Nevermind

Performer: Nirvana (US)
Engineer: Nirvana; Butch Vig
Producer: Nirvana; Butch Vig
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Nirvana: Kurt Cobain (vocals, guitar); Chris Novoselic (vocals, bass); David Grohl (vocals, drums). Additional personnel: Kirk Canning (cello). Recorded at Sound City, Van Nuys, California. Personnel: Kurt Cobain (vocals, guitar); Dave Grohl (vocals, drums); Krist Novoselic (vocals); Kirk Canning (cello). Audio Mixers: Craig Doubet; Andy Wallace. Recording information: Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, CA. Photographers: Kirk Weddle; Michael Lavine; Kurt Cobain. Unknown Contributor Role: Kirk Canning. A few years after the matter, even the album cover appears vaguely symbolic: an innocent babe, braving the hazards, lunging for the seductive prize at the end of a hook. Few would've given good odds that the youngster would actually be able to snatch the green, swim back to shore, and laugh triumphantly in the fisherman's face; and history has made fools of those who thought it couldn't be done. NEVERMIND not only gave Nirvana the prize the band had reached out for, it included some epic consequences in the bargain--raising the Seattle grunge trio to the status of Godhead, and forever changing the face of the pop music market. As ground-breaking albums go, NEVERMIND seemed expressly designed for a post-modern existence. The punk energy and aesthetic ("Territorial Pissings," "Drain You") were its lifeblood; melody, harmony and structure ("Something In The Way," "Come As You Are") were its selling points; the roaring guitars and sub-conscious intellect ("Smells Like Teen Spirit," "In Bloom") were its heart and soul. Nobody had come up with an album like NEVERMIND before, because no one could conceive of an album like it--not since Husker Du had broken up, anyway. But the place where NEVERMIND struck the most firmly and personally was in the gut. Cobain's throaty roar, mumbled speech, fumbled appearance all confirmed that he was of us, with us, and for us; his gift for combining melodies with acerbic insights showed that he was unlike us. "Here we are now, entertain us" may have come and gone as a catch-phrase, but as an insight into a generation's bitterly restless tide, it ranks right up there with "I can't get no satisfaction."

Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.50) - Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's." Spin (9/99, pp.114-5) - Ranked #1 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s." Spin (12/91) - Highly Recommended - Ranked #3 in Spin's list of the 20 Best Albums Of 1991. Entertainment Weekly (Spring 2000, p.166) - Ranked #1 in EW's "Top 10 albums of the '90s" - "...[It] continues to spew a molten-lava stream of melody, primal force, and passion..." Q (10/01, p.106) - Ranked #3 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime" Q (12/99, p.70) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s." Q (1/92) - Included in Q Magazine's list of the 50 best albums of 1991. Alternative Press (7/95, p.75) - Ranked #1 in AP's list of the `Top 99 of '85-'95' - "...this Seattle trio, for better or for worse, actually deserved the literal heaps of attention that pursued them. ...[Nirvana] broke into and stole the hearts of this generation because Sir Cobain could write an incredibly catchy song...[with] lyrics that were not shallow treatises..." Vibe (12/99, p.160) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century. Melody Maker (12/91) - Ranked #5 in Melody Maker's list of the top 30 albums of 1991 - "...aching melodies...fearsome metallic attack...An album which penetrated all the way to the heart of America's metal homeland..." Melody Maker (12/91) - Ranked #5 in Melody Maker's list of the top 30 albums of 1991 - "...aching melodies....fearsome metallic attack....An album which penetrated all the way to the heart of America's metal homeland..." Q (Magazine) (p.122) - "[A] blissful union of corrosive riffs and bubblegum melodies....Singles such as 'Come As You Are' and 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' brought a rarely heard punk influence into the mainstream." New York Times (Publisher) (1/1/92) - "...The culmination of 10 years of post-punk, and a reinvention of the style for a new generation....Smart, sarcastic rock, noisy and catchy and unabashedly confused, that zoomed from a collegiate cult following into the Top 10 without a hint of appeasement..." NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #12 in NME's list of the `Greatest Albums Of All Time.'

Though they released only three full-length studio albums during their relatively brief existence, Nirvana were without question one of the most important rock band of the 1990s. As reluctant leaders of the so-called grunge movement, Nirvana brought a loud angry sound born from the underground firmly into the mainstream, and the result was as cataclysmic as the punk movement if not the birth of rock & roll itself. The band's mix of metallic heaviness, punk angst, and pure pop hooks was itself something at which to marvel; however, it was the songwriting genius of frontman Kurt Cobain that made Nirvana a rightfully legendary band. Sadly, the band came to an abrupt and after Cobain's tragic suicide in 1994.

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