Twenty Years

Nirvana's album Nevermind is 20 years old this year.  It's difficult for me to attempt to put into worlds how NECESSARY Nirvana was to the world. 

The year was 1991 and this young lad had just graduated from high school.  I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Fortunately, I was smart enough to know that I should probably go to college.  But even that decision was a disillusioned and directionless one. I knew I couldn't stay in Huntley - 1991 was the year my journey began.  And Nirvana provided the soundtrack.

From a historical perspective, Nirvana can be put upon the shelf with the likes of The Beatles.  In a world swamped with Talk Dirty To Me and Dr. Feelgood, "grunge" music snuck in our collective back doors and had sex with our girlfriends.  Grunge grabbed our acne faces and slapped the Whitesnake right out of them.  Thank God for Kurt Cobain (and all the other lesser Seattle-based grunge bands who motivated and inspired him).

Strangely, it was morbidly fitting that he died young.  I was very angry at Kurt for killing himself. I felt like he abandoned a entire movement of disillusioned youths taking their first steps on journeys that would mold them and form them and make them legendary.  Or so we hoped. 

I also pitied Kurt because we now know he was in a lot of physical pain. A pain only drugs and suicide could quell.  Also, I'm not so sure Kurt wanted to be a leader of a generation.  It landed in his lap and he wasn't given a choice.

Regardless, Nevermind changed the landscape of music and most likely saved a lot of lives.