‘Nevermind’: The most critically acclaimed album of the 1990s?
Questionable fashion trends, Friends on television, and the emergence of the first internet age; the 1990s was certainly a memorable decade, still bearing a significant cultural importance within the modern age.
In addition to all the fantastic films, innovations, and trends that typified that brightly coloured era, the soundtrack of the 1990s was pretty incredible, too. From the abrasive sounds of grunge to the pop revolution of the Spice Girls, there seemed to be something for everyone back in the nineties.
Every decade has its own claims about being the best decade in musical history, of course. After all, music is a highly subjective, personal art form that is usually rooted in personal experiences and tastes. If you spoke to somebody who grew up in the 1980s, for instance, they are probably more likely to cite that decade as being the greatest for music due to the fact that those sounds are attached to their youth when they were likely paying more attention to music.
Nevertheless, the sheer diversity and enduring relevance of so much of the music which arose during the 1990s means that the decade has a better claim than many other decades.
Over in the United States, for instance, the early part of the decade was typified by a vast mix of mainstream and alternative rock, as well as a golden age for hip-hop and R&B expression. Seattle’s grunge scene, which first emerged during the mid-1980s, taking its cues from the hardcore punk scene which preceeded it, broke into the mainstream during the early 1990s, making household names of groups like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Alice In Chains in the process.
What’s more, the early 1990s also spawned the Riot Grrrl movement, an utterly essential punk-adjacent movement which blended alternative rock with revolutionary feminist politics. Although this scene never really hit the musical mainstream, at least not in the same way as grunge, its impact upon the wider alternative music scene in America was incredible.
To say that America’s rock output during the 1990s was expansive would be a vast understatement; we haven’t even mentioned the rap-rock stylings of Rage Against the Machine, the emergence of third-wave ska, or the rise of nu metal, either.
But what exactly was the most successful album of the 1990s?
In terms of commercial and critical success, the 1990s were defined almost entirely by one group: Nirvana. Breaking the niche sounds of grunge into the music mainstream, bolstered by the incredible songwriting talents of Kurt Cobain, Nirvana opened the eyes and ears of audiences all around the world. Their sophomore record, Nevermind, was the album that established them as the defining group of the decade, so it is no surprise that the 1991 record is the most critically acclaimed album of the 1990s, according to data from acclaimedmusic.
Meanwhile, the biggest-selling album of the 1990s in the UK was Oasis’ second record, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, which narrowly missed out on being in the top ten most acclaimed records of the decade, sitting one position behind U2’s Achtung Baby. Those albums immediately behind Nevermind should be fairly easy to guess, with Radiohead’s seminal OK Computer expectedly taking the second spot, followed by Massive Attack’s Blue Lines.
Ultimately, everybody reading his article will have their own interpretation of what the greatest record of the 1990s was, but nobody can deny the acclaimed brilliance of records like Nevermind. The grunge masterpiece changed alternative rock forever, and seemed to unite all different factions of the musical spectrum, certainly earning its place at the top of the pyramid when it comes to 1990s rock.
