Put On Your Plaid and Crank Up Nevermind!!!!!!
Nevermind is the most influential album of the 90’s and at least for the generation I grew up with, whether you embraced Nirvana or not, everyone has an opinion about Nevermind. Nirvana completely changed the dynamics of metal, modern rock, pop, and everything the rock and roll scene from 1991 onward. On a personal note according to some of my metal friends embracing Nirvana caused me to musically go weird for about 15 years (I would not re-embrace the metal scene until 2007 when I discover Dream Theater 15 years after Images and Words), however, Nevermind has greatly influenced my musical direction ever since the first time I listened to it and for the very first time at age 14 I learned that a change in my musical direction is an extremely good thing.
Before I talk about Nirvana’s Nevermind, in the tradition of Dr. Heinz Doofinshmirtz I love to tell a good backstory leading up to the main event. It’s kind of a long backstory, but I feel like I really need to tell it. Specifically the general atmosphere of the metal scene from 1990 to 1991 and some of the events that I feel like really made the rise of Nirvana so monumental in my musical journey.
1990 to 1991 were the last days of the mainstream popularity of heavy metal. I was listening to a lot of Guns n’ Roses, Def Leppard, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Queensryche, Van Halen, Rush, Whitesnake, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Ozzy/Black Sabbath. In many respects metal still very much ruled the music world and Billboard charts, however, at this point in time heavy metal bands were recording a lot of power ballads, several of which were becoming huge hits.
The origin of what is truly the very first heavy metal power ballad is still widely debated. The songs “I’m Eighteen”, “Desperado”, and “Only Women Bleed” by Alice Cooper I think are extremely influential and serve as the foundation in which heavy metal would perfect the power ballad craft. In my opinion the first three power ballads heavy metal produced were recorded in 1978 and are the very obscure “Always Somewhere” and “Holiday” by the Scorpions and “Before the Dawn” by Judas Priest (ok, I’ll admit “Before the Dawn” is kind of a gray area. It’s an acoustic power ballad. The lyrics are about it taking an extremely long time to find that special someone, however, the special someone by the time you find them is very slowly dying. It’s very bitter sweet, but mostly bitter. It’s the closest thing Judas Priest has to a power ballad and I feel like many bands were influenced by it). These songs are very amazing and showcase the amazing amount of musical depth of both Judas Priest and the Scorpions and are the primary standards by which I measure a good power ballad.
Before you read the next paragraph I would like to make very clear that I don’t hate power ballads. There are several that I really love. It’s just in my opinion there is a very fine line between power ballads with substance versus power ballads that are just fluff.
During this time in the metal scene a lot of heavy metal bands felt like they had to do a power ballad. Songs like “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi, “Love Bites” by Def Leppard, “Every Rose Has it’s Thorn” by Poison, and “Home Sweet Home” by Motley Crue had already been huge hits and many metal bands followed suit. Some of the power ballads I absolutely love are “Phantom Rider” by Tora Tora, “Save Your Love” by Great White, “More Than Words” by Extreme, “Carrie” by Europe, “Love Walks In” by Van Halen, and “Don’t Cry” by Guns n’ Roses. However, some power ballads that I absolutely can’t stand are “Love of a Lifetime” by Firehouse, “Something to Believe In” by Poison, “Heading for a Heartbreak” by Winger, “Heaven” by Warrant, “Love is on the Way” by Saigon Kick, “Living in Sin” by Bon Jovi and power ballads that were more in this neighborhood. Where I especially got burned by the metal power ballad is the song “I’ll Never Let You Go” by Steelheart. When this song was getting extensive airplay on KBER in Salt Lake City I loved it and I bought the first Steelheart album. However, when I sat through the cassette other than “She’s Gone” and “I’ll Never Let You Go” I didn’t really like any of the other songs. The album did not in my opinion have any substance to it and was fluff. Ultimately, I was so disappointed with this album that ironically I did not even like “She’s Gone” and “I’ll Never Let You Go” anymore after a few listens. What I learned was the power ballads that I really loved were by bands that had the musical substance, talent, and energy to back them up. Even some of the non-power ballad metal of this period I just simply didn’t like because it just did not have the raw power and energy that the metal I loved had (I am extremely proud of the fact that AC/DC has never recorded a power ballad! Yet another reason I just love that band).
