Imagine Nirvana kicking off their legendary career with a song they didn't even want to release. Sounds crazy, right? It's true! Before they were stadium headliners and grunge icons, Nirvana faced a dilemma: their record label, Sub Pop, insisted their debut single be a cover – a proposition that didn't sit well with Kurt Cobain.
Everyone starts somewhere, and the music industry is littered with bands that vanished before making their mark. Even Nirvana, those anti-establishment heroes who championed originality, had to navigate the tricky waters of record label demands.
Cover songs are a long-standing point of contention, especially in punk rock. Many purists see them as a form of selling out. The punk ethos is all about authenticity and delivering a unique message. How can you achieve that, some argue, when you're singing someone else's words? But here's where it gets controversial... countless punk bands, from The Clash to the Dead Kennedys, have recorded covers. So, is it really such a betrayal?
For Kurt Cobain, it felt significant. Even before Nirvana's explosion onto the scene, he was a prolific songwriter, crafting original material that perfectly captured the raw energy and angst of the burgeoning grunge movement. Cobain’s songwriting was, without a doubt, the engine driving Nirvana towards mainstream success in the early '90s.
And this is the part most people miss... Despite Cobain's songwriting prowess, Nirvana's first single in 1988 was a cover of Shocking Blue's psychedelic classic, 'Love Buzz'.
'Love Buzz' was a regular feature of their early gigs after Krist Novoselic unearthed a well-worn LP by the Dutch band. Nirvana could have easily passed it off as an original – few in the Seattle grunge scene would have recognized it. But when Sub Pop founders Jack Endino and Jonathan Poneman proposed it as their debut single, the band, especially Cobain, was hesitant.
As Endino confirmed, "Kurt wasn’t thrilled about doing a cover for Nirvana’s first release." Think about it from Cobain's perspective: your debut single is your shot to make a lasting impression. To have that impression based on someone else's work was understandably uncomfortable. A first single can make or break a band, especially a band like Nirvana trying to establish themselves.
Sub Pop, however, saw the potential. Poneman explained that 'Love Buzz' was "a great vehicle for the Nirvana sound, allowing them to demonstrate everything they did so well: melody, hooks." Thankfully, the risk paid off handsomely for both Nirvana and Sub Pop.
"The response was ecstatic," Poneman recalled. "Nirvana were such a powerful, out-of-nowhere phenomenon, and it started there."
'Love Buzz' might not have been Cobain's first choice, but it proved to be a stroke of genius. It propelled Nirvana to the forefront of the Sub Pop-fueled grunge scene and introduced their uniquely infectious sound to a wider audience. What's more, it seems to have opened Cobain and the band up to the idea of cover songs. They went on to record their own versions of tracks by artists ranging from David Bowie to The Vaselines. In retrospect, 'Love Buzz' was a solid debut, indeed.
But here's a thought: Could Nirvana have achieved even greater success faster if they'd released an original song as their debut? Or was the unique twist of a grunge band covering a psychedelic rock song part of their initial appeal? What do you think? Did 'Love Buzz' help or hinder Nirvana's rise, and why?
