Friday, September 21, 2001

10 years later
The lasting impact of ‘Nevermind’
By Jack Bullion
Skiff Staff

The way the world listened to rock music changed forever Sept. 13, 1991 — perhaps slightly unbeknownst to most of us. On that day, Nirvana’s album “Nevermind,” a reasonably well-reviewed collection of 12 raw, powerful punk songs, was released.

Not many people noticed at first, but as the album’s opening track “Smells Like Teen Spirit” slowly seared itself into the heads of angst-ridden teens, sending them into spasms of violent air-guitar playing or, at worst, self-directed mosh pits, they began to catch on to the rugged charms of an album that, little less than a year ago, was ranked behind the Beatles’ “Revolver” by VH-1 on its list of greatest rock albums of all time.

It’s hard to think of another rock album having quite the impact that “Nevermind” had on the lives of those in the generation that were too young to fit into Generation X.

The change in the hallways of middle schools across America was nothing short of drastic. One day teens were roaming the halls, quoting Sir Mixx-A-Lot; the next, they were wearing T-shirts with naked babies swimming after dollar bills and acting much more disaffected and surly.

“There was something different about it, something new and exciting,” said Johnny Ferraro, a senior psychology major. “Radio was all ‘Whoomp (There It Is),’ Janet Jackson and some big butt song dominating the charts. Then this punk band came along.”

To put it mildly, “Nevermind” redefined rock music. It clawed violently to the surface in a sea of hair-metal and synth-rock, which lingered like bad leftovers that the 1980s had neglected to throw out of the fridge. “Nevermind” made it cool to pick up guitars and just shred, to call on all the cathartic power of a wall of noise that some genres may attempt, but only rock music seems to understand — every once in awhile at least.

As with anything new, it took a little while to catch on.

Brett Yates, a senior e-business major and a relative late-comer to “Nevermind”, remembers being big into classic rock at the time.

“I totally recognize that (Nirvana) brought in the grunge era,” Yates said.

Indeed, the rock radio landscape changed as a new music called “grunge” exploded behind the reluctant lead of Nirvana, giving us Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots. The movement influenced, directly or indirectly, who knows how many others. Rock music actually seemed important again, suffused with a meaning and purpose it had been without for years. More than anything, it may have been the message — defiance, introspection and anger, all burbling noticeably beneath the furious rock — that truly cemented “Nevermind” as a cultural and generational pivot point.

Andy Rice, a junior marketing major, said the album struck a particular chord with adolescents at the time, who are now today’s college students.

“It came out right around the time when we were starting to develop our own personalities, and we didn’t want what our parents or older siblings listened to,” Rice said.

“Nevermind” gave that generation its first icon: Kurt Cobain, the gifted but tortured songwriter, possessor of not only a rail-thin voice that seemed on the verge of shattering every time he let loose a bloodcurdling scream, but also of a tragically intimate knowledge of every sort of anguish known to humanity. His suicide in 1994 robbed many teens of a hero, as well as a defining musical voice.

“I remember going to junior high the day after he died, and all my friends were crying,” Ferraro said. “They had found someone to latch onto, and they were just devastated.”

So in its weird, defiant, alienated way, “Nevermind” touched a generation, subtly weaving itself into the fabric of life. In the heated debates about whether or not “Polly” was really about rape. In the impromptu mosh pits conducted at middle school mixers, high school dances and even proms when the disc jockey made the mistake of playing “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The first time someone took up the guitar, they learned “Come As You Are” within five minutes.

To the people who openly wept in the school hallway for someone they felt like they knew too well on that sad day seven springs ago, Cobain’s death, and Nirvana’s subsequent disbanding, seemed to sound the death knell for the rock revival the band helped to inspire.

“A lot of people really latched onto (“Nevermind”) as something unique to them. I didn’t understand how somebody who was responsible for such great music, living the lifestyle that so many would’ve wanted, hated it so much he killed himself,” Rice said.

Ten years later, the rock landscape since the audacious arrival of “Nevermind” has changed. From Nirvana’s innovation came imitation, and the sound-alikes queued up to fire off salvos at one-hit wonderdom. Grunge music turned out to have a little less staying power than we expected it to, with the breakup of Soundgarden, the retreat into artistry and intimacy of Pearl Jam, and the sudden demise of, well, pretty much everybody who combined loud volume and anger with something resembling intelligence.

Even Nirvana faded somewhat. The band’s music, considered such an appropriate soundtrack for its particular cultural moment, began to lose its luster as the moment passed. Like everyone recovering from the wake of the untimely demise of a loved one, fans of rock music eventually moved onward from Nirvana, to artists as disparate as Radiohead, Live, Train and Tool to name only a few. But while “Nevermind” may have faded a little in the passage of time and in the breathless manufacturing of its legend, many still find themselves returning to it.

Ferraro, who prefers Nirvana’s 1994 “Unplugged in New York” album, admits that he still dusts off “Nevermind” every couple of months.

In the minds of many, the legacy of “Nevermind” still exists, in spite of its passage from living document to historical one. They continue to dive back into the pool, like the kid on the cover, discovering and rediscovering exactly why it was so darned important. And they also continue to crank up the radio a couple of notches when they hear those four muted, jolting power chords, followed by that guttural drum roll, that signals the giddy fury of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“In that period of cheesy and crappy eighties music, thank God (Nirvana) came along,” Rice said. “They changed music. Who knows what it’d be like without them?”

Jack Bullion
j.w.bullion@student.tcu.edu