Courtney Love has revealed she believes that ‘In Bloom’ should have been the lead single from Nirvana’s seminal album Nevermind, instead of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.
In an interview with the Los Angles Times to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Nevermind, Courtney Love said she was “very firmly in the club that says ‘In Bloom’ should have been the first single from the album.”
While ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is largely considered Nirvana‘s breakout hit and best-known song, ‘In Bloom’ was the fourth single from Nevermind, with ‘Come As You Are’ and ‘Lithium’ serving as its second and third.
According to Love, who was married to frontman Kurt Cobain from 1992 until his 1994 death, the band’s rise to fame would not have been as intense if they had chosen ‘In Bloom’ as the first single instead.
I’m not really a fan of the idea that it all ‘could have’ been that different but ‘In Bloom’ might have shifted things,” she said.
“[Cobain] might have survived had somebody else [gone first]. Like Eddie Vedder, somebody who had good infrastructure.”
Love went on to tell the publication that ‘In Bloom’ was a better track overall because it “had no shtick”.
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“Although that drum fill is fantastic in ‘Teen Spirit’, there was a little of a K Records shtick,” she said.
“I recently saw the lyric ‘Who will be the king and queen of the outcasted teens’ [from an early ‘Teen Spirit’ draft] and there was a bit of the K Records vibe to that too. I am really fond of the ‘outcasted teens’ line. I found [Cobain’s] bad grammar, like my own, fetching.”
In other news, Love’s own band, Hole, celebrated the 30th anniversary of their debut album Pretty On The Inside earlier this month. Love is set to commemorate the record with an art exhibition in October.
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Check out ‘In Bloom’ by Nirvana:
