When Nevermind was released in September of 1991, I was 14 years old and hyper locked into Golden Era hip hop. My world was A Tribe Called Quest, Ice Cube, Black Sheep, Cypress, Hill, Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy. It was literally all I listened to; never straying far from phat beats, breaks, samples, and flows. I ate, breathed, and slept hip hop. I had been locked in since 1989 when it was MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice on repeat. One fateful day, my friend Tre dropped by Sound Warehouse and picked up a cassette single of some band that he said I had to hear. The A side was a song called “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, and it was by a band called Nirvana that most definitely was not hip hop. I begrudgingly agreed to let him play it over the phone during one of our marathon teen phone sessions. From the first clangy licks to the lead in drums that came in like a heart attack, something inside me woke up in a way that I hadn’t felt since I was a little kid watching The Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the UK” video on MTV (it kind of scared me yet strangely attracted me with its raw, unbridled punk energy). It was primal and wild. By the time Kurt screamed “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous”, I was lost in it. My heart was pounding like it had never beat before in my entire life, much like waking up from a coma and being strapped to a rocket. My life had changed and its trajectory had been altered forever. There have only been a handful of those moments in my life to date. I would never be the same, and I was so cool with that.
Over the ensuing years and decades, so many memories have become eternally attached to every song on the album. Moments in time and events of all sorts now spread across four decades. During my junior year in high school, I had a small group of friends that I was sort of growing apart from and was making new friends but didn’t have many yet. For prom that year, a theatre friend of mine named Jessica and I went together as friends. “In Bloom” was the song d’jour for the evening. That same year, “Territorial Pissings” was played loudly in my friend Billy’s Chrysler LeBaron many times during our lunch breaks. The day Kurt was found dead in April of 1994, our band Sum Kinda Phobia played its first and only show. We played our normal selection of grunge and alt rock covers, but midway through we paused to say our RIPs to our fallen idol before launching into a Nirvana set that included “Come As You Are” and “Lithium”. For my senior theatre performance, I learned and performed “Something In The Way” with just my acoustic guitar, a ball of nerves, and a stool, the first time I’d ever done so. However, nothing has ever captured the spirit of Nevermind more than the time I played a show with my band Jimmy Crack Whore, and we covered “Breed”. Halfway through the song, I dropped my only pick and proceeded to thrash through the remainder of the song with just my fingers. I tore the cuticles open on at least two fingers, and splatter painted the white pick guard of that Fender with so much blood. It was the most Cobain thing I’d ever done and would ever do live. All of these things are now inextricably attached to one of the greatest albums ever recorded, the album that quite literally changed my life. Oh well, whatever, nevermind…
HIGHLIGHTS
Smells Like Teen Spirit: groundbreaking, earth shaking grunge introduction to the mainstream; the song that changed the trajectory of music
In Bloom: catchy, ironic, and sarcastic jab at people who loved Nirvana’s sound without understanding what the band stood for
Come As You Are: Killing Joke riff; lyrics about identity, acceptance, and contradiction; one of Nirvana’s most approachable songs
Breed: punk energetic track criticizing suburban conformity and expectations surrounding adulthood and family life; likely inspired by Kurt’s breakup with Tobi Vail; originally named “Imodium”
Something In The Way: minimalist, dark, and haunting fantasy inspired by the Young Street Bridge along the Wishkah River where Kurt fished as a teenager; Lonely, fragile, and unforgettable
“Just because you’re paranoid Don’t mean they’re not after you”
-“Territorial Pissings“, Nirvana (1991)
Pairs well with:
Coffee, cigarettes, moth-eaten flannel shirts, teenage angst, Doc Martens, coming of age, overcast days, Seattle dreams, living life at night, binge watching Singles, greasy hair, stubble, and apathy
Groove Rituals 