‘Nevermind’ the hype — it’s all in your heart

So it’s the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” this week and everyone is reminiscing about this music that changed the industry — this grunge.

I think Seattle blogger Chris Burlingame is right from the numbers standpoint when he says, “Nirvana was hardly as ubiquitous in 1992 or 1993 as we like to remember.” Afterall, the majority of people still were buying “pop” records.

Nirvana was a big deal — a HUGE deal — to the sorts of people inclined to listen to that which went against the grain and/or teenage girls who had a jones on for Kurt Cobain’s sexy anti-swagger. I mean, honestly, if you were living in the Northwest in the early ’90s, you couldn’t really escape Nirvana-mania. Flip on one of the local rock radio stations and you were bound to hear one of the band’s tunes at any moment.

When the general populace discusses “grunge,” Nirvana is usually the first thing they bring up. Nirvana didn’t create grunge, but I suppose to some degree did make it culturally accessible. It’s a fashion as much as it is a sound. Even people who didn’t listen to Nirvana could be seen sporting roughed-up jeans, cardigan sweaters and/or plaid (often flannel) shirts. Grunge, it seemed, was bigger than Nirvana, but it probably wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t FOR Nirvana.

Pretty sure Kurt had this same sweater in red.