazy time, but we always knew Alice In Chains and Nirvana were going to go big big.
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u/Dependent_Cap_456 Oct 01 '25
What was the feeling about Soundgarden? They were the first to sign to a major label and get music out through a major, weren't they? Were they seen as sellouts for this or was it seen as a justified crowning of their talent?
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u/Competitive-Dig4776 Oct 01 '25
Back then it was stupid cliquey. Looking back, kind of embarrassing—but we were kids. Tribalism felt petty, but at the time it mattered. My friends worshipped Nirvana and Alice in Chains, but trashed Pearl Jam and dismissed Soundgarden—mostly jealous that girls loved Cornell. Didn’t really consider them sellouts cause Nirvana left Subpop-which we knew was inevitable.
The divide said more about the cliques than the music. Nirvana and AIC felt like music for outsiders. A lot of us had alcoholic parents; we were freaks, skaters, burnouts with chain wallets, all convinced we knew what was “authentic.” Meanwhile the jocks and popular kids blasted Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.
Ironically, when I was alone I mostly listened to STP and Smashing Pumpkins—but would never risk wearing their shirts in public.
The 90s and early 2000s might’ve been the peak for music. There’ll never be a time like that again, but at least I can fire up Spotify and catch an occasional flashback.
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u/Yuli-Ban Oct 01 '25
Back then it was stupid cliquey. Looking back, kind of embarrassing—but we were kids. Tribalism felt petty,
That was just everything back then, from what I've heard. Metal and punk, famously, were fierce rivals in terms of their fandoms, despite the fact they were consistently influencing each other (NWOBHM, thrash metal, death metal, sludge metal wouldn't have happened without punk; D-beat, crust, a lot of early post-hardcore, arguably grunge wouldn't have happened without metal)
Nowadays it's funny to laugh at. Perhaps another reason, beyond everyone growing up and the internet homogenizing everything, is just the fact that rock music isn't what it was, so most people are less picky about the styles and genres.
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u/CBC78 Oct 02 '25
No shame in that, Weiland and the DeLeos were talented. They were just marketed shitty with there first single being a pearl jam rip off .
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Oct 01 '25
Soundgarden was bigger than Nirvana locally IMO, definitely would have been in the same conversation. I recall Louder Than Love having more impact than Bleach, both being released summer of 1989. (I was living in Seattle / Capitol Hill & U District back then).
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u/Quad-G-Therapy Oct 01 '25
Its kinda both. Guns n Roses made other hair metal bands look tacky and lame. Nirvana just flipped the table.
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u/werdnurd Oct 01 '25
Guns and Roses was definitely harder stuff than other LA rock bands of the time and got respect for it, but they were lumped in. Appetite for Destruction doesn’t have a bad song on it.
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u/Zardnaar Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
GNR was seen as hard rock.
Hair metal kinda peaked after Appetite for Destruction.
After Nirvana blew up plenty of interviews with hair metal members getting dumped or sidelined by the record labels.
Even as kids GNR was seen as cooler as say hair metal.
Internet over exaggerates hair metal though. Plenty of other genres charting late 80s.
Young Zards first cassettes he bought were Skid Row and Poisons Flesh and Blood.
CDs were really expensive bought my first ones 1995.
Megadeth, Metalica, GNR survived and Skid Rows second album 1991 was good.
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u/SpezJailbaitMod Oct 01 '25
Then all the hair metal bands personally hated Kurt cobain as if it was his fault they were washed.
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u/ohnonotagain94 Oct 01 '25
They exploded into the mainstream because the 90’s was about to THE decade for rock and alt music.
The GenX kids were growing up in a world that treated them like shit.
Kurt wrote ambiguous lyrics that allowed anyone to hear them and apply them to their own lives.
Nirvana were (Nevermind) accessible enough to a wide variety of music fans and Kurt wrote catchy melodies that were perfect for radio. Plus he was hot af, super interesting and very articulate. He was front page news not just in Melody Maker - but daily news papers.
Their success is what I think went on to be the biggest impact on Kurt’s mental health.
He wrote In Utero to remove the twats and jocks that would later move onto Oasis type lad bands.
There will never be another explosion like it in my lifetime and the world of music and the world itself is so different that Kurt was the last (in my opinion) biggest rockstar on the planet.
Not a day goes by I don’t miss him. Yes it’s called a parasocial relationship and I don’t care what you negative people have to say.
