What 'Nevermind' means to our listeners

"Nevermind" is the quintessential album of my teenage years. When Jon played "Lithium" at the 8th grade talent show, I knew I would always love guitar players" :)

I first heard Nevermind in '95 or '96, when I was in sixth grade. Kurt had passed, though I wasn't aware of that yet. I was still into Jars of Clay and all that, and on a bus headed to a field trip, a friend played Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, and Nirvana for me. Rage and the Pumpkins were a little much for my delicate sensibilities at the time, but Nirvana instantly struck a chord somewhere inside me. It was like the Beatles turned up to 11. I could follow the song structures and feel the pop roots, and bang my head as much as a good Christian boy would allow himself. I didn't really pay attention to the lyrics, though they hooked me deeper later, but the melodies floating above these crushing arrangements immediately began a change in my musical taste. Five years later it, and contemporaries, were the soundtrack to my angst-ridden teenage years.

To me it made me see that old time rock n roll just could'nt do it for me all the time anymore. It was time to expand my musical horizon.

I was 18 years old and just out of Navy bootcamp when I first heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I can't say that I was an instantaneous Nirvana fan at that very moment, but I do remember thinking to myself, "A major shift in the music scene just happened."

I didn't realize until recently how poppy those choruses are. It was like someone took a Brian Wilson melody and screamed it over distorted guitars.

When I came home from my fist year of college all my neighborhood/childhood friends were convinced they had "found" an album that they could turn me on to, finally. I was the audiophile in our group and got quite a lot of ridicule for bands lie NIN, Primus, Faith No More,etc. My first impression was that I didn't like this Hello,hello, how low track.(SLTS) but the deeper into the album we got the more I realized that they knew me and my taste in music and art. RIP Kurt. The brightest flame burns twice as fast!

emotionally powerful, intense and beautiful, strong beats and genuine lyrics made my skin tingle.

I don't know how to describe exactly what nevermind meant to me. i can tell you it meant enough that i got the Nirvana smiley face tattooed on my arm. i just identify with the lyrics, and love their raw sound.

This hit when I was about 9. It was my first experience of listening to music with friends and breaking free of what our parents listened to.

From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah was my second album ever and it included a lot of live Nevermind tracks. That album introduced me to alternative music and I am fearful what my musical taste would be like now without it.

This sounds like a stereotype, but "Nevermind" was responsible for changing my musical tastes from Poison and Motley Crue to alternative and what it is today.

I wasn't even born yet. But nirvana has shaped my whole life. My oldest brother is ten years older than me and Kurt Cobain was his idol. He organized his own grunge band that did covers of Nirvana and even some of their own music. I have been listening to Nirvana since I was born and it is loved by every member of my family, even my 11 year old sister. I listen to Rockabye Baby's Nirvana lullaby rendition every night. Nirvana and their album Nevermind have been great in helping me through hard times in life and have been one of the most important things to me, ever!

"Punk Rock Is Freedom"

I was only 9 when the album came out, so I heard it years later, after Kurt had passed. Regardless, Nevermind was one the first CDs I bought with my own money as a teenager. Nirvana paved the way for Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, and much of the late 1990s alternative rock explosion.

I never got into the hair bands that everyone else at my teeny tiny farm high school was drooling over/talking about. When Nirvana came out, it's like it understood where I was coming from. It also was about the music, not some music video with overtly sexual content. It was an answer, that's what it meant to me.

I never got into the hair bands that everyone else at my high school was drooling over/talking about. When Nirvana came out, it's like it understood where I was coming from. It also was about the music, not some music video with overtly sexual content. It was an answer, that's what it meant to me.

Time to throw away the Motley Crue albums. A new day had arrived.

It was one of those soundtracks during my college years that helped define an era. I never actually owned a copy, because it was playing everywhere, but hearing it played again now makes me realize just how important it was to the alternative music industry and to all my peeps back in the day.

um...everything.