Through the period of 1990 to 1991 I was still very loyal to the metal bands I loved and grew up listening to, yet for better or for worse, heavy metal as a genre had found its sensitive side and the metal bands that were emerging were a lot more on the pop side. At this point I was starting to experiment with Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth. I have a soft spot for all four of these bands (Metallica being my favorite one). However, I just couldn’t totally embrace speed metal. It is awesome music, but I didn’t enjoy it enough to own 30 plus albums of it.
At this point in time Steve L. was one of my best friends. What made Steve very unique to me is he was literally the only person I knew in my age bracket that was into music to the degree I was. However, Steve’s tastes were very different from mine. At this point he was listening to Depeche Mode, Ministry, New Order, Nine Inch Nails, The Pixies, Violent Femmes, The Sisters of Mercy, Concrete Blonde, The Cure, INXS, and Simple Minds to name a few. Steve and I used to play the classic Nintendo and SEGA video games together at his house while listening to music from his collection. Steve was not into metal and I was not really into his music either, but it was nice to hear some music outside of the realm of what I was listening to and for what it’s worth Steve was starting to rub off on me a little bit because his music was so different from what I was listening to, it was starting to sound good. Thanks to Steve exposing me to several bands that would make it after Nirvana did as well as several bands I would embrace later in my life, I consider Steve to be a very great influence in introducing me to a lot of music that was outside of the realm of heavy metal and classic rock and I was ready to start exploring new musical paths…and now the stage is set for Nirvana to enter the picture. (Behold…the grunge-inator!)
In September 1991 I was 14 years old and I had just started my 9th grade year at Union Middle School. I had an early morning paper route that I had to wake up at 4:30am every morning to do. One particular morning it was 4:30am and my papers had not arrived yet for me to fold, so I went downstairs and was watching some MTV waiting for my papers to arrive. After a commercial break the video “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana came on and I was completely floored. It had an intense and hard hitting opening and immediately had my attention. Nirvana was wearing regular beat up clothes, they were playing second hand instruments, they had a presence to them that was a full 180 from metal, and the song just freaking rocked! When the song was over I had to shut off the TV. I really could not believe what I had just heard for the first time and it took some time to sink in. My newspapers finally arrived. I folded them up and started doing my paper route. I can’t really remember what cassette I was listening to while I was doing my paper route that morning, all I remember was “Smells Like Teen Spirit” played in my head the entire time I was throwing my paper route and I just wanted to hear it again!
When I arrived at school that morning my friend Steve and I shared a locker together. Steve had a very rare gift for discovering bands long before anyone knew about them and I figured if anyone knew what Nirvana was about it would be him. The moment I saw Steve at our locker I asked him if he had heard of Nirvana, needless to say Steve did not disappoint. Not only had he heard of Nirvana, he had already bought a copy of Nevermind and proceeded to tell me how great the album is. Steve invited me over to his house the next day to play some video games, but in the meantime “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was stuck in my head.
The next morning once again MTV played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at 4:30am, I was still completely blown away and I thought this song was the most amazing song on planet earth! It once again played in my head while I was throwing my paper route and through the entire day at school. I’ve had several new songs that I thought were amazing from the get go and that played in my head for a while, but something was very different about Nirvana, they had something that no else in the music scene had and something that I wanted more of.
Finally, the next school day ended and I went over to my friend Steve’s house, we put the game Sonic the Hedgehog on the SEGA Genesis and Nirvana’s Nevermind on the CD player. From the moment Steve pushed play on his CD player my musical world was about to change forever. The CD began with “Smells Like Teen Spirit” which was sounding completely amazing. Next came “In Bloom” which as much I did not think it was possible that there could be another song as awesome as “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, there it was playing over the speakers. Then “Come As You Are” started which was a little slower than the previous two songs, but I loved the bass line, Kurt’s vocals, and especially the very intense chorus. As Steve and I kept playing Sonic I became instantly enthralled with Nevermind. Every single song was just as awesome and as unique as “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Steve and I listened to Nevermind at least twice while we were playing video games that evening. Nirvana was on my musical map and very quickly working their way through the ranks.
