Nirvana
Nevermind

There are definitely too many reviews about Nirvana and their iconic album "Nevermind". The role that the historic Seattle band played prominently within the musical landscape of the early '90s has already been extensively discussed, leaving an indelible mark and a heavy legacy with which all subsequent artists have necessarily had to come to terms. My intention is not to write yet another review to praise Nirvana and reiterate once more their enormous value: there’s no need to serve up the usual reheated soup of clichés, of ready-made phrases, of things said and re-said to endlessly emphasize points on which everyone agrees.

I just wanted to make a clarification that I believe is indispensable to fully understand the artistic development of the band, to better interpret the evolution of a production not easily categorizable within a determined and precisely definable scope, but traditionally placed in the musical genre commonly defined as grunge, a movement that encompasses elements of punk, post-punk, alternative rock, pop, heavy metal, and melodic music.

The extraordinary value of "Nevermind" lies precisely in the fact that in this work Nirvana succeeds in harmoniously and originally combining all the influences that nourish grunge, blending a myriad of influences and diverse ancestries that perfectly reformulate into a sound with a very particular style: rightly, this album has been considered the summa of all the artistic and aesthetic values that underpin the musical exploration of Cobain and his companions.

With this, I do not intend to devalue the other albums that preceded and followed this masterpiece. I’m merely saying that "Bleach" still appears too raw, dirty, unpolished, still deeply marked by a fundamentally punk-oriented approach; "In Utero" does not succeed in masterfully weaving all the diverse derivations into a characteristic sound, presenting frenetic and aggressive tracks like "Rape Me" alongside songs like "Pennyroyal Tea" and "All Apologies" that could be unhesitatingly defined as Beatlesque; "MTV Unplugged in New York" is a melodic revisitation of some historic successes from their repertoire, yet stripped of the intensity and impetuous aggression that characterize them.

For this reason, I believe that the true manifesto of the Nirvana experience should be considered "Nevermind", as it undoubtedly represents the pinnacle of that attempt at harmonious fusion of different styles and traditions that is the foundational basis of the grunge genre.

Moreover, I believe that the band's production, precisely because it appears so varied and composite in the rest of the albums, does not present itself to us in a univocal and monolithic way: Nirvana does not fall within the roster of artists that you either love or hate, with no middle ground and no escape (this only happens with those who make all their songs the same, who have found the key to success and without the slightest push for change and innovation obsessively continue to rehash the same story). Instead, one can appreciate their ability to draw from different traditions, to experiment with various experiences that makes their music the subject of contrasting judgments based on tastes and preferences.