Jun 07, 2003 03:04 PM
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(Updated Jun 07, 2003 03:04 PM)
NIRVANA - Nevermind
The culmination of 10 years of post-punk, and a reinvention of the style for a new generation....Smart, sarcastic rock; noisy and catchy and unabashedly confused, that zoomed from a collegiate cult following into the Top 10 without a hint of appeasement.
A few years after the matter, even the album cover appears vaguely symbolic: an innocent babe, braving the hazards, lunging for the seductive prize at the end of a hook. Few would've given good odds that the youngster would actually be able to snatch the green, swim back to shore, and laugh triumphantly in the fisherman's face; and history has made fools of those who thought it couldn't be done. Nevermind not only gave Nirvana the prize the band had reached out for, it included some epic consequences in the bargain raising the Seattle grunge trio to the status of Godhead, and forever changing the face of the rock music market. As ground-breaking albums go, Nevermind seemed expressly designed for a post-modern existence. The punk energy and aesthetic (''Territorial Pissings,'' ''Drain You'') were its lifeblood; melody, harmony and structure (''Something In The Way,'' ''Come As You Are'') were its selling points; the roaring guitars and sub-conscious intellect (Smells Like Teen Spirit, ''In Bloom'') were its heart and soul. Nobody had come up with an album like Nevermind before, because no one could conceive of an album like this.
But the place where Nevermind struck the most firmly and personally was in the gut. Cobains throaty roar, mumbled speech, fumbled appearance all confirmed that he was indeed one of us, with us, and for us; But his gift for combining melodies with acerbic insights showed that he was unlike us. ''Here we are now, entertain us'' may have come and gone as a catch-phrase, but as an insight into a generations bitterly restless tide, it ranks right up there with ''I cant get no satisfaction.'' In retrospect, Nevermind may seem a little too unassuming for its mythic status its simply a great modern punk record but even though it may no longer seem life-changing, it is certainly life-affirming