I had to have my own copy of Nevermind. Unfortunately, at that time there was not a convenient record store, at least via bicycle, from my parents’ house in Sandy, UT. I literally begged my older brother for three days to take me to Sound Off Records in Murray, UT. He finally caved and took me to the record shop and I bought my cassette of Nevermind (my parents would give me Nirvana’s debut cassette Bleach for my 15th birthday). The next morning I folded up my papers in plastic bags (the weather looked it might turn into rain) and put Nirvana’s Nevermind into my Sony Walkman. As much as I was already impressed and taken back by this album when I had listened to it for the first time with my friend Steve, being able to listen to a new album cranked up on my Walkman with no one else around, I could really absorb Nevermind. From start to finish the album was a complete masterpiece and the very dark and starry atmosphere of my neighborhood during the wee small hours was the perfect setting to really enjoy Nevermind. What I remember the most is it started to rain about half way through the song “Breed” and I was completely drenched by the time I finished my paper route. However, there was not an album like this in my music collection or anywhere else in the world and I felt like I was really listening to something special. To me Nevermind was more metal than what metal was in 1991. The guitar work was intense and heavy, the bass was very deep, the drums were quick and simple, the lyrics were really different and were very much the antithesis of most heavy metal lyrics, Kurt’s vocals were very different and unique, but most of all there was absolutely no fluff in Nevermind. It was straight up heavy rock.
Many in the heavy metal community honestly feel like Nirvana’s Nevermind and the rise of the grunge scene and later alternative rock is what killed metal in the 90’s and I do agree with this point of view. However, where my metal friends and I disagree is as much as I love heavy metal, metal in my opinion had it coming. As much as there was still some quality heavy metal that would still emerge through the 90’s, sadly metal became a victim of its own success by being over commercialized and to significant degree it had lost some of its edge in the early 90’s. While on the other hand, Nevermind was very hard, heavy, different, and had an edge to it that metal did not at that time. I just instantly loved the music of Nirvana. Nevermind was the spark that for better or worse ignited an entirely new and different music scene and inspired a new generation of musicians. What Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and San Francisco’s Haight/Ashbury district were in the 60’s, Nevermind and Seattle was in the 90’s.
By the time “Come As You Are” was released as a single grunge had completely taken the music scene by storm and plaid was in high fashion at Union Middle School. I wanted to see Nirvana in concert really bad, but the one and only time they performed in Utah was at the Golden Spike Arena in Ogden, UT, in 1992 and no one in my circle of friends could find anyone who was willing to drive us up to Ogden to see Nirvana and there was literally no way we could get up there. So at least for me being able to see Nirvana live was not in the cards.
When Nirvana makes it big the attitude of many of my classmates at Union Middle School was metal is out, grunge is in, deal with it. There were some of my friends that thought it was odd that I would be wearing my Seattle plaid, but still be wearing my Slaughter, AC/DC, or Kiss shirt underneath forgiving the fact that metal was on the outs. In my mind, as much as Nirvana musically was very different from the metal I was into, it could still coexist in my musical universe with everything else I was into, and in my opinion they were just as good as AC/DC, Rush, Van Halen, Iron Maiden and everything else I was into.
As the 90’s progressed it was a very unique and different decade for metal heads. Most of my metal head friends did not like Nirvana at all and some hated them with a passion. Their main criticisms were that they felt Kurt Cobain was not much of a guitarist, the lyrics were weird, they were more punk than metal and sounded more like a garage band. I’ll be the first to admit that Kurt Cobain is not Eddie Van Halen, Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, Dimebag Darrell, or Steve Vai. However, a guitarists style to me is more than how fast they can play or how complicated their solos are. Kurt Cobain’s style is simple, straightforward, and intense. Kurt did not need to be a flashy guitarist to propel Nirvana’s music. However, at this point the way I saw it there were two separate heavy metal camps emerging. The first being the speed metal route that was at that time dominated by Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, and Pantera. The other camp being what I saw as grunge/alternative rock inspired metal that was dominated by bands like Rage Against the Machine, Korn, and Tool. I did not feel like where I was heading musically really fit into either metal camp. While at the same time Def Leppard released Adrenalinize which I was not a fan of, Bruce Dickenson announced he was quitting Iron Maiden, Rob Halford announced he was quitting Judas Priest, and slowly the metal scene that I loved was starting to dry up with only a few of the bands hanging on for dear life. Nirvana at this point became very much my favorite band in the world and I bought Incesticide and In Utero the day they came out. Nirvana becomes very endearing to me especially since the dynamics of the current metal scene were really starting to change and I was starting to feel a little displaced.
