nirvana is ok... but to me the music feels very stuck in one place. i think it's a little over rated.

I agree they were good but nevermind is not the greatest album ever

I don't regard it as the best ever, I regard it as a highly influential album. Nirvana's music sparked the alternative movement, thats why I regard the album as I do, despite Kurt's ridiculously easy riffs.

They were influential no doubt, but give some credit to bands like R.E.M. who started alternative

I think it's their best album. it's influenced alot of people. also, i read that this album actually took them three and a half weeks to make.

There is no way we can say that Nirvana "sparked the alternative movement", unless of course you mean gave it an encouraging kick, rather than started it.

Nirvana themselves were influenced by several bands: The Ramones, The Melvins, The Meat Puppets, etc. But the "Grunge" movement had even started before Nirvana, with Motherlovebone, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam.

Nevermind is a great album because it breaks new ground and has a lot of originality, allbeit the mixing together of influences. It is certainly the most tuneful of Nirvana's albums and represents the peak of Kurt Cobain's creativity.

I don't believe though, that had Cobain lived, that Nirvana would have endured.

I agree that it's overrated, and I think the people who worship at its altar just haven't heard enough music. Kurt Cobain realized that many of the same people who bought Nirvana's albums had also bought Guns 'n' Roses albums, and Metallica, (the male angst crowd) and it made him sick. He admitted that Nirvana ripped off the Pixies, so there you go... straight from the horse's mouth, (no heroin pun intended.) I think he was trying to move the band in a less derivative direction near the end, but just couldn't get there in time. Actually, I think the best thing about Nirvana was Kurt's voice... the pain in there was real, total exposure of the soul, there was nothing fake about it. But there's a price for stripping the soul so bare.

Well of course it's their best album when you ask what somebody's favorite Nirvana song is it's either "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Come as You Are" or sometimes "Lithium"

I can see what you mean about the music being "stuck in one place." I only find that on Nevermind; In Utero feel smore diverse and fresh to me, while having the same degree of power and emotion.

You can't really justify a sweeping statement that R.E.M. (as good as they were back in '83) "started alternative". They themselves were influenced by bands like Pylon, Mission Of Burma and Brit post-punk bands like Gang Of Four and Wire.

On the subject of Nirvana's Nevermind, that was simply the sound of underground finally being forced overground. It had to happen at some point and 1991 seemed to be as good a time as any - Guns N' Roses released the disgustingly self-indulgent Use Your Illusion 1 & 2 albums, Metallica had turned into Spinal Tap and, to top it all, Michael Jackson had just released Dangerous.

I think a lot of people see Nevermind as the first great "alternative" rock album of the 1990's or the record that invented Grunge. I disagree - it was the last great post-punk album and one far too clever an album to be labelled anything so obtuse and vulgar as 'rock'. Listen to the sparse drum and bass driven arrangements, the awkward tunings, the rejection of traditional rock signifiers - if anything it was an album challenging the long-held male hegemony of rock.

Kurt Cobain once said the future was female and I think if the alternative is Nickelback, Scouting For Girls, My Chemical Romance or even Foo Fighters (sorry, Dave), then give me the Ting Tings, M.I.A., Peaches, Santogold and the Gossip anyday.