Nirvana released Nevermind in the United States on September 24, 1991, through DGC Records. Their second studio album paired Kurt Cobain’s increasingly melodic songwriting with Dave Grohl’s forceful drumming. At Sound City Studios in California, producer Butch Vig worked to capture that combination, then sharpen it with additional guitars and vocals. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” became the album’s opening statement.
Vig had heard the possibilities before Grohl joined. He told Kerrang! in 2020 that “About a Girl,” from Bleach, caught his attention with its songwriting. Sessions at his Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, in April 1990, with Chad Channing on drums, revealed more of that melodic ambition in songs including “In Bloom” and “Lithium.” Nirvana were still signed to Sub Pop; the finished album would arrive through a different label with a different drummer.
One recording survived that change. The acoustic “Polly” on Nevermind came from the Smart sessions, Vig told Sound On Sound in 1997. It preserved a quieter part of the band’s earlier work alongside the recordings made after Grohl’s arrival.
Nirvana also kept Vig. Krist Novoselic initially approached him about engineering alongside another producer, then offered him the production job. A rehearsal cassette followed, with Cobain introducing Grohl before “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The drums nearly overwhelmed the recording, but Vig could hear the song underneath. When he heard the band play it in a North Hollywood rehearsal room, he immediately asked for another run-through.
That preparation helped the Sound City sessions move quickly. Vig told Headliner in 2014 that the band spent 16 days recording and had rehearsed extensively beforehand. “They wanted to make a great sounding record,” he said. The basic performances were tracked together, with repairs and additional parts recorded afterward. Much of Cobain’s finished lead singing was saved for the smaller Studio B near the end of the sessions, and Grohl added vocal harmonies.
Getting Cobain to repeat a performance could take persuasion. In a 2022 interview with Consequence, Vig recalled that the singer objected to layering extra vocals because he thought it felt fake. Vig appealed to his love of The Beatles, pointing to John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s doubled vocals. Cobain paused, then agreed. Those extra takes became part of the record’s sound, particularly in the choruses. Vig also used compression to manage the distance between Cobain’s quieter delivery and his full-throated screams, retaining both sides of the performance.
Some songs needed a different solution. Vig told journalist Stevie Chick for a 2016 Kerrang! feature that repeated attempts at “Lithium” kept accelerating until the song lost the weight he wanted. Cobain’s frustration erupted into the performance that became “Endless, Nameless,” and Vig kept recording as the band followed him. Afterward, he asked Grohl to practice with a drum machine. They returned to “Lithium” with a click track the following day, and Grohl nailed the take.
“Something In The Way” required the opposite approach to the band’s live foundation. Vig began with Cobain’s guitar and voice, then built the other parts around that performance. The arrangement made room for a cello, giving the album a quiet closing passage before the hidden “Endless, Nameless” on editions that included it.
The finished record moved from those studio decisions into heavy MTV exposure for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” On the Billboard 200 chart dated January 11, 1992, Nevermind reached No. 1, displacing Michael Jackson’s Dangerous.