In 1992, my father gave me a bass guitar that he purchased from my Uncle David and my little brother Scott had taken an intro to guitar class at Union Middle School and started to play my father’s old acoustic guitar. I was taking bass lessons and Scott was taking guitar lessons. For both of us Nirvana was the top band we wanted to play like. Scott one day at 7-11 found a Nirvana guitar magazine that have several of the songs from Nevermind and Bleach transcribed and we both learned the songs in this magazine together. Some of my favorite memories of my high school years with my brother Scott are the times when my older brother Alan is on his LDS mission for two years and it was just the two of us at home for a time. In 1994 when I’m 17 and my brother Scott is 15, my parents were on vacation in Las Vegas and Scott and I set up our guitar amps in the living room and ordered some pizza. We put our Nirvana CD’s on the CD player, plugged in our instruments, and went to town playing along with Nirvana at maximum volume. These are my most favorite jam sessions ever!
With music, just with almost anything life, when I have let something new enter my life, the flood gate opens with lots of new possibilities. By embracing Nirvana to the degree I did a whole new world of music became open to me. I got into Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, and The Offspring which I would not have gotten into without Nirvana. In addition, I wanted to know and discover the music that had inspired Nirvana which led me to discovering punk bands like The Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Rollins Band, The Ramones and The Misfits, plus the bands that influenced punk such as the New York Dolls, MC5, and The Stooges. Thanks to my good friend Steve when Nirvana makes it I discover Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Weezer, and Smashing Pumpkins. Nirvana also helped me uncover a lot of hidden gems in heavy metal partially because I was displaced from the current metal scene at the time I wanted to explore some of the heavy metal in the 80’s that I had never heard and I ended up buying a lot of old Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Black Sabbath CD’s when I got into Nirvana. At the same time as weird as this may sound I rediscovered the Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, and for some odd reason I really got into ABBA and David Bowie. These bands sound nothing like Nirvana, however, Nirvana had opened the flood gates of music exploration and it included many different musical genres. This spirit of musical exploration is still very alive and well in my musical journey.
Another thing that made Nirvana unique when I started listening to them is they were the very first band I got into that my father didn’t really like all that much (my father has since grown to like and respect Nirvana, but it took a few years) and I feel like because Nirvana broke me away from some of the music I grew up listening to, that is why I started to explore a lot of music outside the realm of heavy metal and classic rock and my musical tastes started to expand rapidly.
On April 5, 1994, Kurt Cobain commits suicide and Nirvana ends with his death. Kurt’s death is still very tragic to me. I still remember walking into my LDS seminary class and my teacher greeting with “are you a Kurt Cobain fan Brent?” I told him that I was and that Nirvana was one of my favorite bands and he was the first person to inform me that Kurt Cobain had committed suicide which was more than a little shocking to me. He actually expressed sympathy and sorrow about Kurt’s untimely death and I was actually very touched by his words. The world truly lost one of the most talented and brilliant songwriters/musicians in history. I still feel very strongly that Nevermind was only the beginning of what Nirvana was going to accomplish. However, Kurt Cobain has left behind a legacy of some of the very best music ever recorded and music that truly had an impact on multiple genres of rock and roll during the short period of time Nirvana existed as a band.
From a critical standpoint, In January 1992 Nevermind knocked out Dangerous by Michael Jackson to claim the #1 spot on the Billboard top 200 album chart. Today Nevermind is ranked with Rolling Stone Magazines 500 greatest albums of all time, is considered by many critics to be the best album of the 90’s, as well as the flagship album of the grunge and alternative rock music scene of the 90’s.
It has now been almost 21 years since I bought Nirvana’s Nevermind. My cassette of Nevermind was so special to me that for years I refused to buy a CD of it. I did not break down and buy a CD of Nevermind until I graduated college in 2005 because my beat up cassette of it had so much sentimental value. Today I can play all of the songs on Nevermind on bass and on guitar. If someone asks me to play a song for them on guitar 90% of the time I will play them “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, it’s an instant crowd pleaser. I love every song on Nevermind, but if I had to narrow it down to one song “Drain You” is my very favorite. Through my musical journey the influence of Nevermind by Nirvana I cannot understate. It really changed my view and perception of music as a whole, it still sounds as amazing now as it did when I was 14 years old, and I am proud to be part of the musical legacy Nevermind created.
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