How Many People Listen to Nirvana?

Not that many, thinks the Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias:

In general, for a much-praised and undoubtedly influential band, Nirvana strikes me as shockingly little listened-to in practice.

Let's dispel anyone of that notion.

I'll start by referring to sales data. That's not a perfect match for "listened-to," but I'll go on the assumption that if you buy the album, there's a really good chance that you're going to listen to it.

Nirvana's most best-known album, Nevermind, has sold 27 million copies world-wide. The first 10 million of those sold in the U.S. have earned it the coveted(?) Diamond certification issued by the Recording Industry Association of America, one of only 102 albums released in the U.S. to sell at least that many. It's also one of 40 albums since it was released in September 1991 to reach the Diamond level and the 84th best-selling album of all time.

But that's just Nevermind. Two other albums, In Utero and Unplugged, have both sold 5 million copies each in the U.S. A 1997 concert video, Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!, has sold 3 million copies.

O.K., so this might just represent earlier interest in Nirvana which has by now dissipated. So let's turn to another source which has more up-to-date info.

On Last.fm, a MySpace for music lovers, Nirvana has been scrobbled, or listened to, 42 million times. The service started in 2002, so perhaps it was just catching the tail-end of the Nirvana interest.

On MySpace, the Nirvana page, up since 2005 it says, has some 89,000 friends. On Last.fm's competitor site iLike, up since 2006, Nirvana has over 1 million fans. That's more than Metallica, Madonna, and Dr. Dre, but not as many as Radiohead, Justin Timberlake, and Kanye West. (Interestingly, the most popular Nirvana song on both iLike and Last.fm is "Come As Your Are" -- not "Smells Like Teen Spirit," although that's the #2 song.)

Lastly, back on Last.fm, guess who the number 8 most-listened-to artist is -- this week. Outside of the Beatles at #3, Nirvana is the only band on the site's top 10 list that's still not around, except on millions of playlists.

UPDATE
I also forgot to mention that in 2006, Courtney Love sold 25 percent of the publishing rights to the Nirvana catalog for a sum rumoured to be above $50 million, valuing the entire catalog at at least $200 million.

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