Nevermind

There was one glaring omission in my R.E.M. compilation: "Fall on Me." I made the list the night prior, then lost it, then believed that I could do it from memory. For the most part I was right.... except for remembering my fifth-favorite R.E.M. song....

Oh well. Anyway, check out that song, too.



Maybe R.E.M. planned to break up around the anniversary of the "birth of grunge." They were instrumental in inventing "alternative music." Today's twentieth anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind album seems to have galvanized much more attention than the tenth anniversary. I guess that my generation is getting more sentimental.
I remember reading an article in Rolling Stone years ago in which Dave Grohl stated that his only real complaint about that era is the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video was released weeks before the song. He said something like, "it became a commercial for teen angst." I didn't see any of the Nirvana videos before I heard every song from the album on the radio. There was a college radio station called "Bulldog" in Georgia that played them almost nonstop. Sometime around my birthday in October of '91 I said to my friend, "I just realized that almost every song that I love on the radio right now is by the same band band-- 'Nervosa' or something." He laughed and said, "My dad calls it 'Nervosa.' It's actually Nirvana."
Almost exactly two years later I saw them during October 28, 2003 at the Michigan Fairgrounds for my first-ever concert. Months later when Kurt killed himself "the death of grunge" followed shortly thereafter. The Smashing Pumpkins were amongst the bands that tried to carry the grunge torch-- I remember that their videos became much more dark and the music became more punk, especially during '95-- and although "Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness" is the last truly great SP album, they failed.

Spin Magazine has a great tribute to all things Nevermind here.