Twenty years after Nevermind

[side_show]

It amazes me that Nevermind came out 20 years ago.  

Me and the kid I was when that album came out have less and less in common as time goes by, but I can look back at the old me and understand why this album meant so much back in the day.  I still remember where I was the first time I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on the radio.  Fittingly, I was in the basement of my parent's house, alone, feeling pretty shitty about myself.  Just for that alone, I think that album had its finger on the pulse of the times.

[pmcd9]

I loved Nevermind, but mostly because it rocks like a mother fucker.

[KeithHernandez]

I just got into Nevermind (and the rest of their stuff) in the last year or so because it rocks like a mother fucker.

[theinevitable]

I would venture to say that anyone who doesn't like Nevermind is a soulless husk.

I still vividly remember the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. It must have been 2000 or 2001, and I was so completely blown away. The first band I remember loving that my parents completely hated. I slowly grew to love more and more of their stuff, and sought out their influences, leading me to where I am today. I read "Heavier than Heaven" 3 or 4 times in high school. I also own the guitar that Kurt had, I guess.

[Asherdan]

Y'know, I liked Nirvana and all that but Mark Mothersbaugh had already eaten my soul.

[AugustWest]

I would venture to say that anyone who doesn't like Nevermind is a soulless husk.

Meh.

[littlefallsmets]

I mean, it's a solid album. It rocks well and hard.

But it is mostly its placement in the zeitgeist that gives it its lasting power, more than the content. Five years earlier or later and it would be a moderate cult hit amoungst certain post-punk circles, which is what half of Cobain's mind wanted it to be anyway.

Honestly, if I could only own one Nirvana album, it'd be the Unplugged album.

They seemed to be finally starting to grow out of Cobain's obsession with fitting a certain definition of what is "authentic" music in his head and just... going out and rocking.

[Nabubrush]

I like Bleach.

Nevermind is Butch Vig's album. It's good, but still.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I wrote this on my blog seven years ago. It still applies. (Apologies if I've posted this here before or otherwise am repeating myself.)

I was the music director at our college radio station; the main part of my job was to listen to incoming music and decide what to put out for airplay. We were having a little listening party in the station's recording studio on a weekend afternoon, me and two friends, and having heard of this band Nirvana, I popped in the four-song EP we had just received, with "Teen Spirit" and the next three tracks from the album. We were completely blown away. I looked at them and said "This is going to be bigger than you can imagine."

I was right. "Teen Spirit" was everywhere, even on Top 40 radio. When I was at a show during the CMJ convention in New York, folks mostly ignored the videos on the giant screen between bands--until "Teen Spirit" came on, then suddenly everyone shut up and watched. Every grunge band in Seattle got signed. Geffen Records sent me a Nirvana t-shirt and I wore it every chance I got. I saw Nirvana at Dobbs in Philly, and met Kris Novoselic after the show (actually, he mostly ignored me, but he did record a falsetto station ID into my micro-cassette recorder). I was thrilled, because music was going to be good again, not just in our little college-radio alternative enclave, but everywhere. Of course, it didn't last; thousands of copies of Mudhoney's Piece of Cake ended up in bargain bins at record stores across the country. Then Kurt shot himself.

A while back I saw an episode of VH1's "Behind the Music" on 1992, and I was taken aback at how much it affected me. That stuff meant something to me. I long for a time when I could not worry about the obscene housing market, the looming threat of evangelical Christianity as official religion, and the ever-widening chasm between the rich and poor. I wish music was the most important thing to me these days. Too much to ask.

Thanks, Kurt. And sorry.

[greenkoolayd]

i dont know why nirvana was such a big deal to me.  i didnt have a fraction of the cares that kurt had....

[wombat]

Carlos, that is beautiful.

[side_show]

i dont know why nirvana was such a big deal to me.  i didnt have a fraction of the cares that kurt had....

Where as I had plenty of cares at the time.  The thing is, things got very dark for me and there was a time when I very seriously considered suicide, then I fought through that depression, got help, fought through it some more, and find myself on the other side, a survivor.  I understood the angst of the grunge era well, but it's a feeling I don't really have any nostalgia for.  I'm glad I don't feel the way I felt back then.  It was an awful time.  It was awful to feel the way that album made me feel.  The music was good and it spoke to the me I was back then.  I'm not that girl anymore.  If Kurt survived and recovered from depression and addiction, he wouldn't be that boy anymore either.  I'm kind of sad that he didn't make it.  As shitty as life gets, if you stick it out, there's beauty and joy to be found on the other side.  Sometimes in the simplest things.    Which reminds me, I owe you kids a post about socks...

[jay-ell]

I thought Nirvana were OK, but I was caught in this world where my friends and my adopted culture were very much rooted in grunge, but I really preferred the sound of Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails and the Offspring. I guess it's a more aggressive sound, a little more...I dunno, it's not like Nirvana wasn't dark and angry, but the Offspring were louder about it. I never had this Hero Worship thing with Nirvana like a lot of people in high school in the early '90's did.

Plus, I'd been listening to Pearl Jam for a few years by the time Nirvana came around, and they seemed like they were trying to do the Eddie Vedder thing but without as much soul, which turned me off. And I still listened to a lot of stuff from my earlier childhood, a lot of hair bands and light metal, and was just getting into the really classic stuff from the '70's like Heart and Zeppelin.

Don't get me wrong, I had a copy of Heart Shaped Box and watched the videos on MTV like everyone else, I just never thought they were The Most Awesome Band Evar. Looking back, I guess that was the beginning of the end for me, in terms of being up-to-date with popular music.

[theinevitable]

they seemed like they were trying to do the Eddie Vedder thing but without as much soul

I think my brain just broke.

[pmcd9]

I think my brain just broke.

Ha ha ha...  Canned.