The day that changed everything.
The day that would alter the course of music history.
On Tuesday, September 24, 1991, DGC Records released for sale 46,521 copies of Nevermind, the second album from a relatively unknown three-piece group from Seattle. By Thanksgiving, only 9 weeks later, the album had gone platinum and by January had dethroned the biggest-selling artist of all time from the #1 spot on the Billboard Albums chart. Its story is one of the last great rock legends. It's legacy is that of an entire decade.
While much and more has been written about the importance and greatness of this album in the annals of rock history, it holds a special place in the hearts of anyone who was old - or young - enough to realize just how much it changed their life.
I was 12 years old when Nevermind was released. Admittedly, I had no interest in Nirvana during the first 6 months of their astronomical rise. I was a Guns N' Roses fan through and through and this band, with their non-sensical mush-mouthed lyrics, screamed choruses and complete lack of Slash had no interest to me. In fact, I was more of a fan of Weird Al's parody, "Smells Like Nirvana" than I was the band itself. But it was sometime in the summer of 1992, when I first heard Nevermind's 3rd single "Lithium, that I was able to appreciate their music. It was completely about timing, as the tough-guy cool that came along with listening to Gn'R was more associated with the juvenile attitudes of a child. But this, this song about retreating within yourself and being ugly and not feeling guilty over your raging hormones resonated like a tuning fork within my adolescent mind and I was hooked forever. I went from cheesy Lamborghini t-shirts and red athletic shorts to flannel and ripped jeans overnight. And while the fashion of the era, the "grunge" look, so easily exploited and parodied, has become symbolic of a near-laughable, bygone era, to wear these clothes in 1992 was a proud statement that Nirvana enabled us to make: "We don't give a fuck."
I bought Nevermind on tape within a week and played the shit out of it. And for so many of us, it was as if this album was a tolling bell, calling us to a new way of life, or as much of a way of life as you could get at 13. The anarchistic and socially malevolent attitudes that were a natural part of being a pubescent male were justified and encouraged by this band, this band that destroyed their cheap thrift store equipment after every show. Nirvana taught us what punk really meant, because prior to them it was dirty people with mohawks and spray paint. This band encouraged millions of young men - and women - to learn to play the guitar or bass or drums poorly and shout along with their easy-to-play riffs until we were all hoarse. And as cliched as it sounds, it was liberating. The only people who could play Guns N' Roses songs were the black-clad, long-haired snobs that listened to Metallica or one of the other bands on the Big Four tour, but these songs, these were easy to learn and play and to understand and that is what was so appealing. But most importantly, Nirvana taught us how to question authority and to challenge what we knew and that kind of attitude is completely gone from rock'n'roll, as every important group of the last 20 years has used this new-found liberty to shove their agendas down our throat instead of discovering them on our own.
Or, as Michael Azerrad wrote in Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, “this was music by and for a whole new group of young people who had been overlooked, ignored or condescended to.” What was most important was that it was ours. Not the leftovers of a bygone era, not the music of our parents, but for the first time in our lives, something that we could rightfully and proudly claim as our own.
Now, 20 years later, their legacy virtually untarnished through the effect of being frozen in time due to Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide, Nirvana and Nevermind remain the unwilling flagbearers of the 90's. And as short-sighted as it is to condense a decade's worth of music and social attitudes down to 12 songs, hell, even the 4 simple chords that open the album, is there a better symbol of the era than that naked baby swimming towards a dollar? As much as Kurt notoriously hated having the "voice of a generation" tag thrust upon him, was there anyone better to be the figurehead of a changing landscape? Of the coming-of-age of Generation X? Of millions of kids who needed a hero that didn't play a game professionally or blow up terrorists (or communists) in movies? Kurt was the last great rock star, the last whose every word held great importance for a legion of young people that needed assurance that they weren't weird or misfits or outcasts and that there were others out there just like them that could find solace and community in the music of a relatively unknown band from Seattle.
As I listen to this album again, 20 years after its release, I'm reminded of how special it is. Past the posthumously-attached meaning ("I swear that I don't have a gun" sings Kurt, perhaps ironically, in "Come As You Are"), past the hype and the worship and the pedestal placement, this is a collection of great songs. Songs that wore their influences on their sleeves, as obscure as they were then (and even now); songs with obtuse, disjointed lyrics; songs that perhaps were a little over-produced after all. And I as listen to "Lithium" again in this moment of reflection and nostalgia, I'm reminded of how important this record was to me, and how much it defined a period of my life and how I don't think I ever bought a brand new copy of it. Oh well.
Whatever. (Nevermind)
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