Nevermind is a great pop record, dressed in indie/punk stylings. Songs like Breed, Drain You, and Come As You Are have melodies so simple and catchy, my three year old can sing them note for note. Cobain's guitar's thick distortion gets much of the credit for Nirvana's heaviness, but David Grohl's drumming is the real secret ingredient. There's a reason why he played on albums by Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails, and it's that he's the best drummer in all of alternative rock. Cobain's guitar prowess has been derided by shred-obsessed dolts, but he literally set the tone for an entire era of rock 'n' roll. The solo to Lithium is more memorable than anything Van Halen ever conjured up, and his rhythm work has just the right amount of roughness to it. Rock 'n' roll isn't supposed to be clean, folks, the irony here being that Nirvana cleaned up their sound for this album. There's no shame in that, especially not nowadays, when musicians are more than eager to license their tunes to commercials. Selling out is not a thing anymore, though it apparently mattered a lot to Cobain. I've found myself borrowing chord progressions or melodies unthinkingly from this album. Its impact was so significant that rock music never really recovered. Cobain is thought of as the last rock star, and the genre's decline gradually followed his passing. Regardless, I'll still pull up a video of a Nirvana concert every once in a while to watch with my son, and it's fun to watch him stare at man with a guitar on a stage, utterly transfixed. There's still power there, more than two generations removed. Maybe one day rock 'n' roll will live again.
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