Where “Smells Like Teen Spirit” enthralled some, leaving others bewildered or indifferent, for others, Nevermind embodied more than just their initiatory offering. Now, I look at it as, a sort of proto-‘Cannonball’ by the Breeders, with all its hooks.” “He was just screaming ‘mullato, albino’ at one point. “I didn’t understand how this song, which repeated randomly strung together words, without Michael Stipe’s enigmatic delivery, and with production that seemed sanded down into a typical rock song was one of the greatest songs ever,” Maxwell Metyko, 19, wonders. When I was listening to it, I had no idea it was Nirvana’s ‘masterpiece’ or ‘breakout record.’ I loved how melodious it was. “I know I liked it a lot after the first time I listened to it,” Miguel Carrasco, 20, recounts.
Undeniably, Nevermind’s lead single’s asteroid-like impact continues today.
Lydon helped to establish the music Cobain revered whereas Frances Bean, a Millennial, possesses affection for Mercury Rev and Brian Jonestown Massacre. Between Pollack, Lydon, and Cobain’s daughter exists a generational divide. Punk luminaries like Sex Pistols/P.I.L.’s John Lydon thought of the band as a “record company’s ploy to rephrase punk in a manufacturable way.” Even Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean, told Rolling Stone that she did not like her father’s music. “I don’t remember thinking it was particularly special at the time,” Ross Pollack, 44, comments. Not everyone responded viscerally and positively to the track. “I’m pretty sure I started a band within a month after hearing it.” “It made me want to go apeshit,” Michelle Yue, 26, remarks. “’Holy crap! What is this?’ was pretty much my initial thought,” Jeremy Hart, 43, reflects when asked about his initial reaction to hearing the single that launched a million bands, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” “I’d spent most of high school listening to either hip-hop or metal, attempting-and failing miserably-to emulate people like Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai on guitar, and then along came this song, which didn’t give a shit about any of the guitar-god stuff.” No, brothers and sisters, today we reminisce in its grandeur and its flaws, its blessings and its curses, and its hair-trigger impact and its repercussive effects it had on each one of us.Īnd most significantly, the praises for Nirvana’s culture-shaping masterpiece come from the entire fabric of America’s identity: soldiers, Mormons, gender neutral individuals, artists, mothers, fathers, children, teenagers, Generation X-ers, Millennials, Baby Boomers, sisters, brothers, adopted sons and daughters, teachers, entrepreneurs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists, gay, lesbian, straight, Southerners, Midwesterners, Yankees, white, black, Latino, Latina, Asian.
However, I come to praise Nevermind, not bury it with all the unintentionally generated dreck feasting from its brilliance like a syphilitic host. For every Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney, there was a Bush, Filter, Creed, and Blink 182. What came after it-scrunge’s Better Than Ezra, Silverchair, Sponge, Goo Goo Third Eye Matchbox Blind Dolls 20 bullshit that watered down the golden ethos Nevermind had purified before and after it. What came with it was a communal embrace linking us in the way religions once had. What came before it slipped into oblivion. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” tore open the thin veil between the Heavens and us, finding redemption in destruction, illuminating the truth with an arson’s blaze. For better or for worse, four chords and a stigmatizing chorus eviscerated hair metal, cock rock, and boy bands for more than half a decade. Where were you when you first heard Nirvana’s Nevermind?Īfter asking this icebreaking question to nearly 50 people whom I know in some capacity-from childhood friends to recent acquaintances-I discovered that most of them remember where they were the moment they heard songs from the musical monolith that changed the musical landscape forever. “At a friend’s house sitting on a roof.” “Cruising around with friends, or while into some type of juvenile hijinks.” “Watching MTV’s 120 Minutes.” “…orking in the back of Gingiss Formalwear when my coworker brought the cassette tape in to listen to.” “In my bedroom in my parent’s house, sprawled out across my floor with the same ugly carpet they didn’t take out until I moved out.” “ my cousins room, had just gotten the CD. Happy 30th Anniversary to Nirvana’s Nevermind, originally released September 24, 1991.
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