Looking back, I can't believe someone so young (myself) could have felt such strong emotions-- but I did, and Nirvana captured it all. An empowering semi-passive revolt that molded me but never held me back. I still listen and say, "Hell YES." Thank you, Nirvana. Thank you, Kurt Cobain.

It was my first CD, given to me as a Christmas present. I can't tell you how many times I played through the album the first day I got it.

What I remember: This was the most powerful music I had ever heard. Way more honest than anything dug up from the aftermath of the eighties national music scene.

That 'power' was encapsulated in the first 10 seconds of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. Just...raw power.

And it was 'good'.

Living in rural Iowa opened my eyes to a world outside my small town.

It was one of the first tapes that I bought. I think I was entering jr hi, so I already had a "I'm cooler than you attitude." Liking this tape and then having everyone else like it just confirmed my feeling that nobody else really "understood" except me.
I also appreciated that there was a wide variety of songs; that there were like 4 accoustic songs on an albumn from a band that was on Headbangerz Ball!

I knew that they were big, that they were significant in a way that was new to me. As a teenager they spoke to me on a different level from other music of the time. When I listen to them now, I still have the same feeling, and their music is as timeless now as revolutionary as it was, then.

ANGER AND REBELLION!

When Nirvanaa€™s Nevermind was released I was a college undergrad in my fourth year, first experiencing living in a run-down Mid-Wisconsin college town triplex with my long-haired bass guitar playing, Utne Reader subscribing, public radio listening, wool socks and sandal wearing art major, no, biology major, no, English major, no-direction whatsoever boyfriend. I worked part-time at Musicland in the mall down the block and I studied and made art all the rest of my waking hours.

There were no a€œright anglesa€� in our home as the settling foundation caused doorways to slant and the walk across the crushed olive green carpeted living room floor was downhill. To create an in-house painting studio for me, we removed all the hand-me-down or thrift store furniture from the living room except an upright re-purposed ammunition case I used to hold my brushes, turpentine and oil paints, a small rust-colored couch, and a large a€œbrick and boarda€� bookcase which held a boom box, tons of art books and short story collections (by the likes of T. Coraghessan Boyle and Raymond Carver ), as well as our shared cd collection. Along the wall was a huge plastic drop cloth Ia€™d use to protect the walls and floor from my giant expressive figurative paintings.

I remember purchasing Nevermind somewhat hesitantlya€�not because the music was so much different or harsher than other stuff I listened to (it was), but because it was already so popular and I didna€™t normally like the things that so many other people liked. But when I saw Nirvana perform a€œTerritorial Pissingsa€� then smash their set on SNL in my boyfrienda€™s parentsa€™ basement, I braced myself against the raw unbridled emotiona€�the powera€�the anger, still I fell.

The cd became one of the select few albums that were the soundtrack in the empty ugly living room studio as I searched for an entry to adulthood without fully adopting adult responsibilities. I listened, inspired, while painting my paintings as a means of escape, as a call for attention, as a release.

Just two years later, my boyfriend broke up with me, I moved back in with my parents, and got a job at a large chain bookstore. One night I came home from a late shift and saw my dad was watching TV in the family room. As I entered, he turned to look at me. His face was so serious, so sad, as he told me Kurt Cobain was dead.

Good thing for us, his music is not.

I was a young Dad and Nevermind was the song track of those days.....

First time I heard about Nirvana was on MTV. Watched the unplugged show and was blown away!

I turned 21 the year "punk broke," which meant I could see all of this great music live, including Nirvana in the Mainroom at First Ave. Saw them again at Roy Wilkins after they were huge, and the girl sitting behind me barfed down my back.

It helped me break away from everything. You could rock out and scream at the top of your lungs. It was way for me to unwind and relax. It was also a way to get me going amp myself up . It basically opened me up to hundreds of new bands from the indie labels like Sub Pop.

distortion back on the radio

I was working at a local music store when the demo dropped. I have heard the name mentioned before and the baby on the cover got my attention. I played that CD over and over at the store and have never received so many comments from customers. To this day, that CD is played regularly on my ipod. Thank you Nirvana for the demise of the hair bands of the 80's and for influencing all the great music of today.