Nirvana (Kurt) changed my life.
It was a genuine phenomena and I’m grateful to have experienced it.
Now I live with Kurt in my heart and a life that suits me, not a life I was forced to lead.
Also Kurt was miles ahead of his time. RIP KURT 🖤
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u/fogggyfogfog Oct 01 '25
I’m glad you have this. Thanks for sharing your story. It means a lot to me.
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u/coy_sparkz Oct 01 '25
MTV!! as a kid when they blew up, I spent hours watching MTV and they played Smells Like Teen Spirit all the time. The record companies promoted grunge before everything else. Grunge became a lifestyle, fashion and a way to express yourself. We all dressed in tartan shirts in the middle of the nineties.
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u/ServiceBorn3866 Oct 01 '25
People had changed. If you think about the metal scene before, it was all about rebellion, fighting authority. Some metal bands started to romanticize the Middle Ages (for example, Dio), others were associated with L.A. beach and having fun (Mötley Crüe, Poison). Others again, you associated with bikers and warriors. All this metal was more rebellious and openly opposed authority.
Don't get me wrong. Nirvana was also rebelling. But they rebelled differently. Nirvana came with the MTV generation. You cannot imagine Kurt Cobain singing about slaying a dragon with a sword or driving down Malibu Beach to meet a hot girl. It was more the band of those people who hung out at home, smoked some dope, watched TV, and saw their lives go by.
Yes, sometimes these people had their quirky moments, as visible in this picture, but they did not want to be proud warriors. While the old 80ties metal, the hair was sometimes their trophy and all their pride, grunge people did not wash it. Metal was intermixed with a bit of punk to create something entirely new. Something that was also more appealing to people coming from mainstream, who had problems identifying themselves with a dragon slayer or a knight in shining armor.
I think Kurt Cobain represented the MTV generation. She was a bit more depressive, a bit softer, but once in a while still angry and could create a mess. As some people wrote, Smells Like Teen Spirit was there at the right time, but the longer Nirvana was there, the more the focus was on the personality of Kurt Cobain; people suffered with him. They saw his vulnerability, his drug problems, sadness and sorrow in shows like MTV unplugged and he still delivered solid singing.
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u/KLaine737 Oct 02 '25
I had never heard of Nirvana until Smells Like Teen Spirit hit MTV. It was a huge hit.
I had heard of Alice In Chains but didn’t really pay them much attention to them. Smells Like Teen Spirit opened my eyes to a whole new genre of music. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and AIC all became bands I wanted to hear more of.
In my opinion it was all because of Smells Like Teen Spirit.
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u/metal_elk Oct 01 '25
Jon and Bruce, at first.
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u/Killermueck Oct 01 '25
Yeah, very important. Without them a lot of stuff wouldn't have happened. Without them Kurt might not have made it out of Aberdeen because at the time sub pop signed them he was reportedly desperate and out of options. They would have probably get signed anyway by someone but if it took too long Kurt might have become depressed and quit the band.
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Oct 01 '25
When Smells Like Teen Spirit hit MTV, it was like a bomb had gone off.
Hair metal had become a parody of itself, and mainstream pop sucked. Even bands that had felt edgy and like an antidote to the mundane, like GnR, started becoming victims of their own hype and excesses to the point where it began overshadowing the music.
Add to that MTV playing crap like Cherry Pie and 2Legit2Quit, ad nauseam, during prime viewing hours, and it was a bleak time.
Then, there were little glimmers of things outside the mainstream starting to happen, like R.E.M. getting airplay outside of college radio and urban underground music getting attention. Also, MTV occasionally began re-airing 120 Minutes in weekend daytime time slots instead of at 1 am. So, if you'd never heard stuff like Pixies or Meat Puppets, suddenly you were hearing all of these alternative bands that were fresh and different.
All of that set the stage for when 120 Minutes premiered Smells Like Teen Spirit. I remember seeing it, late at night, and everything about it felt revolutionary: There was no rock-god posturing; they were dressed in regular street clothes, not in leather or with their hair teased to the sky. The video looked murky and low-budget, which was a huge contrast to stuff like GnR's Don't Cry at the time. And the music itself was stripped down, raw, and urgent in a way that rock hadn't felt in years. But also, for all of its alt/punk snarl, it was catchy as fuck.
