Nirvana

Nirvana was a popular rock band from Aberdeen, Washington, United States. With the lead single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from their 1991 album Nevermind, Nirvana exploded into the mainstream, bringing along with it a subgenre of alternative rock called grunge. more...

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Other Seattle grunge bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden also gained in popularity, and, as a result, alternative rock became a dominant genre on radio and music television in the United States during the early-to-middle 1990s.

As Nirvana's frontman, Kurt Cobain found himself referred to in the media as the "spokesman of a generation", with Nirvana the "flagship band" of "Generation X". Cobain was uncomfortable with the attention and placed his focus on the band's music, challenging the band's audience with their third studio album In Utero. While Nirvana's mainstream popularity waned in the months following its release, their core audience cherished the band's dark interior, particularly after their 1993 performance on MTV Unplugged.

Nirvana's brief run ended with the death of Cobain in 1994, but the band's popularity expanded in the years that followed. Eight years after Cobain's death, "You Know You're Right", an unfinished demo that the band recorded two months prior to Cobain's death, topped radio playlists around the world. Since their debut, the band has sold more than fifty million albums worldwide (see also Best selling music artists), including more than ten million copies of Nevermind in the US alone. Nirvana remains a consistent presence of influence in modern music today.

History

Early years

Cobain and Krist Novoselic met in 1985. Both were fans of The Melvins, and often hung out at the band's practice space. After a couple of false starts at forming their own band, the duo recruited drummer Aaron Burckhard, creating the first incarnation of what would eventually become Nirvana. Cobain later described the sound of the band when they first started as "a Gang of Four and Scratch Acid ripoff." In the initial months, the pair worked with several drummers, including Dale Crover of The Melvins, who played on their first demos. At the same time, the band went through a series of names, including Skid Row, Pen Cap Chew, and Ted Ed Fred. The band finally settled on Nirvana in early 1988, playing their first show under the name that March. A couple of months later, the band finally settled on a drummer, Chad Channing.

Nirvana's first official release was the single "Love Buzz/Big Cheese" in 1988. In 1989, the band released its first album, Bleach, on Sub Pop Records. The record had a limited first pressing of 1000 white vinyl records that were sold at the Lamefest in Seattle on August 8, 1989. Bleach was highly influenced by The Melvins, by the heavy dirge-rock of Mudhoney, and by the 70s rock of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Novoselic noted in a 2001 interview with Rolling Stone that the band had played a tape in their van while on tour that had an album by The Smithereens on one side and an album by the black metal band Celtic Frost on the other, and noted that the combination probably played an influence as well. Bleach became a favorite of college radio stations nationally, but gave few hints of where the band would find itself two years later.

Read more at Wikipedia.org