If you had to choose one song as the soundtrack of 1990s youth, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” would certainly be among the strongest contenders.
The opening notes of the song became synonymous with an entire era and with a youthful desire for nothing to be exactly as it was “supposed” to be. Intensity, anger, melancholy and an almost defiant indifference toward everything that had been taken for granted.
On September 24, 1991, Nirvana released their second studio album, Nevermind. The record brought an until-then alternative sound to the center of global pop culture. Grunge was moving out of Seattle’s music scene and into the homes of millions of listeners.
The band was formed in 1987 in Aberdeen, Washington, by singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic. In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the band, completing the lineup that would record Nevermind.
Produced by Butch Vig, the album had already reached No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 by January 11, 1992.
“Nirvana” reaches Athens
The “Nirvana” phenomenon spread so quickly that Greek newspaper TA NEA wrote on Feb. 1, 1992:
“Imagine the era of Prohibition. Everyone was desperately searching for a bottle of whiskey, even if they did not drink, paying whatever it took, placing secret orders and asking for it to be kept in the cupboard, right there, to the right at the back, so they could come by and pick it up late at night.
“That is what is happening now with Nirvana. Except that the group from Seattle in the United States is not illegal. They are punk.
“At ‘Jazz Rock,’ they may hold a ‘copy’ for you when the new shipment arrives, so you can come and pick it up, but don’t wait too long, they will give it away. At ‘Metropolis,’ it is sold out. The next day it is sold out. The day after that, ‘we are expecting it.’ At Happening, ‘call, just to be safe, and we will let you know.’
“BMG, which is releasing Nirvana’s second album, ‘Nevermind’ — with the cover showing a baby swimming and being lured by a dollar bill […] — is running to keep up with demand.
“And just when the lion’s share of the working hours of the people at BMG went to the superstar Irish band U2, suddenly Nirvana appeared, almost out of nowhere. From Seattle, that is.
“‘They have sold more than 10,000 copies in Greece and continue to sell at the same rate. The album is being released as an import,’ BMG representative Alexandros Rizafis told TA NEA.”
A global phenomenon
The success, of course, was not limited to Greek record stores:
“The phenomenon is global. In America, they knocked the ‘golden boy’ Michael Jackson from the No. 1 spot on the charts, while it is officially reported that ‘Nevermind’ has been purchased 2.5 million times in the United States alone.
“Within 11 weeks, it climbed to the top of the album chart, and experts expect it to carry an entire string of ‘alternative rock’ bands along with it into the sweet life of success. Not that they have not already gotten there first.”
Indeed, the success of Nevermind did more than change the course of the band’s career. It opened the way even further for alternative American rock to reach a mass audience.
The newspaper also vividly described the image presented by the band members at the time:
“The trio — Kurt Cobain (vocals, guitar), Chris Novoselic (bass), Dave Grohl (drums) — are the guys who put their feet up on the desk and flick ash onto the floor. They play rock ’n’ roll beautifully, with the right doses of punk, metal and, yes, ballads. Very loudly and just as quickly. Absolute Nirvana. Anti-commercial, you say?”
That was precisely the greatest contradiction. A band that came from the alternative scene and kept its distance from the logic of the mainstream had now itself become a global phenomenon.
“TA NEA,” July 3, 1993, Historical Archive of “TO VIMA” | “TA NEA”
“The same miracle doesn’t happen twice”
Two years later, Tachydromos magazine sought to capture Nirvana’s musical influences, as well as the mark they had already left.
On September 29, 1993, prompted by the release of their next album, In Utero, the magazine wrote:
“Nirvana started in ’86, released their first record in ’88 and had a major hit in ’91 with the album ‘Nevermind.’
“They sold nine million copies worldwide and became the favorite band of young listeners.
“Influenced by British punk, hard rock bands and the Beatles, they were the first to play what was later called grunge — alternative American rock.”
The magazine, however, was skeptical about whether In Utero could repeat the commercial success of its predecessor:
“BMG. They are considered the masters of hard rock. Alternative, yes, but wealthy and commercial, they are trying to repeat last year’s success. The same ‘miracle’ does not happen twice.”
And yet In Utero also achieved enormous commercial and artistic success, despite its creators deliberately choosing a more raw and unconventional sound, clearly less “easy” for the mass audience that had embraced Nevermind.
The album that paved the way for grunge
To a degree, Tachydromos’s assessment proved accurate. However successful In Utero was, it did not reproduce the frenzy that Nevermind had unleashed two years earlier.
Thirteen years after the latter’s release and a decade after Kurt Cobain’s death, TO VIMA, in its November 21, 2004 edition, ranked Nevermind first among the five albums that defined grunge:
“It was to grunge exactly what Never Mind the Bollocks by the Sex Pistols was to punk. It belongs to those magical moments in the history of recorded music when everything came together to create a masterpiece.”
From September 1991 to today, the 12 (+1, with the famous hidden track “Endless, Nameless,” which follows several minutes of silence on “Something in the Way”) songs on Nevermind have transcended the era and genre in which they were born.
“Come As You Are,” “Lithium,” “In Bloom,” “Something in the Way” and, above all, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” continue to introduce Nirvana to new generations of listeners.
