BEHIND NEVERMIND

Almost sixteen years have passed and Nirvana is still remembered as a band that changed the "metal poser" era to bring a liberal and alternative style for new bands such as The White Stripes and The Strokes.

It was on September 24th, 1991 that Nevermind came in the stores to change the way people used to see music. The album was the first of the contract with Geffen Records and was produced by Butch Vig, an important name from the 90´s and mixed by Andy Wallace who had worked with metal bands like Slayer.

The song which opens Nevermind was the first single of the album. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was born out of a joke that Kathleen Hanna wrote about Kurt on a wall: "Kurt smells like teen spirit"(the name of a popular deodorant in U.S.). Until today people discuss about the meaning of the lyric, some say that it was about incomformity and teen revolution, while others prefer the story about the break up with Toby Vail. The video for the song achieved a nice spot in MTV and became a real fever arond the world.

The album had a lot of fast and violent songs like "Breed", an acoustic song, "Polly", and a lot of classic songs that became symbols of a new generation of rock fans. Tunes like "In Bloom", "Come As You Are" and "Lithium" are still listened with frequency and have become huge influence to a lot of great bands nowadays.

This change of thoughts about music created a new awareness in people around the world who are now more open to alternative songs and not imprisoned by pre-fabricated pop bands or metal bands that are more worried about breaking guitars than sounding like something original(and also have a horrible sense of fashion). The cool now is the simple, light and direct sound that Nirvana made. The modest and melodic sound now is more appreciated than the mess that the 80´s brought to the world.

And now, every day a new fan of Nirvana is born. Sometimes is a 13 year old boy who was not even alive when Nevermind came out to change rock context and rock thoughts. That is great!

This killer piece was written by Jenny Slompo, a PET 1 student.