We actually played an all-ages show in Seattle for gas money to go down to Los Angeles to record Nevermind.” But when they finally met Vig at a Van Nuys studio (where Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was dreamed up) months later, hopes were high. “Kurt and I were living together, selling amplifiers and 45s of ‘Love Buzz’ (a rare early single) for food. “It was kind of a desperate time,” says Grohl, now a Foo Fighter.
hardcore band Scream), he’d found “the drummer of our dreams.” A demo produced by Butch Vig (now of Garbage) got the band signed to major label DGC and not a second too soon. Like many who had listened to classic rock (Beatles, Who, Sabbath) and ’80s punk (Bad Brains, Scratch Acid, Replacements, Hüsker Dü), Cobain knew that his band’s sound wasn’t astoundingly original he and bassist Krist Novoselic were even scared that people would nail them for ripping off the Pixies on “Teen Spirit.” But behind his sarcastic self-deprecation, Cobain knew he had a gift, and after the band’s turgid indie debut Bleach, he knew he was writing much better songs: plus, in Dave Grohl (ex of the D.C. It’s closer to a Motley Crüe record than it is to a punk-rock record.” On “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the “grunge” rallying cry: “It’s really not that abrasive at all. Here was Cobain on Nevermind, the supposed soundtrack of disenchantment for so-called Generation X (from Michael Azerrad’s band bio Come As You Are): “I’m embarrassed by it. Yo, the punk-rock revolution will be televised 15 years too late! Mom and Dad, guess what? The kids aren’t all right! Where have you been? '” My favorite Nevermind moment: During the fake-pep-rally video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a cheerleader’s boobs bounce across the screen sporting an anarchy symbol, while Nirvana (“the band”) lurches in the back of the gym almost catatonically. My favorite Cobain quote: “Even the guys in the safety patrol called me ‘f-t. Kurt Cobain was always a wickedly funny little shit. Punk rockers are opinionated little shits who care too much about what does and doesn’t suck and get by on a wicked sense of humor. Releases by OutKast, Beck, Lauryn Hill, the Beastie Boys, Radiohead, and the Chemical Brothers-among others in the pages that follow-have pointed rock, hip-hop, and pop toward a mighty freaky future. Still, looking back over the decade, things look good for the ’00s. Of course, it can take a few years for a record’s legacy to become clear, and many albums sound better in hindsight, even Stone Temple Pilots’ Purple. And for all their sound and fury, neither Korn nor Limp Rizkit made records with Nirvana’s burning soul or Rage Against the Machine’s missionary zeal.
For all their mackin’, neither Puffy nor Jay-Z made LPs that touched the committed passion of Fear of a Black Planet or the musical ambition of The Low End Theory. We just called the golden eras as we saw ’em. You may also note that our roster skews a bit toward records from the early ’90s, especially for rock and hip-hop. Tupac Shakur, Ani DiFranco, Jane’s Addiction, and other artists whom we love for a million reasons, but who didn’t make what we felt was a genuinely great record in the ’90s, remain in our hearts-but not on the list.Īlso Read Blink-182, Green Day to Headline When We Were Young 2023 Other times, the perfectly cooked beat the brilliantly raw (PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love over Rid of Me). Sometimes a record’s knock-you-off-your-Skechers impact helped it tip the scales over more refined craft (Nirvana’s Nevermind topping In Utero). Suffice it to say that, after much heated discussion and countless veiled insults, it came down to the factors of both remarkable artistry and cultural shock value. What, then, you ask, constitutes “greatest”? Don’t even start. That ours should be more valid than yours is debatable. When you’re measuring the music this decade is offering to history-the sounds we partied with, copulated to, fought about, and wept over-everyone has an opinion. Pronouncing the 90 greatest albums of the ’90s is a somewhat presumptuous thing to do. We heard that a lot during the time we spent preparing this issue. This article originally appeared in the September 1999 issue of SPIN.
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