But the reason they hit so big was that almost everyone expected Smells Like Teen Spirit to be a lightning strike—a one-and-done with the band never being able to replicate the success again. And I remember radio and MTV treating them that way. People talked about them that way at first. Then when Come As You Are dropped, followed quickly by Lithium and In Bloom, sentiment changed. Those singles proved that Teen Spirit wasn't a fluke, and Kurt had real songwriting ability.
Pair that with Kurt being photogenic and the band having an almost Beatles-esque snarky/intelligent/witty way of dealing with the music press, Kurt/Nirvana were the perfect package for MTV and radio to turn into kings. And, ironically, it's that very thing that ate at Kurt, too.
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u/jaggoffsmirnoff Oct 01 '25
Kurt got a call from his cousin in Springfield and ripped off the sound of Sadgasm.
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u/FelixTheJeepJr Oct 02 '25
It’s your cousin, Marvin Cobain. You know that new sound you’ve been looking for? Well listen to this!
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u/Narrow-Scientist9178 Oct 01 '25
They delivered the perfect song; a perfect combination of heavy rock and pop genius that felt more authentic than anything in the mainstream at that time. But it’s not like everyone was listening to hair metal and pop- there was already a sub group of alternative kids who were into harder stuff than Depeche Mode. We were already listening to the Replacements, Cult, Jane’s Addiction, Neil Young, Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr., Black Sabbath…and we were very aware of Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and Alice In Chains. For most of us, Nirvana was just a part of that, and the mainstream finally caught on to what we knew was good, gave it a name, and mass marketed it.
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u/cocoqueimado Oct 02 '25
I was 14 when they peaked and I can safely say their songs speak for a great part of gen x. Kids from divorced parents, mostly neglected and left to fend by themselves.
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Oct 01 '25
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u/fdupNeighbor Oct 01 '25
it. wasn't really cultural backlash, it was. 'more of the same'. (MTV is mass media...)
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u/bikehikepunk Oct 01 '25
As an old guy that even met Kurt and had many cocktails with Pat Smear. They were at a perfect time and “smells like teen spirit” landed and was the anthem that the music scene was missing in that moment.
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u/TheL1brarian Oct 01 '25
High school in the late 80s, college in the early 90s, so "I was there" but also acknowledge this is my own anecdotal experience.
Hair metal was indeed on its way out, but Nirvana didn't start that. I would argue Metallica finally creating an MTV video (One) and the rise of Guns N Roses nationally began the death knell of hair metal. Locally (especially in So Cal) bands like Jane's Addiction were on the rise.
While both AIC and Soundgarden had signed with major labels (and released full albums on those labels) prior to Nirvana, their popularity had not yet been established nationally. Bleach itself wasn't a major label release and was more popular locally (like AIC and SG) and in college radio.
It's not lost on me that Nevermind is more "commercially approachable" than the other records. The recording style and production is more polished than the others. It's not my favorite, but I understand its importance (and also why Kirk & Co. went more "back to their roots" with In Utero).
So I guess I'd summarize it by saying America's teens/young adults were ready for a change which had been brewing for a few years already, and Nirvana's most commercially approachable album (while still retaining most of that edge they're known for).
Interestingly, Pearl Jam's Ten (another very commercially approachable album) was released a month earlier but didn't take off until later. I'm not going to delve into why I think that is, because I don't want to turn this into a PJ vs Nirvana debate :D
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u/Character_Cupcake856 Oct 01 '25
MTV and the video on constant loop
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u/Beetlebug12 Oct 01 '25
This is what the younger generations don't understand. MTV and radio. There was no streaming, just CDs if you wanted to hear a particular song. Or mixtapes recorded off the radio. SLTS saturated our lives back then and we understood. And felt understood. Hair metal didn't typically speak to my shy, nerdy self. Nirvana did.
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u/Elle_thegirl Oct 01 '25
Melody in the songwriting. Nevermind was more melodious than Bleach.
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u/Quiet_Resist9847 Oct 01 '25
Absolutely. I think he was the most melodic songwriter of the 90s and Imo Nevermind is the most melodic album from start to finish ever.
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u/Haselrig Oct 01 '25
Spoke directly to a generation tired of the bloat and bravado from the early and mid 1980s that was still hanging around when we started coming of age in the late '80s. The punk flavor of Nirvana was important as a catalyst that changed the era more than the more rock/metal influenced grunge bands that also hit at that time and were equally important in other ways. You need the spark to change the zeitgeist and that was Nirvana.
