Jack Endino, the producer behind Nirvana’s debut album Bleach, has opened up about his “least favourite” record from the band.

While fans often cite Nevermind or In Utero as their top picks — albums that propelled Nirvana into mainstream success — the former gets the least love from Endino due to how ‘polished’ it sounds.

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“It’s probably my least favorite Nirvana record to listen to because, for my ears, the production is a little distracting,” says Endino of the Butch Vig-produced follow-up to 1989’s Bleach [via Ultimate Guitar].

“It’s like there’s a barrier between me and the band,” he explains. “And I don’t feel that barrier so much with In Utero. Steve Albini’s sonic choices are there clearly in how things were miked and recorded and mixed, but it still sounds like a band playing in a room. And Nevermind sounds a little bit like a production to me. It’s a bit slick.”

Despite his reservations about the production style of Nevermind, Endino acknowledges its impact: “But you can’t argue with something that sounds that amazing on the radio,” he says. “It was the right production for that music, for that time, to get the result that it got, which was to sell a zillion copies. But just personally, I like hearing the live recordings of them doing those songs, because that’s the band I remember.”

Nevermind has since sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Elsewhere in the chat, Endino also shares how he’d sensed Nirvana’s potential while he was working on Bleach and liked the band enough to that “it occurred to me that if they ever needed a second guitar player, I should probably, like, raise my hand.”

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