NPR called it “an anthem for a generation that didn’t want one,” and that about sums it up. Generation X, the lost generation between Baby Boomers and Millenials, didn’t need cell phones or iPads to rebel against authority.
A generation deeply suspicious of mainstream values, Generation X’s music changed the industry with Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” leading the way for a change in the pop-music scene that at the time was littered with faux-metal, voicy teen ballads, or synthesized spinoffs from the Michael Jackson era less than a decade earlier.
Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, the band above helped solidify the grunge movement, which can still be heard today in high-speed pop rock versions dummed down for internet radio and other music apps. Music was changing forever, and at the time, before Kurt Cobain took his own life in April of 1994, nobody really knew it.
