On December 14, 1992, "Nirvana" released "Incesticide" - a collection album of rare pieces, consisting of B-sides, demos, unreleased tracks and cover versions that the band recorded in different periods from 1988 to 1991.
In 1991 "Nirvana" was one of the biggest bands in the world of music. Their "Nevermind" album brought them worldwide fame and the fans is was thirsty for new material.
The "DGC" record company with which the band was signed, realized that "Nirvana" would not be able to enter the studio in the near future, for the purpose of recording new material, since it was in the middle of an intensive concert tour. So, in order keep the band in the audience mind, they looked for another way to release a collection album.
The opportunity came at the beginning of 1992, when "Sub Pop" label approached Nirvana's record company - "DGC Records" and informed them that they were in possession of a number of the band's recordings that had not yet been released yet. Originally, "Nirvana" intended to publish the songs through "Sub Pop" as a mini-album called "Cash Cow", however "Sub Pop" realized that if they sold the rights to "DGC" they would be able to make more money from it, also due to the distribution network industry and the economic back of the "Geffen" company.
These recordings that "Sub Pop" sold to "DGC" led to the decision to release a compilation album that would give the fans a taste of "Nirvana's" roots. The band members "flowed" with the idea, especially Kurt Cobain whose record company agreed to his condition that he would design the album cover. The album also allowed them to fight all those "bootlegs" with low audio quality in which some of the album's songs were included, since now they were given the opportunity to release all those songs in reasonable audio quality.
"Incesticide" includes 15 tracks recorded during 3 years, in which the band performed 7 different recording sessions, with five different producers. Not only that, but due to the fact that the "Nirvana's" line-up was not stable in its early years, the recordings of these 15 songs were performed by 4 different drummers: Dale Crover, Chad Channing, Dan Peters ("Mudhoney") and of course Dave Grohll.
In this compilation album you can find 3 songs that have never been released: "Hairspray Queen", "Aero Zeppelin", "Big Long". Five other songs are alternative versions of familiar songs recorded for the BBC: "Been a Son", "Turnaround" ("Devo"), "Molly's Lips", "Son of a Gun" (both originally by "The Vaselines") and "(New Wave) Polly". The rest of the songs came out on mini-albums, collections or as b-sides.
"Incesticide" has, without a doubt, achieved the purpose for which it was born. It gave the band's fans an idea of the origins of one of the biggest bands in the world at the time and the musical roots that Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain grew up on. Starting with Sludge Metal, through Punk-Rock, Garage-rRock and Indie, this album gives the listener a snapshot tracing the band's musical development and especially its growing pains before becoming a Grunge monster.
For listening: Spotify, Apple Music