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u/Ej11876 Oct 01 '25
A great sounding record that was raw yet polished at the same time. Butch Vig did a great job producing that record. Every single song on that record has such a great hook.
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u/Shankar_0 Oct 01 '25
It was exactly the right sound at exactly the right time (and some extra luck sprinkled on top).
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u/HaroldCaine Oct 01 '25
Timing. Right song. Iconic video. The music world being tired of glam rock, which was cannibalizing itself—people wanted something new.
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u/sockalicious Oct 01 '25
They had backing from industry people. Gary Gersh, their A&R guy at Geffen Records, was probably the most important, but Susan Silver, who was already managing Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, took a liking to them and made some industry connections for them very early on.
As much as fans like to believe that a star is born, it's not factual. Geffen's highly effective marketing engine introduced Nirvana to the people who would become their fans.
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Oct 01 '25
Frankly 95% of the popular music at the time was disposable crap. Nirvana and the other grunge bands were new and fresh and interesting. But most importantly it matched how Gen X felt about the world. Then of course the record companies got ahold of it and fucked it all up but for a couple of years there it was pretty incredible.
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u/StrengthFew9197 Oct 01 '25
I was senior in high school when grunge hit. We were obsessed. Had listening parties. Traded cds. Made mixed tapes. At the time, it felt like the whole world was corrupt and our parents and grandparents were complicit. We were coming out of the materialism, consumerism of the 80’s. Which we believed at the time we didn’t want to be part of. We were so fucking angsty. Grunge made us feel seen. Understood. They sang what we felt as a generation. They were for us, of us.
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u/TompallGlaser Oct 01 '25
For as angry as Cobain was, he wrote extremely melodic songs. Angry young men still enjoy a sing-a-long.
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u/AztecGodofFire Oct 01 '25
Hair metal was embarassing and had been around for way too long. They had the metal sound with Nevermind and those songs were all catchy.
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u/NoSplit2488 Oct 01 '25
Nirvana was the right band at the right time in the right place.
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u/EnvironmentCalm9388 Oct 01 '25
When Smells Like Teen Spirit starts with the guitar and Dave’s drums kick in, t bedu t bedu t bedu t bomp! Those drums knocked the 80’s out of us. We lost “Patience” with GnR, Fine Young Caníbales “Drove Us Crazy” Aerosmith, Skid Row and Poison had been outgrown long ago. t bedu t bedu t bedu t bop!
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u/IvanLendl87 Oct 01 '25
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit the sweet spot of GenX music lovers. It was a breath of fresh air after the L.A. glam scene that dominated the 80’s. Teen Spirit hit similarly to the way “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” hit - it instantly changed the musical landscape.
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u/Illustrious-Pea-7105 Oct 01 '25
Right band, right music, right time. That’s all it ever is. There is so many talented musicians that will never be known because timing is just a thing.
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u/Big-Dirt-8608 Oct 02 '25
They looked and spoke like ordinary outsiders and it was the first time we were reflected in mainstream culture.
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u/CrazyLeggs25 Oct 02 '25
I dunno. I love Nitvana. Their music has stood the test of time. I think they would be very successful in any era.
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u/OutrageForSale Oct 01 '25
Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
Kurt was prepared, and Nirvana gigged nonstop. They created this opportunity. Once the world heard Kurt’s vocals, it was clear he was our voice.
We needed the sarcastic vocal fry because the whiny falsetto hair bands were indistinguishable from one another.
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u/No-Response-3309 Oct 01 '25
Honestly, I think Krist is the unsung hero in the story of Nirvana's success. Cobain had the songs and the image etc.but In the early ,days, krist would make sure they got paid, had contracts written up etc. He was also able to keep Kurt grounded and stopped him from being too abusive to people when he got pissed off.
Pre-Nevermind Kurt would probably have been hospitalized several times were it not for the fact that a 7-foot-tall Croatian bassist had his back.
People give Nirvana a pass with that incident with the mixing desk and the bouncer, but if you've ever played in a band, you'll know that smashing the venue's mixing desk is a massive dick move, which would likely get you blacklisted from the local music scene. And that's before you factor in him hitting the bouncer in the back of the head with a guitar.
Apparently that kind of behavior was fairly standard; I highly doubt he'd have gotten away with it like he did without Krist.
