Nirvana Essay

In the early 90’s, music goers got to witness the stardom of the American Rock and roll band Nirvana. They were a trio beginning with the founder and lead guitarist Kurt Cobain. Kurt Cobain along with bassist Kris Nivoselic and drummer Dave Grohl were the top punk rockstars music has ever seen. The three members lived in Aberdeen, Washington who became friends in high school and later embarked on their music journey. To begin with the basics, Kurt Corban made the decision to name the band “Nirvana”. Most rock and roll band names often have an edgy and punk-like title to the band. However, Nirvana is the total opposite. In Buddhism Nirvana is the place of divinity and peace. Kurt wanted the band's name to be represented in a beautiful way.

They signed with the recorded label on a one year contract. Sub Pop was a small independent record label that got the chance to work with Nirvana before they made a significant impact on music. In this contract, the members were paid a whopping 600 dollars. This is certainly very underwhelming, for the millions of records they sold later in their music journey, Nevertheless, this was at the very start of their music career. Under Sub Pop records, the band released their first debut album “Bleach”. This album was the world's first proper introduction to the alternative rock band. The cover of the album was a photograph of Cobain ex-girlfriend playing at a concert. The coloring was released in black and white, inverted of color. Cobain wrote the majority of lyrics and played the guitar for the album. At the time of the release, Bleach only sold 40,000 copies, before it was released internationally. With this album, they brought in a new audience that they never had before. Slowly but surely they were gaining more listeners and record sales. Their time with Sub Pop records was short lived, as they broke away from the label after a year. Soon after, Nirvana gathered with DGC records in 1990. DGC was an American major record label that got the opportunity to lead Nirvana into selling millions of records later on in their career. While Micheal Jackson was the leading pop star in music, outselling every