Nirvana’s a Million-Seller--Never Mind Why

What gives with Nirvana?

The Aberdeen, Wash., trio has no particular charisma. Most of its lyrics are incomprehensible. And in the current pop climate of largely rap and dance music, the band relies on grungy guitars.

So why in the world is Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album selling through the roof--now in its fourth week in the Top 5 on the Billboard sales charts, outselling both Guns N’ Roses and Metallica?

“If you get an answer, let us know,” said Bill Bennett, national director of promotion for the band’s label, Geffen sister company DGC Records. And he wasn’t just being sly. No one seems to have a great, rational, all-encompassing explanation just yet.

Theories do abound on why “Nevermind” has sold more than a million copies in just 10 weeks.

Says Karen Glauber, post-modern rock editor at the trade magazine Hits: “It started with your basic chain of events--which is college and alternative radio, spreading over to the mainstream college student, who in turn spreads it to his little brother and sister. And now the kids have seen the video of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on MTV and have to have the record. Usually, as with R.E.M., that process takes a period of years; this is a period of weeks .

“The record company was able to respond to it brilliantly and realize what they had on their hands instead of ghettoizing it into just an ‘alternative’ record. But I don’t think anybody was prepared for what’s happened. I think this proves having a hit is not a science.”

The album, which was released in late September, had already sold about 100,000 copies in its first week or two of release--considerably more than the group’s debut, “Bleach,” on the independent Sub Pop label ever sold--before MTV put the video in the high-priority “buzz bin.”

Then, said Bennett, it “exploded.”

MTV concurs, but its staff admits that the album was taking off through pure word of mouth before the video went into heavy rotation.

“Every once in a while a record comes along that has that magic, and no one can put their finger on it,” said Abbey Konowitch, senior vice president of music programming at MTV, joining the chorus of happily puzzled execs. “The magic of a real hit is you don’t know why. In an era where there are so many hyped hits, that’s exciting.”

Even album-rock radio, a creaky format that is often reluctant to play edgy “alternative” acts, has picked up the ball and run with it.

“The thing that fascinates me,” said Bennett, “is when you see it at both (alternative station) KROQ and (hard-rocker) KNAC--both the No. 1 record with No. 1 phone requests. They’re usually mutually exclusive audiences. The record defies all of that stuff.”

The next hurdle, as Nirvana moves toward an unthinkable No. 1 album: Top 40 airplay for the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” single. But Bennett says the label is wary of pushing it too heavily at that format, lest core fans be turned off.

“We don’t want it to be one of those too -fashionable records. We’re trying very hard not to make it like hype, because the facts speak for themselves.”