In 1990, Kurt Cobain and Krist Noveselic went to a hardcore gig, where they saw a band called Scream. The drummer of Scream was really impressive, playing his heart out in front of the crowd. And when Scream disbanded, the drummer contacted the pair and asked if he could join their band.
And just like that, Dave Grohl packed his bags and moved up to Seattle to join what would soon be the biggest band on earth.
Nirvana had just come off their mildly successful debut Bleach, which was recorded in 1989 for 600 dollars.
They weren't living a glamourous lifestyle. Grohl slept in a sleeping bag on Cobains couch and his diet mainly consisted of deep fried food from the gas station across the street.
And during that freezing Washington winter, they recorded demos for their next album on an old boombox.
Cobain wanted to call it Sheep, an inside joke directed towards the people he expected to buy the album. But eventually he grew tired of the title, and in one word summarized the angst and the apathy, the rage and the reluctance of his entire generation.
It was as if in one voice, Generation X, a generation who had been overlooked, ignored and condescended to, turned to the world and said, Nevermind.
As producer Butch Vig said, “September 1991 was really the death of the ’80s.”
Nevermind released on September 24, 1991 and is widely considered one of the best albums of all times. Against all expectations it destroyed the charts, knocking Michael Jackson off the top spot, selling hundreds of thousands of copies a week. To date, Nevermind has sold over 30 million copies.
But it's commercial impact pales in comparison to it's cultural legacy. Nevermind ushered in a new age of alternative grunge music, that blew hair metal and pop music off the airwaves. It defined the decade as a whole and remains enshrined as a testament to the power of rock music.
Which is why it's easy to forget what was happening across the Atlantic that week. Primal Scream released their successful third studio album Screamadelica, to much acclaim and praise just one day earlier.
How different were the UK and US music scenes in September of 1991? How does the birth of grunge relate to the birth of acid house? And just what drugs were these two bands doing that resulted in such different albums? We're gonna find out. Welcome to When Albums Collide.