September 24th marks the 20th anniversary of one of the most influential rock albums of all time, Nirvana’s Nevermind. Kurt Cobain and Co.’s plaintive, searing, brooding, sarcastic, angst-drenched and out-of-tune blast of grunge put a stake in the heart of hair metal, became the theme music for a disenchanted generation and ushered in a sea change at rock radio.
It’s difficult to overstate the significance of Nevermind’s musical and cultural influence. Writing for today.com, Tony Sclafani says simply, “It was one of the most influential rock albums of all time and arguably the last rock album to drastically change the course of popular music.”
Trying to parse why and how the album tapped into a generation’s consciousness, Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl (who now fronts Foo Fighters), told the Associated Press, “It’s hard to imagine something so innocent and simple turning into something that’s out of your hands. I think that album came out at a time when a lot of kids didn’t have anything to believe in, and Nirvana was entirely real.”
Charles Cross, who wrote a biography of Kurt Cobain titled Heavier Than Heaven, believes all ingredients were present for Nevermind to become a perfect cultural storm. “It’s an incredible album,” Cross said. “It would have been a hit whenever it was released. But at the same time, the timing was right for there to be a superstar act like Nirvana. It came right at the end of the death knell of hair metal and the world was screaming for rock music that would be meaningful again. And the timing for a new generation wanting a voice was also ideal. It just so happened that everything came together at the exact right moment when rock needed a revolution.”
Nevermind was indeed a revolution. In contrast to much of the rock that topped the charts in the preceding decade, Kurt Cobain’s lyrics were moody, honest and introspective. He invited everyone to the table, no matter what condition they were in: “Come as you are/As you were/As I want you to be/As a friend, as a friend.” It was an invitation many, many people were hungry for, with the album eventually selling 10 million copies in the United States alone and another 20 million around the world.
Brandon Geist, now the editor of the music magazine Revolver, was 13 when Nevermind came out. “I remember hearing ‘Come As You Are’ on the radio,” he told today.com. “It was one of those magic moments where it was like ‘What is this? This speaks to me in a way that nothing I’d heard before had.’”
Before grunge erupted, Geist described commercial rock and metal as “a very sort of macho genre. … But after Nevermind hit, suddenly it was cool to be in a hard rock band and to sing about your feelings—and to sing about your feelings in a complex way. Hard rock became inward-looking. You can see that influence in the nu metal bands like Korn or Slipknot. All of a sudden it was acceptable to be in a metal band and to sing about your neighbor molesting you or something. Hard rock really became cathartic as opposed to escapist.” It’s a musical legacy that continues to influence some of the biggest rock and metal acts today.
Personally, I have to confess that I couldn’t stand Nirvana at the time. Or Pearl Jam. Or grunge. I grew up in the ’80s—I was a senior in college when Nevermind landed—and grunge represented the end of the road for the kind of music that I personally connected with (never mind that it was often pretty superficial stuff and worthy, in some ways, of the critical kill shot Nirvana administered).
In hindsight, though, I’m better able to understand how and why Nirvana connected with so many members of my generation. I can see that it was more than just angst-ridden, depression-inducing dirges—which is pretty much how I felt about it at the time. Listening again to songs such as “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Come as You Are,” I hear the voice of someone lost in the wilderness, desperately trying to find a way out. A lost soul who became the voice of many who felt similarly disoriented.
Kurt never found his way out of the woods, of course. Overwhelmed by superstardom and disillusioned with fame, he took his life with a shotgun two-and-a-half years later, on April 5, 1994.
But though Cobain is no longer with us, his band’s legacy—for better or worse—lives on to this day.
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