oh well whatever, nevermind

Over the past few weeks, I have been getting messages on facebook and email reminding me that it was exactly 20 years ago that Nirvana released their album Nevermind.

It is bizarre how one album defined my entire generation. I can remember sneaking off with my friend C to go buy the album (we had pretended we were spending the afternoon in the library, but ran off to the local music shop as soon as we could). I had only recently started to pay attention to music, and this sounded totally different than everything else out there, so I remember being a bit scared to admit I liked it. millions of other kids must have been thinking the same thing. But what was it about Nevermind that made it so defining? Was it because it was the first of the Seattle scene to make it big? Or because its grittiness represented the total rejection of 1980s excess we were all so sick of? Was it because Kurt Cobain killed himself? Because his life from Nevermind to death pretty much put a timeframe on the movement? By the time he died, his fame was global. I remember walking up and down stari arbat in Moscow and seeing his name and image graffitied everywhere, right next to Viktor Tsoi. 20 years later I bet most people my age could still come up with the lyrics of Smells Like Teen Spirit, if no other song from that period…who would have guessed it in 1991?

And i forget just why i taste

oh, yeah, i guess it makes me smile

i found it hard, it's hard to find

oh well, whatever, nevermind