Apr 30, 2021
The 50(ish) Greatest Albums of All Time
Nevermind Me, How Are You Getting On?
Album #18 : Nirvana — Nevermind
This week, I saw my mum and dad for the first time in 7 months. It was brilliant. (Admittedly, I still haven’t seen my sister, brother or sister-in-law but you know what they say about beggars and choosing…) It goes without saying really, but the last year has been really tough for families living apart — especially over winter and the festive period. The soul-destroying boredom of lockdowns made the prospect of spending Christmas together even sweeter than usual and to have that ripped away at the last minute was, honestly, absolutely devastating.
Fortunately, I am not someone who has ever suffered from serious mental health problems (and so occasionally feel a bit of a fraud talking about them) but even so it has been hard — the pandemic has magnified issues tenfold. Working from home can sometimes feel like you live at work, having a puppy (whilst mostly joyous) becomes even more intense, the distance between you, family and friends becomes greater.
But now we are moving to the green shoots of spring and recovery, and I was able to see my mum and dad. As I mentioned, it was a real lift. Now I have a date in the diary to go back home and see my friends and, barring any catastrophes, that should go ahead — another cause for optimism.
I am talking a lot about mental health this week because this album, and all of Nirvana’s output, is forever shaded by Kurt Cobain’s suicide. Very few people know about Nirvana and don’t know about the gruesome nature of Cobain’s death. The album is a brilliant, screaming, trail-blazing record which told 90s teenagers that they weren’t alone in the way they felt — angsty, angry, alone — and it changed music forever. But so did what came after.
Were it to happen nowadays, as it does all too often (suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK), there would be an outpouring on social media from accounts that exclusively tweet about football using phrases like “so sad, look out for your boys.” I can’t help but wonder how many people actually follow up on that? Is it just a flippant tweet, or do they actually check in with ‘their boys’? I hope they do.
I know I have been guilty of not doing it in the past. There are people that I think about in a fleeting moment and then I am distracted by something else. It isn’t an excuse, but life was busy and I am easily distracted. Over the last year, though, things have calmed down and I have been trying to find the time to even send a quick text. Now, as things re-open, I hope I can keep up that habit.
I will say something for the third time in this text; I am lucky. It is hard to imagine if this pandemic had taken place when this album came out. There’d be less conspiracy theories for one. We would all probably also be really good at snake and I’d be blissfully unaware who Laurence Fox was — but the isolation would have been so much worse. I am grateful that friends and family can be at the other end of a laptop if they need to — but I am even more grateful that I soon will see them in person, and ask them how they are.
Thanks for reading — over the course of 2021, I’ll be reviewing 50(ish) of the greatest albums ever recorded. You can see the list here:
There is also a playlist featuring the best song from each album here.