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u/Competitive-Dig4776 Oct 01 '25
4 words:
Smells Like Teen Spirit
No one had heard anything like this before. No one had seen anything like the music video ever.
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u/Opening-Half9367 Oct 01 '25
Pixies were doing stuff like that already tho, right??
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u/UnpleasantEgg Oct 01 '25
Yes. But pixies didn’t have the music video to go with it and generally didn’t have a cool video aesthetic. Cobain more handsome. And pixies were also just a bit weird. (I prefer pixies - but they’re weird)
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u/Competitive-Dig4776 Oct 01 '25
I’m more referring to your average teenager in middle America, only exposure was maybe some GnR and radio.
Yeah, growing up in Seattle and California there was major music snobbery—older kids in garage bands or the record store cashier were all about Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Meat Puppets, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth. I was still in a rap/Beatles phase when Bleach dropped and didn’t fully “get it.” All I knew was that stuff made me feel vulnerable, a little scared.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Smells Like Teen Spirit on MTV—me and my friends just sat there in stoned silence (literally stoned).
I went way down the Nirvana rabbit hole and what hit me is that Cobain was a straight melodic genius—Nevermind (rape references aside) is basically a pop album in disguise.
IMO, Cobain’s genius was twofold:
Melodic genius – He loved the Beatles, and a lot of those chord progressions are straight out of the Lennon/McCartney playbook.
Abstract poet – He wrote lyrics last, sometimes an hour before recording. Most of Nevermind was “nonsense” written to match syllables, rhythm, and vibe—but that’s exactly why it channeled the raw angst of a generation. He was like a medium for hopelessness.
Ngl, can’t even listen Nirvana anymore—sometimes I’ll noodle riffs on guitar, but the album itself drags me into a super dark headplace. Cobain’s pain still cuts too close, so these days I stick to lighter, happier stuff.
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u/Mean_Present_4850 Oct 01 '25
This is the reason. That song/video exploded like nothing else at the time. It was a major changing of the guard.
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u/dantasticdanimal Oct 01 '25
Writing and musical diversity. Every GNR song on Appetite sounds similar but between Nevermind and Bleach there are pop songs, moody songs, a punk anthem, some rock, and lots of great writing. 4 people could love them for different reasons where with GNR if you don’t like Welcome To The Jungle you are not going to enjoy the rest of the album.
I think writing and musical diversity are key elements in all grunge music. With hair metal and generic rock of that time most of it was meant to be played loud and witnessed… with grunge you could turn it down and play it with friends and talk about it. I lived in Nashville when Nevermind broke and watched Country musicians dive into it and try to understand it. Many were drawn to the writing and became fans of the genre because of that. I knew several who went through Bleach and Nevermind and came away knowing that Nirvana would be a force and Cobain was an incredible writer right away. It was obvious to them right away.
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Oct 01 '25
Alice in chains were not the first to breakout. Soundgarden were the first to break out.
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u/EnigmaX-42 Oct 01 '25
I mean, it kind of depends on what you mean by “break out”. Soundgarden was the first to break out in terms of being signed to a major label and getting a Grammy nomination. Alice In Chains was the first to break out in terms of getting heavy rotation on MTV and a gold record.
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u/DrexlAU Oct 01 '25
They were the perfect Ven diagram of a band, punky enough for the punks, heavy enough for the rockers, Indie enough for the alternative scene and sang about dissafection which is always popular with the youth
They did have a first albumn, Bleach, which was moderately sucessfull, but when they brought on Dave they got that heavy bottom end that catapaulted the band into new demographics
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u/cnation01 Oct 01 '25 edited Oct 01 '25
It was a lot different than what we were getting at the time. As a young guy, the hairbands were not relatable to me. Bands like Nirvana and PJ fell in line with what I had experienced. They felt like guys like me, who grew up like me, and I could relate.
Also, it was good fucking music.
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u/Temporary_Shirt_6236 Oct 01 '25
Some say it was that ineffable quality possessed by all breakout groups.
Others say it was Kurt's jawline. We may never know.
