By the end of 1992, Nirvana were the biggest band in the world. Nevermind had sold over a million copies and Smells Like Teen Spirit was the anthem of a generation. Yet, this was not the beginning. The band did not materialize out of the ether like some music does today. Not tacked together by some music label and not packaged up for the consumer. A band of true, raw, artistic talent. A band whose routes lie in a relatively little known album, known as Bleach.
Bleach was recorded between December 1988 and January 1989, within a short space of two months. The 80’s was a decade of American music punctuated mainly with big, stadium playing ‘hair metal’ bands such as Aerosmith, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Motley Crue. It was music complete with polished recording, high pitched vocals and seemingly endless guitar solos. Bandanas, tight trousers, it was the kind of scene that some might describe as all image and no substance. Of show-off, soulless rock. But grunge was to change all that.
Grunge
Nirvana wasn’t the first Grunge band to emanate from the murky Seattle landscape. The world had already had a taste of what the city would come to offer to music. Bands such as Mudhoney, The Melvins, Soundgarden had already made the rounds and were being talked about all over before Nirvana entered the music fan’s dialect. They were signed to the label that would go on to become synonymous with the Grunge scene, also known as the ‘Seattle Sound’, Sub Pop.
Sub Pop was by all rights as pure an indie label as there has ever been. Originally it was a music fanzine run by then student Bruce Pavitt. It became a fully fledged label in 1986, releasing compilation tapes of bands associated with the label, including Sonic Youth. Later, Jonathan Poneman invested $20,000 in order to fund the label’s first release, Soundgarden’s debut single, Hunted Down/Nothing to Say. This was followed by the band’s first EP, Screaming Life. The investment lead to the Pavitt/Poneman partnership that is so famous amongst music fans today. It was rock music different to the hair metal that dominated most of the decade; it fused the heaviness of metal with punk sensibilities and riffs. Grunge had arrived.
At this time there was a then little known band doing the usual pub and club circuit around the Seattle area. They were a band known for playing University dorms and parties, nothing even remotely close to the superstars that they were to become. They were Nirvana.
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