Ongoing History Daily: Kurt’s vocal problems during the making of Nevermind

Nirvana’s Nevermind album has gone down as one of the great rock albums. There were, however, challenges recording the thing. Kurt Cobain had developed a habit of singing as hard as he could for every single take. The result was a lot of passion but after a few run-throughs, his voice was pooched and anything that he tried to sing after that couldn’t be used.

Producer Butch Vig got around this by always having things set up in the studio, ready for the moment Kurt decided he wanted to sing. That way, he didn’t have to waste time with any warm-up takes and could get Kurt on tape during the three or four times he was able to go through a song. It was a bit tricky, but the approach obviously worked.