A Great Change In Music. The end of processed music. Nirvana was raw!

it was a great album. being more of a pearl jam fan, i think they did what many bands of that time wish they could. any trio rocks, and nirvana did it best.

...the life

I had just finished high school, on my way to college, and hearing Smells like teen spirit seemed to be an emphatic start of the new chapter in my life. I was also a guitar player, who wanted to be in a band, but I couldn't see myself in a Jane's Addiction type band (what I was listening to at the time). I listened to the 3 song EP with' Even in his Youth' and 'Aneurysm', and I instantly knew that was what I wanted to sound like, it was an epiphany.

Having been a fan of Bleach, I was totally looking forward to the release of Nevermind. I worked at my college radio station so my friend and I got a hold of an advance copy of the disc. Back at his room we put it on and were completely floored. It sounded like a different band than the one on Bleach. Incredible melodies. Huge drums and guitars. Even bigger hooks. It was seriously chill inducing. Somehow, it was like nothing we had heard before. Even just the way Kurt sang the word "Yeah!" blew us away. We sat there staring at each other with mouths agape. The next day I remember walking into the common area where fellow students were dining and doing homework, carrying the disc and telling everyone I knew, "These guys are going to be huge!" Not sure if I totally believed it and I obviously had no idea HOW huge. I can't overstate how important this album has been to me.

I was totally obsessed with Nirvana around 93-96! In Utero is still my answer my favorite album ever! Very excited to hear the Butch Vig produced version of Nevermind.

Nirvana broke down boundaries for an entire generation of popular music fans. There was a mold established by many bands before them and they tore it apart. It was so refreshing to hear the unexpected come out and tear down conventional sounds.

I was in high school when the album came out, and I remember hearing it and not being able to resist cranking the volume. My mother hated it, naturally, and this of course only made me love it more. I remember being really angry and frustrated with her about something (everything!) and getting into the car and blasting the stereo as loud as it would go and just driving until the tape was done. I came home and felt 1000 times better and it was like the whole fight had never happened. It was like the music was doing the yelling for me. Perhaps I should put myself in time out with my ipod the next time my small children start driving me bonkers.

alienation, anger and being 14, in a really. satisfying. way.

I just turned 30 and had young children, but I still rocked. Nevermind hit me like a ton of bricks. It's impossible to listen to Nevermind without doing the head bang. It's an aural involuntary reaction, even today. Eight years ago I drove through Aberdeen, WA and I thought, "Ya I can see where this music was born and had it's roots."

I was 12 years old when Kurt passed. I remember coming home, turning on MTV and listened to Kurt Loader deliver some bad news. Shortly after I bought Nevermind, my first album. Two years after that I started to play guitar only to learn their songs. I still play to this day and even purchased a vinyl copy of Nevermind two years ago as a birthday present to myself. love always, W.H.

Like a lot of others, it meant a departure from Metal. It meant I could safely put 'Master of Puppets' away and life would still be okay. The Earth would continue to turn, the sun would rise and my cd player would work fine if I went a day without hearing a Kirk Hammett guitar solo.

Nevermind allowed me to become an introverted, moody teen while still in grade school.

I was only seven when it came out and a couple of my older cousins had bought it. I remember hearing it and saying, "What is that? That music is COOL!" I'd never heard anything like Nirvana, but it really began shaping my taste for loud, energetic music.

"Floyd the Barber" is what made me fall in love with music. At the age of 11, I heard Nirvana for the first time. Now at 22, I only wish I had been older at the time of Nirvana's meteoric rise to superstardom. RIP Kurt

I was in Japan the fall when Nevermind came out. After I got back, I remember going out with friends and hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit. I asked them excitedly who it was, and one of them said dismissively, "It's that Nirvana song again."

