TAS Super LP List! Special Merit: Informal
Pressed on Audiophile Quality 180g Vinyl LP!Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - Rated 6/500!
Nevermind was never meant to change the world, but you can never predict when the zeitgeist will hit, and Nirvana's 1991 "Nevermind" turned out to be the place where alternative rock crashed into the mainstream.
Ranked #1 Spin Magazine's 90 Greatest Albums of the 1990s.
No matter how much anguish there is on Nevermind, it's bracing because Kurt Cobain exorcises his demons through evocative wordplay and mangled screams paired with the band's a tremendous, unbridled power that transcends the pain, turning into pure catharsis. And that's as key to the record's success as Cobain's songwriting, since Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl help turn this into music that is gripping, powerful, and even fun (and, really, there's no other way to characterize "Territorial Pissings" or the surging "Breed").
Following a European tour supporting Sonic Youth in the late summer 1991, Nevermind was released in September, supported by a quick American tour. While DGC was expecting a moderately successful release, in the neighborhood of 100,000 copies, Nevermind immediately became a smash hit, quickly selling out its initial shipment of 50,000 copies and creating a shortage across America. What helped the record become a success was "Smells Like Teen Spirit," a blistering four-chord rocker that was accompanied by a video that shot into heavy MTV rotation. By the beginning of 1992, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" had climbed into the American Top Ten and Nevermind bumped Michael Jackson's much-touted comeback album Dangerous off the top of the album charts; it reached the British Top Ten shortly afterward. By February, the album had been certified triple platinum.
No album in recent history had such an overpowering impact on a generation - a nation of teens suddenly turned punk - and such a catastrophic effect on its main creator. The weight of success led already troubled singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain to take his own life in 1994. But his slashing riffs, corrosive singing and deviously oblique writing, rammed home by the Pixies-via-Zeppelin might of bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, put the warrior purity back in rock & roll.Features:
• 180g Vinyl LP
Selections:
Side One:
1. Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. In Bloom
3. Come As You Are
4. Breed
5. Lithium
6. Polly
Side Two:
1. Territorial Pissings
2. Drain You
3. Lounge Act
4. Stay Away
5. On A Plain
6. Something In The Way