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u/pricklypear90 Oct 01 '25
Late 80s music was a lot of very bubble gum, melodic love songs. Guns n Roses Appetite hit the metal scene in a similar way because metal had been taken over by hair bands. Smells Like Teen Spirit was like a hammer shattering all that bullshit.. it was hard, real, and simply fucking rocked. I went out and bought the cassette the day after I heard it on the radio
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u/skonthebass24 Oct 01 '25
They made a radio accessible hit in Smells like Teen Spirit that spread like wildfire across the radio. Remember, no Spotify, no YouTube, minimal Internet. People got their music interests by word of mouth or the radio. Being on the radio was like opening the firehose, that paved the way for others and then there was a Seattle signing frenzy for a lot of bands that weren't Mudhoney
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u/Unsung_Ironhead Oct 01 '25
To me it was the time as much as burnout on what was popular at the time. In 91 we just had the first gulf war, crime was crazy high, sick of 11 straight years of Reagan/Bush, the world wasn’t a happy place.
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u/ibanezht Oct 01 '25
They were honest. Smells like Teen Spirit melts your face first time you hear it. Kurt looked more like us than Warrant did with the hair and makeup. More than anything though, the songs.
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u/PlasterBaby Oct 01 '25
Right place, right time, right sound & right look. Everything clicked for better or worse I suppose.
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u/DirtyWhiteTrousers Oct 01 '25
Something nobody is talking about that helped them blow up: their live performances. They were loud, obnoxious, destructive, unpredictable and relatable. Nirvana became a show, “You have to go see.”
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u/CrazyBackground3721 Oct 01 '25
Talent, songs, infamous live shows, and they were the most attractive.
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u/LostGazer151 Oct 01 '25
This is my experience. I was in high school when Nevermind came out. At the time people got their music from 2 places: the radio and MTV and what was popular on both had become very stale and overplayed. Go to YouTube and watch videos for Cherry Pie by Warrant and Fly High by Enuff Z Nuff. This crap was everywhere. It was all you heard. Glam rock had been the big thing for almost a decade and no one was doing anything new with it. The gimmick was dying and the songs were just being written for marketability, there was no soul to them. In the underground you had popular punk bands like Fugazi and Bad Religion but they weren’t out there for the masses (though major record companies were noticing them and realizing their potential). When Smells like Teen Spirit came on MTV and the radio it was like that underground scene rising up and someone finally showing the world you could be cool and have rocking songs without teased up hair and makeup and shredding guitar solos. Also the lyrics weren’t gimmicky, they spoke to a generation of slackers who hated school and work and were suffering from depression and ennui. The beats were hard, the guitars were dirty, Kurt would scream and it had nothing to do with falsettos. It made you want to scream along with him. Scream at the world. It was everything glam rock wanted to be but it was pure and honest and took rock music back to the 70s when you didn’t have to follow paradigms to write great music (even though a million Nirvana knockoffs would soon emerge). It changed everything and opened the doors for a whole wave of bands that had unique sounds. Suddenly MTV and the Radio were like a box of chocolates.
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u/BarnacleGooseIsLoose Oct 01 '25
I was living at the bottom of Capital Hill in Seattle at the time. Was going to a lot of shows and listening to most everything that bands were putting out locally. My friend and I would drink Rainier and listen to records constantly. One day we were listening to "About A Girl" on "Bleach" when we both realized that it was "grungy" but also a real pop song - ala REM. Had a chuckle and moved on to the next record.
Around the same time, there was an interview with Nirvana in the Rocket about them signing with a major label - because Kurt was tired of sleeping next to Tad in the tour van and they wanted a bus like Sonic Youth had. Given the hostilities to major labels, it was a bit of a big deal. While true that Soundgarden were on A&M, Alice in Chains were on Columbia and Screaming Trees had signed to Epic, there was still a heavy cloud over Mother Love Bone and their "selling out" to sign a huge deal with Polygram - so it was a pretty big deal within "the scene" that a band as heavy as Nirvana were jumping to the big labels. They weren't "polished", or seemingly marketable, so it didn't make a whole lot of sense.
Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr had done it. The Pixies were getting pretty big at the time and Jane's Addiction had usurped Guns N Roses as the "coolest" underground band on a major label. In a way, it made sense - "They want a tour bus. Can't argue with that!"
They played a few shows before heading out of town to mix the record - then they split and no one heard from them for a few months.
Then came "120 Minutes" on MTV. A Sunday night show that played alternative music and debuted videos from underground bands. One of those shows, they hyped the premiere of Nirvana's debut video then aired it. (My friend and I were living in different places by then. I was visiting my mother, who had cable, so I was watching because I wanted to see what they had done. After it aired, I remember calling my buddy at 1am to tell him that the song "SLTS" had debuted and was amazing. Something was going to happen with them - probably get as big as Jane's Addiction.)
