Nevermind

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<b>100 Best Albums</b> Even now, years after you first felt its edge, the chorus of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” still sounds too dangerous—too loud, too ugly, too <i>upset</i>—for any mainstream. And yet <i>Nevermind</i>’s opening salvo didn’t just mark an unlikely breakthrough for the Seattle trio, it upended popular culture in ways we haven’t seen since. Punk became pop, grunge became global vernacular, industry walls broke into rubble, and lead vocalist Kurt Cobain was anointed the reluctant voice of a generation in need of catharsi, all seemingly overnight. But what makes Nirvana’s second album special isn’t its rage, but its innocence. For as haunting and corrosive as it can often be, it was never at the expense of melody or songcraft or humanity. The old guard was actually still alive and well: Both Metallica’s Black Album and Guns N’ Roses’ two-volume <i>Use Your Illusion</i> famously came out within weeks of <i>Nevermind</i>. And while the album went on to sell about as well as those—even displacing Michael Jackson’s <i>Dangerous</i> as the best-selling album in the United States for a brief moment in 1992—Nirvana’s influence extended well beyond sheer economic, cutting a path for generations of forward-looking artists that stretches from Radiohead to Billie Eilish. They presented themselves not as rock god, but ordinary (and highly sensitive) mortal. As an alternative to the pinup in leather pant, they offered the proud feminist, screaming until his voice gave out (“Territorial Pissings”). In place of the glossy power ballad, they delivered something fragile and raw (“Polly,” “Something in the Way”). .

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