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Nirvana’s Iconic Album “Nevermind” Turns 25

By Heather Henderson

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Nevermind, the album that launched Nirvana to rock legend status and introduced the world to grunge, was released 25 years ago today.

It may not feel like it to you, but 1991 was 25 years ago. So many interesting things happened that year, from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the North American release of the Super Nintendo, and the birth of singer Ed Sheeran. Among these iconic moments of 90s history, one stands out above them all— the introduction of grunge to the wider world outside of the Pacific Northwest.

Specifically, today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of Nirvana’s album Nevermind. You might have heard of Nirvana before. They’re only considered one of the most iconic rock groups in music history. It wasn’t just a new kind of music that they popularized all those years ago, but a whole attitude and way of life. Grunge was almost something of a philosophy. It was a statement against the glamorous excess of 1980s rock bands, with their outlandish costumes and elaborately crafted music videos.

Nevermind was the second studio album from Nirvana. Their first release, Bleach, didn’t have quite the same impact when it came out. Nevermind is best known for the single “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, which made waves throughout 1991 and 1992 with its simple yet extremely catchy melody. The song came out of nowhere and rose up the charts with enough momentum to knock bigger artists like Michael Jackson down a notch. The surprising commercial success of the song in late 1991 is usually regarded as the first time alternative rock broke into the mainstream music world.

Nevermind has been described as one of the greatest albums of all time by more people and publications than I could feasibly list here. The music was far different from anything else that was topping the charts at the time, and audiences welcomed this new sound. The music itself was only a part of the equation that made Nirvana such an iconic band. They also brought along a certain attitude that would come to define the 90s grunge scene.

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The songs from Nevermind became anthems for disaffected youth everywhere. The lyrics were both angsty and apathetic, the life outlook was bleak and nihilistic, even the associated fashions were cultivated to give off a vibe of “whatever, I don’t care”. Suddenly, all of the weird kids in high school that felt lost in the contemporary pop culture landscape had a new place to seek refuge from the overwhelming ostentatiousness of the early1990s. Caught in those lost years between the death of punk rock and the birth of emo, all of the sad and angry kids who were frustrated with their mundane suburban existence now had a band to call their own.

Nirvana sang for the freaks and weirdos, for the people who were perpetually lost and uncertain, for the awkward kids who never felt like they could relate to the world around them. The band was made up of those very people and they delivered an important message to their fellow misfits. Not quite the comforting “you’re not alone” sentiment offered by the later waves of emo music, or the aggressive “let’s destroy authority” orders delivered loudly by the punk bands of the 1970s, Nirvana reached out to their fans and said “meh, we don’t care”. And it was that cultivated apathy that Nirvana fans adopted for themselves to keep a safe distance from the endless disappointment of the real world.

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Without Nirvana, and without the sonic perfection of Nevermind, the rock & roll landscape would be utterly unrecognizable today. The enduring influence of Nevermind has already outlived its creator, and even after all this time it still holds up as a solidly excellent album.

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