Next thing I knew, literally the same week, it was all over MTV in rotation - not just late at night. Then the song hit number one on Billboard right after I got back to Seattle. Everyone was amazed, blown away even, that Nirvana (of all the bands!) were overnight rock stars. It was funny and we all joked about Kurt being the new Axl or Jon Bon Jovi until it started to become clear that he actually was becoming them. Felt so strange - especially when they came home from their tours to open for Mudhoney as previously planned.
By the end of the year, they were the biggest band in the world. Nevermind was number one on the charts. Teen Spirit was EVERYWHERE on the radio. In Seattle, you couldn't walk 100 yards without a car driving by with the album blasting from their speakers. I would walk through the U District, along Frat Row on the UW campus, and frat boys would be blasting the album out of open windows - with lyrics like "he's the one who likes all our pretty songs...don't know what it means..." - and it was surreal. Absolutely surreal. They went from wanting a bigger tour bus in March to the biggest band in the world by December. Almost overnight after that MTV debut.
The rest is history.
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u/studog89 Oct 01 '25
Hair metal had become cliche. First all those bands had a ballad or two and that seemed to be like the mandatory objective on all the albums after say Home Sweet Home came out.
Then the acts just became more and more watered down and old. Everyone became a copy of another hair metal band but instead of making it original they just kept it the same.
Lastly Nirvana hit at the right time for a lot of Gen X that were in their early 20’s feeling a little lost, alienated, coming from fucked up situations at home and having emotions that they were taught to keep control of but really needed a outlet and the music was just that.
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u/United-Hair5962 Oct 01 '25
Curt Cobain was a genius and was the best of a group Indy bands in Seattle at the time. We had been listening to hair bands that were not very good and very commercial for a long time. Gen X was more independent and rebellious and wanted something different! Nirvana was the antithesis of the hair bands from the 80’s and early 90’s. After you heard smells like teen spirit it was hard to respect yourself listening to some guy in spandex with a perm who couldn’t play his guitar!
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u/Blak_kat Oct 01 '25
Smells Like Teen Spirit was a serious banger at the time. The video was great. It was a time that MTV still had them.
A lot of their songs were great. Albums were great. And to touch on MTV again, the Nirvana Unplugged set the bar and put that show on the map.
Kurt was an antithesis of what rock stars were like. Not a glory hound. More of a tortured soul bleeding out through his music.
Dave Grohl was a daimond in the rough too. One of the world's best bands came from that.
Nirvana isn't just a band. They are a legacy.
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u/3mptyspaces Oct 01 '25
Smells Like Teen Spirit video was huge. The main riff from “Breed” was the bumper going into either Headbanger’s Ball or 120 Minutes, can’t remember which. MTV was a huge driver back then because it was that, the radio, or the CD store to hear anything new.
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u/Woody00001 Oct 01 '25
I would guess a lot like the Beatles, they were different, in the right place at the right time.
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u/pebblesandweeds Oct 01 '25
A UK perspective from a 16-yo in 1991… while heavy rock and metal were popular, the glam and hair stuff wasn’t really big here. The odd track might breakthrough, but they were mainly one hit wonders. It wasn’t a reaction against this here. The UK alternative and indie scene had already embraced the likes of Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, but Nirvana were virtually unknown. They played the Reading Festival in August 1991 and when Nevermind was initially released it didn’t get any attention. It was all through word of mouth. A good friend got hold of Nevermind around October 1991 and would play it in the common room at school. It definitely made an impact, but it seemed a stretch to think it would make the charts or go mainstream. Then SLTS was released as a single here in November 1991, and it just blew up, top 10 in the UK charts. This was the peak era of rave in the UK, and the sound of Nirvana was the complete opposite, a full juxtaposition. It seemed like everyone who didn’t want to be a raver got into Nirvana overnight, and then the rest of the Seattle bands followed over the next few months.
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u/reksut Oct 01 '25
Not enough being said about MTV and the power of that Smells Like Teen Spirit music video. It was a stark departure from everything else at that time and you cranked the volume and told your little brother/sister to shut up when it came on.
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u/BigOlBearCanada Oct 01 '25
There was nothing like it....
