1991 was an absolutely phenomenal year for music and this Saturday (24th Sept) the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana‘s second album “Nevermind”.

I can still remember the first time I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and being completely taken by it’s lovely “quiet bit, super loud bit, quiet bit and so on” and it setting my wee early teenage musical imagination alight. On investigation of the full album, it was packed with gems however and over the years, it’d be “Lithium” I’d find myself going back to again and again.

20 years on, as much as I loved the album, with reflection I can’t quite help but feel that “In Utero” was Cobain‘s real masterpiece. I’m a sucker for a more polished sound and just feel that the tracks contained within it’s 40 minute running time were all pretty much flawless and were also much more lyrically and melodically interesting.

Strangely enough one of the memories of Nirvana that stick with me is a rather dull one. I can really clearly remember walking into school the morning after Cobain had committed suicide and everybody being really remorseful and telling me they were sorry to hear what had happened. For some reason, they had all thought I’d get a bit angsty about it.

Fuck it, thought I, he’d left the world 3 great albums and an unforgettable acoustic session in “MTV Unplugged In New York”. What more can you ask of a musician?