Butch Vig Reflects on 25 Years of Nirvana’s “Nevermind”

In a new interview with The Daily Beast, super-producer and Garbage member Butch Vig touched on an array of subjects including the time he spent working with Nirvana on their classic album Nevermind.

At one point the interviewer asked Vig why Nevermind has managed to stand the test of time after all these years.

“Part of it is that the performances are amazing-sounding, really intense, and very focused,” said Vig. “But the songs are super hook-y. They’re gloriously hook-y pop songs dressed up with punk attitude, so you can sing along to pretty much every song at the top of your lungs. Great choruses. It’s real simple production. I know people groused at the time that it was too slick, but it’s not slick. It’s drums in a room, a guitar, and bass. Sometimes we double-tracked the guitar and sometimes we’d add a few harmonies and Kurt would double-track his voice, but it was dead simple production.”

Vig was later asked about Cobain’s issue with the album’s production value, citing a comment the late frontman made about Nevermind sounding more like a Motley Crue album than a punk album.

After laughing at that line, Vig offered the following: “When we finished the record he loved it. Absolutely loved it. We did some playbacks and he said, ‘Oh my god, this is fucking incredible.’ Cut to a year later when it’s sold 10 million records, and you have to disown it. You can’t have any punk ethics and go, ‘Man, I love the way our last record sounds and am so happy it sold 10 million copies!’ Dave, Krist, and I talked about it at the 20th anniversary and we all agreed, Man, that record sounds fucking amazing. And it does. People complained that Andy Wallace’s mix was too slick, but it isn’t. If you compare it to anything you hear on the radio, it’s still raw-sounding.”

Agreed.