I was finishing college and was looking at my life and what was behind and what was ahead. Nevermind gave a voice to what I was feeling in 1991. That kind of hopeful despair of being in my early twenties and trying to figure out what was next.

Teen Rebellion!

My parents got divorced around this time. This was my soundtrack for a couple years.

I was pretty young when the album came out, but I remember being in 4th or 5th grade, we went to the 6th grade class to work on a project with them. One of the 6th graders had just come back from a Nirvana concert and her hair was dyed all these cool colors. I had to find out who they were after that. My dad had the CD and I used to sneak it to listen to it. Not because I'd get in trouble for listening to it, but because I thought he would have told me to buy my own!

1991...I was just starting to get into music. This record had a huge impact on my life and influenced me to pick up a guitar, write tunes, and express myself.I remember being so fascinated with the beginning of "Teen Spirit." just rewinding the tape over and over again to hear that intro. I'd never heard a guitar tone like that before!

Fantastic dis; words can't really describe the impact that it had on me. Frustrated with the mundane, "Nevermind" kept me seeking the creative artists, which evenually led me to their influence (Husker Du) and the great radio station "Modern Rock 104", which The Current,is a great present day replacement. I still keep searching, because of Nirvana, and now, The Current. Keep up the great work!

uh, know all the words - even to this day. and, it's one of those albums that you can listen to over and over and it never gets old. what's even better is that the album cover now does not get ANY publicity like it did back in 1991 - no problem showing the kid's penis on the shelves at target!!

I graduated High School in 1993 so it was the peak of my musical exploration as a teenager, Nevermind meant a lot, it echoed how I felt at that time and seemed very real in a time of really bad fake pop music.

I was singing in a band back in '91, and my now-husband played bass. The day I brought Nevermind home, I said to him "You've gotta hear this... this is the coolest sound I've heard in a long time!" He said he thought all the songs sounded the same and blew it off. But a week or two later, he was playing that CD every single day when I got home from work. It influenced some of his songwriting too. He was devastated when Kurt Cobain took his own life. To me, Nirvana's Nevermind changed rock n' roll. Call it grunge if you will, but it was just so raw and pure. I can only imagine what else the band could have done if Kurt was still around.

it was the first declaration of rebellion that i had discovered in music. it was, simply stated, brilliant.

Hope for the future that young people could still rebel and rock out. My brother had seen them in Portland and sent me a copy of the album on cassette that he had recorded and misspelled them as "Narvana" on the case.

It was the very first CD I ever bought and it still reminds me of high school, my closest friends at an adolescent time where you're still trying to find out who you are. Music helped me do that and Nirvana was a major contributor to that end.

Nirvana was my youth. I grew up in Seattle and being a teenager/young adult there in the 80's and early 90's was AWESOME! Seeing Nirvana play live is and will always be one of the top 10 amazing experiences in my life. There are 2 t-shirts my daughter had by the age of 8. Nirvana and The Beatles!

Listen to their records made me want to start to play music

It showed me that guitars still existed, after a decade of britpop.

Looking at the album "Nevermind", it came to define and represent a generation in more ways that just the music. The fusion of pop, rock, and punk produced this beautiful counter culture of grunge that took the 90s by storm and has left a permanent impact on the musical landscape. When you turn on the album and hear the beginnings on "Smells like Teen Spirit" you get this sense of how this song alone touched so many lives, and still does. The entirety of this album is still playing as the anthem of a lifestyle that will always live on. Nirvana themselves are a hugely important part of my life, and I know that millions more carry a similar love for the music of Nirvana and what it has created for us. It speaks when we can not, it releases anger in times when we need to get out that angst, and it continues to influence other musicians and still resonates with people of today.

That album came out as I was finishing college and entering a new phase in life. That album was a shift in music at a time when my life was going through major changes. I guess you could say I literally grew up listening to that album.

I was 20 when it came out. That and PJ's Ten set the soundtrack for me and my circle of friends for years. Nevermind is in my top 10 all time favorite albums.