Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.50) - Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's."
Spin (9/99, pp.114-5) - Ranked #1 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s."
Spin (12/91) - Highly Recommended - Ranked #3 in Spin's list of the 20 Best Albums Of 1991.
Entertainment Weekly (Spring 2000, p.166) - Ranked #1 in EW's "Top 10 albums of the '90s" - "...[It] continues to spew a molten-lava stream of melody, primal force, and passion..."
Q (12/99, p.70) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s."
Q (10/01, p.106) - Ranked #3 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime"
Q (1/92) - Included in Q Magazine's list of the 50 best albums of 1991.
Alternative Press (7/95, p.75) - Ranked #1 in AP's list of the `Top 99 of '85-'95' - "...this Seattle trio, for better or for worse, actually deserved the literal heaps of attention that pursued them. ...[Nirvana] broke into and stole the hearts of this generation because Sir Cobain could write an incredibly catchy song...[with] lyrics that were not shallow treatises..."
Vibe (12/99, p.160) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century.
Melody Maker (12/91) - Ranked #5 in Melody Maker's list of the top 30 albums of 1991 - "...aching melodies...fearsome metallic attack...An album which penetrated all the way to the heart of America's metal homeland..."
New York Times (Publisher) (1/1/92) - "...The culmination of 10 years of post-punk, and a reinvention of the style for a new generation....Smart, sarcastic rock, noisy and catchy and unabashedly confused, that zoomed from a collegiate cult following into the Top 10 without a hint of appeasement..."
NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #12 in NME's list of the `Greatest Albums Of All Time.'
Nirvana: Kurt Cobain (vocals, guitar); Chris Novoselic (vocals, bass); David Grohl (vocals, drums).
Additional personnel: Kirk Canning (cello).
Recorded at Sound City, Van Nuys, California.
NEVERMIND raised groundbreaking Seattle grunge trio Nirvana to the status of Godhead, forever changing the face of the pop music market. Punk energy and aesthetic ("Territorial Pissings," "Drain You") are its lifeblood; pop melody, harmony, and structure ("Something In The Way," "Come As You Are") its selling points; Kurt Cobain's roaring guitars and subconscious intellect ("Smells Like Teen Spirit," "In Bloom") its heart and soul. Nobody had come up with an album like NEVERMIND before, because no one could conceive of an album like it--not since Husker Du had broken up, anyway.
But the place where NEVERMIND struck the most firmly and personally was in the gut. Cobain's throaty roar, mumbled speech, and fumbled appearance all confirmed to his audience that he was of and for them, even as his gift for combining unforgettable melodies with acerbic insights showed that he was utterly unique. "Here we are now, entertain us" may have come and gone as a catch-phrase, but as an insight into a generation's bitterly restless tide, it ranks right up there with "I can't get no satisfaction."
