Nirvana Compilation Taking Shape

Tweet

Nirvana's last recording may finally see the light of day. According to sources close to the project, Universal Music Group hopes to put out a one-disc Nirvana greatest-hits album before the end of the year. Though no track listing was available at press time, the CD would include "You Know You're Right," the song Nirvana recorded less than three months before Kurt Cobain committed suicide on April 5th, 1994.

"It's a win-win situation for the band and for fans," says Nirvana bassist Kurt Novoselic. "The music will finally come out."

The fate of any future Nirvana release has been at the center of a legal battle between Courtney Love, Novoselic and Dave Grohl for more than two years now. Both sides have sought to dissolve Nirvana LLC, a 1997 partnership that required all three to agree on Nirvana business decisions. Love claims that since Cobain was the band's principal songwriter, his heirs should have control over the band's legacy. Novoselic and Grohl counter that the band had functioned as a partnership and should continue to do so.

The bitter conflict scuttled plans for the Nirvana box set that had been planned for last fall, to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Nevermind's release. Love advocates a single disc, which would include "You Know You're Right." Her manager and boyfriend, Jim Barber, argued in legal proceedings that the song was "a potential 'hit' of extraordinary artistic and commercial value" and that a greatest-hits package including it would sell between 10 million and 15 million copies.

At press time, sources said Love, Novoselic and Grohl were working toward an amicable agreement that would clear the way for the album and a possible "You Know You're Right" video.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES The 10 Best Zombie Movie Scenes
• 
  TV The Most WTF? Moments of 'Mad Men'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter