People throw words like 'gamechanger' and 'revolutionary' around pretty carelessly these days but Nirvana's 'Nevermind' is the rare album for which those words actually apply. Fall of 1991, I was a college Junior and I was working in College Radio (KRUI, Iowa City, represent!) and we were given promo cassettes and LP's a few weeks prior. It was a no-brainer 'add' for us but what we had no precedent for what would end up happening. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" blew through college radio and quickly made it's way to commercial radio, hearing a song like "Teen Spirit" on a non-college or even beyond 'Alternative' radio stations was weird and awesome. It's sales have reached 30 million copies and what Nirvana did to not only launch Alternative as a format and influence countless bands can't be fully quantified. Sadly, the fame that 'Nevermind' brought certainly took it's toll on Kurt Cobain but 'Nevermnd' and Kurt's legacy live on.
We get the jazzy cover from The Bad Plus