Nirvana wasn’t shy about sharing their opinions on pop music in the early 90s. In fact, they drew intriguing comparisons between pop and punk rock at the time (to quote Krist Novoselic, “The Clash were a pop band.”) In 1995, NME re-published an interview with the grunge icons—posthumously in Kurt Cobain’s case—that had taken place in 1991.
Then, Nirvana was still up-and-coming, newly signed to Geffen Records, and awaiting the release of Nevermind. Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic dominated the interview, because, apparently, Dave Grohl “spent the entire conversation fast asleep under a table.”
The concept of “punk fundamentalists … sharpening their knives” was brought up when discussing the upcoming album. Like with many commercial breakthroughs, the word “sell-out” would be thrown around. However, Nirvana took that as just part of the business.
“I think [Nevermind] is a fine mixture of radio friendly accessible crap and still reminding you of what our Bleach album sounds like and what we sound like live,” said Cobain. While he stated that their sound was “still heavy,” he also said that “we’ve been practically warning everyone that we’re writing more pop songs, so I don’t think it’ll be a surprise to anyone when they hear it.”
Nirvana on Pop music: Not a “term of disgrace”
When asked to clarify if they saw the term “pop music” as a “term of disgrace,” Kurt Cobain was quick to defend the genre.
“A disgrace? Oh, absolutely not,” he said. “All my favorite songs are pop songs. The Butthole Surfers have pop songs. Pop just means simple, and that’s what punk rock has been forever until it turned into hardcore.”
This distinction and connection between pop music and punk rock is worth noting. Here, Cobain doesn’t disparage one or the other, even though he calls them “simple.” While some punk purists might bristle at the comparison, there’s something about it that makes total sense. “Popular” isn’t a synonym for “bad,” as much as many so-called music critics might like to think.
Novoselic added to the conversation then, naming another punk band. “Like the Sex Pistols record, those are all pop songs,” he said. “It’s a great record. The Clash were a pop band.”
Kurt Cobain on radio-friendly hits vs cohesive sound
Cobain and Novoselic talk about the pop phenomenon again in the interview while describing the state of the music industry. When describing the process of using radio-friendly songs to build an audience while still staying authentic to a cohesive sound, Cobain urged that it wasn’t something negative. However, he still clarified that Nirvana wasn’t exactly doing that.
“We never sat down and said, ‘Let’s write a few radio-friendly pop songs and then still play some songs that sound like Bleach so we can keep our audience and maybe get on MTV…’” he said.
“If you did something that contrived it’d show. And there’s nothing worse than being ranked on by people you respect,” Novoselic added. Cobain then declared that general opinions of Nirvana didn’t really faze them anyway.
“But at the same time,” he said, “if we felt like doing a disco album [the audience’s] reaction wouldn’t stop us from doing that.”
Photo by Paul Bergen/Redferns
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