Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind: 30 Years Today

Sounds Good!

Nirvana’s second album was their calling card. The band’s debut wasn’t heard by many people until after the group broke big. I have a memory of hearing it at a friend’s house in Auckland – he always had the stuff that was cool and/or hard to get. And I remember not really liking it. It was muddy. That was my memory. These days I’d be more likely to want to listen to Bleach than Nevermind – but Nevermind was the biggie. The real gateway.

Guess what? You’ll have guessed from the title already, but that album – Nevermind by Nirvana – is 30 years old today.

The internet will be your guide back through the album.

You can read a celebrities gush track-by-track here, see what Corey Taylor of Slipknot thinks of Kurt Cobain’s songwriting here or catch up on the whole baby-from-the-cover-has-grown-up-and-wants-a-payday scandal here.

You can pre-order the various 30th Anniversary box-sets here.

Over the weekend there’ll be many more accounts by many more scribes – there’ll be oral histories, retro reviews, updated thoughts, all sorts. I’m not sure if enjoyed is the right word, but The New Yorker is carrying this worthwhile piece and I’m glad I read it.

We listened to Nevermind last night while cooking dinner. I listened to it earlier in the day as well. That has to be the first time I’ve listened to it twice in a row for, well, at least 10 years, probably 20.

There was a time when Nevermind was like a first beer, like coke after school, like so much candy. There was a time when Nevermind felt as essential as air or water. And I remember – vividly – the day I bought it on cassette tape. I’ve since owned it on CD (many times) and vinyl. And currently the only copy in the house is not a real copy at all, or actually it is a total ‘copy’ in fact; just a digitally airbrushed sweep of music that I can click on and hear without touching. And that’s fine. I’ve done my time on that particular Maple Drive.

September 1991 is a goldmine of a month for music. Take a look. Final albums by Pixies (at the time anyway), Talk Talk and Dire Straits. The emergence of brand new acts – including Saint Etienne and Orbital. The peak-achievement of Primal Scream, the last truly great thing by Ozzy Osbourne, and full-announcement second and third albums from acts as disparate as Ween, Garth Brooks, Yothu Yindi, A Tribe Called Quest and Mariah Carey. All of that and the Use Your Illusion albums (I & II) by Guns n’ Roses, the one-hit-wonder of Tom Cochrane’s Life Is A Highway, the best Robbie Robertson solo album (Storyville) and a little record by the Red Hot Chili Peppers called Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

There’s a few articles written already calling it the greatest month in modern music. Some of those will be updated over the weekend too – no doubt.

But is Nirvana’s Nevermind the biggest impact-player from that line-up?
Probably. At the time, certainly. It changed up music for so many people. As a teenager right when the grunge movement was hitting it was Nirvana’s smash Smells Like Teen Spirit and its parent-album that gave me the licence to stop listening to my parents’ albums. Oh, I loved our little family CD collection at the time (The Animals, Santana, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Miles Davis). Nothing wrong with the music the boomers made – and gave to us. But it just felt like the start of our own movement finally – with bands like Nirvana. And I should point out that the month before all of this (so, August of 1991) we had brand new – debut – records by Massive Attack, PM Dawn, Pearl Jam, Cypress Hill, Babes in Toyland. And, erm, the Spin Doctors. Metallica’s self-titled ‘black’ album was almost like a re-birth or a second shot at a debut. For some of us anyway. So it was all of this that was charging and changing up my brain.

I bought Nirvana’s Nevermind on a Saturday morning, a car ride into town (wasn’t old enough to drive) and then dropped off at the cricket match. Slightly grumpy that I couldn’t listen to my new purchase before playing the game. Then I remembered I had my Walkman with me – so I sat listening to side one while I waited to bat. Psyched myself up and hit one of the biggest sixes. Full belief that Nirvana’s Nevermind had played a part. A couple of balls later I was out on the boundary trying to repeat that lucky slog. Story of my cricketing life. But at least that created extra time for side two.

What a different world.

Speaking of extra time, that thirty years ago is now feeling like 40 or 50 somehow. Which literally makes no sense. But hey. Time is an abstract concept.

Last night we flicked the mouse-finger onto Nevermind and reminded ourselves what it sounded like. As if we could ever forget. Katy was cooking. I was folding washing. We were both taking turns to try to interact with our son. He was having no part in our music. Nor our conversations. He was deep under headphones and listening to Kendrick Lamar. Good lad.

We listened to Nevermind the way we might take out the album of wedding photos. We listened to it unable to forget any of the words. And even less likely to recapture any of our own teen spirit. Oh well, whatever…

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And here’s your weekend playlist.