Stop Fetishizing Data

Our numbers obsession has killed music journalism, now it’s slowly killing music itself

When Nirvana released “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in 1991, no data would have been able to predict its massive success.

Their first album Bleach had initially not sold very well. It even failed to chart.

David Geffen still offered Nirvana a major deal and bought them out of their indie contract. Their next album, Nevermind, sold 30 million copies worldwid…