Paris (AFP)
Like a software reset: carried by "Smells Like Teen Spirit", forever the hymn of post-adolescent disenchantment, Nirvana's album "Nevermind", released 30 years ago, has changed the face rock.
"This record made hard rock, the popular rock of the time, which was superficial, misogynistic, less intense", brush for AFP Charlotte Blum, author of "Grunge, eternal youth", work scheduled for September 29 ( Epa).
"Nevermind" was released on September 24, 1991 and, indeed, the double album "Use Your Illusion I & II" by Guns N'Roses, released a week before, suddenly took big wrinkles.
Nirvana shines the spotlight on her melting pot, the grunge scene, a branch of rock with badly combed guitars, disillusionment slung over her shoulder.
But "Nevermind" also casts a "gaping shadow", underlines Charlotte Blum, on other cousins formations like Pearl Jam or Soundgarden.
Yesterday like today.
"Pearl Jam's + Ten + album is also celebrating its 30th anniversary but we don't talk about it", underlines the one who returns from Seattle, a bastion of grunge in the United States, where she made a documentary.
We also speak of "Nevermind" for bad reasons: the naked baby in the swimming pool on the cover, become an adult, lodges a complaint and claims his due.
History will remember above all that the rock planet has never recovered from "Smells Like Teen Spirit", a clip that runs immediately in a loop on MTV, the music channel and "flagship medium of the time", as the journalist recalls.
- "Desperately punk look" -
Graffiti in tribute to Kurt Cobain on a bench in a park in Aberdeen, United States, where the singer of Nirvana liked to walk, April 1, 2014 Sébastien VUAGNAT AFP / Archives
And Kurt Cobain, the leader of Nirvana, will not come out unscathed.
The singer and guitarist, skinned alive with a Christlike physique, becomes in spite of himself the spokesperson for teenagers who feel bad about themselves and for young adults who are lost.
An inter-generational audience that identifies "totally with Cobain's desperately punk look at the world", as American music critic Alex Ross writes in his book "Listen to this" (Actes Sud).
The costume of the rock prophet is too big for Cobain, the success too wide and his addictions to hard drugs do not help.
He will commit suicide in 1994, at the age of 27.
This reinforces the myth since Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix also disappeared at this age.
Cobain will have time to get a few messages across.
The companion of singer Courtney Love "wears dresses, and openly says + if you are racist, homophobic, we don't want to see you at our concerts +, he also invites female rock groups on his tours", insists Charlotte Blum.
- "The HBO of music" -
That is for the bottom.
In form, the explosion is total, with the titles "Come As You Are" or "In Bloom".
"On stage, Kurt was incredibly charismatic and extremely tortured (...) we had the impression that he was always on the verge of a huge implosion", describes Kim Gordon, iconic ex-bassist of Sonic Youth, close to Cobain , in his autobiography "Girl in a band" (The word and the rest).
Alex Ross portrays songs oscillating "between meditation and the free-for-all".
This mix of calm and storm was cultivated in the studio by sound sculptor Butch Vig, also known as Garbage's drummer today.
Vig's recipe?
"The meeting between Black Sabbath (founding group of metal) and the Beatles", synthesizes Nicolas Dupuy in his book "Take One, the producers of rock" (Le Castor Astral).
Results?
"+ Nevermind + debounces the barrel of the grunge and takes down the timpani", unrolls the specialist.
The album dethroned Michael Jackson from the top of the charts a few months later.
Jay-Z (L) and Justin Timberlake on stage on December 14, 2014 in New York Stephen Lovekin GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP / Archives
"With + Nevermind +, Nirvana is the HBO of music: all those who make TV series have watched HBO, all musicians today have listened to Nirvana", concludes Charlotte Blum.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" is quoted in the 2nd minute of "Holy Grail" by Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake.
© 2021 AFP