Nirvana’s iconic album Nevermind turned 30 years old yesterday. In honor of the anniversary, Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love spoke to the LA Times about the album. “I’ve never done an interview on Nevermind before, so in honor of its 30th anniversary, I spoke with Charles Cross and the LA Times – my hometown paper … about what that album meant and means to me,” she wrote on Instagram.

Love thinks that “In Bloom,” rather than “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” should have been the first single from Nevermind. “Life would have turned out simpler and better had I been heard,” she says. “I’m not really a fan of the idea that it all ‘could have’ been that different, but ‘In Bloom’ might have shifted things. He might have survived had somebody else [gone first]. Like Eddie Vedder, somebody who had good infrastructure.”

“We were in Salem, Ore., when Nevermind went to No. 1. He cried. I cried. We were really scared,” Love recalls. “He loved what Nevermind was. He licked his lips and was like ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ But he hid it really well, so he’s attributed these saintly qualities. He possessed modesty, and he put forth this public virtue persona, and he was good at that. But he worked it. He worked it like Kate Moss works her cheekbones.”