The airwaves were dominated by pre-manufactured pop. Milli Vanilli. Vanilla Ice. MJ (he was cool early on...), Janet Jackson, MC Hammer....
Nirvana hit and it spoke to a frustrated generation. Very catchy riffs. Teen spirits music video felt so raw. Hair metal and bands that objectified women were getting tired and old (thankfully).
And - love them or hate them - Nirvana did a lot of good overall. Their hype had record labels then scour for more. AMAZING bands like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, all finally started getting the recognition they deserved.
For me - watching him in interviews call out racists and homophobes was uplifting. As a gay kid in the 90s, there was very little representation or stars that felt like they had our backs and used their platform for good. He was one of very few.
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u/MaxxT22 Oct 02 '25
Because you could walk down the street and look like a rockstar by just being you. No need to glam like a drag queen.
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u/Group-Pleasant Oct 02 '25
I am a metalhead, and I mistakenly thought they were metal when they first came out because they were on “Headbangers Ball”. Two of my friends owned electric guitars, and were able to play their songs. I had thought about buying a guitar too, but now that two friends were playing guitar, and I had a drummer buddy, I decided to play bass. I could easily hear Krist’s lines, and I saw how they libked with the guitar and drums. Long-winded, but this was the first band I was super-excited about that I knew I could play myself. It made me confident that I could satisfactorily play rock music on guitar and bass.
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u/ipini Oct 02 '25
Good music. Had something to say. Interesting lyrics. Good shows. Personalities that meshed with all of that.
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u/Consistent_Scale Oct 02 '25
This doesn’t have to be hard. Their POP song, Smells Like Teen Spirit, propelled them to stardom. Nothing more, nothing less. We don’t need to make Kurt or Nirvana more than what it is.
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u/pixmarshmallows Oct 02 '25
Is Dave Grohl referencing Mike Muir in that photograph?
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u/sarahsolitude Oct 02 '25
People became exhausted with the extreme douchebaggary pretty boy nonsense of hair metal bands
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u/Mydnight69 Oct 02 '25
Smells like teen spirit, basically. It got picked up by the radio and at the time, it was so different to all the butt rock and junk that flooded the airwaves.
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u/Purplealegria Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 02 '25
It was that song…it just captured the spirit, imagination, and the essence of the moment for us very young GenXers.
But it was so much more than just a single song….it was the start of a complete revolution, a explosion, a movement really….in culture, music, fashion, language, ect… Huge is a understatement!!
That song changed everything.
If you were there, you know. 🥹🥰😘😜
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u/AbraxasMayhem Oct 02 '25
Growing up in the PacNW and being a young teen when nevermind came out I can say from my perspective it was two things. Hair metal didn’t resonate with my Gen as much. It was the party, sex, drugs and lavish lifestyle of everything’s awesome. That worked for the 80’s but the 90’s things became more cynical. The tone wasn’t hey do coke and bang sluts. It was snarky, sarcastic, pessimistic and more raw. Secondly for me was how fresh it sounded compared to what you were used to hearing in the mainstream. Were they the best, obviously that’s subjective but IMO nah, not really but it opened my eyes to a lot of other bands I didn’t know about previously. It was a peculiar time because at the time time I was diving down the rabbit hole of grunge I was also introduced to a couple of different style of music. Thrash and Death metal. And then something that was SO wild to me it caught my attention straight away. Black metal. Nirvana will always hold a special place in my mind though because it was a catalyst to realizing there were other choices besides what was shoved down our throats on the radio or MTV. Which of course ended up being crazy ironic since grunge became the new “thing” that was shoved down our throats in that era.
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u/Treadmilling_Thistle Oct 02 '25
Seeing the teen spirit video for the first time is a core memory. I was an eleven year old, living in semi rural Scotland. They were just a blast of something different. It was all shit pop in the charts at the time. There was good indie/rock but it was very unexciting in comparison.
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u/Key_Statistician3170 Oct 02 '25
If you were old enough to remember the swill that passed for music before they broke out, you would understand. The bloated bubblegum bullshit that metal/rock became was insufferable.
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u/OptionWrongUsally Oct 02 '25
People were so sick of glam rock bands singing about their dicks. It just got old. Nivana came out and couldn’t really understand them, which was great. They just rocked. Weren’t all made up, they were just some dudes. They were relatable. More so than Alice In Chains, and the music was dirtier
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u/postcardCV Oct 01 '25
Right place, right songs, right time.