10 Bands Who Released Genre Defining Second Albums

Nirvana had made a name for themselves gigging in and around their native Seattle scene and with the release of their debut album Bleach (1989) on the local independent record label, Sub Pop. Then, with the release of Nevermind in 1991 on the major label Geffen, they completely changed the trajectory of their career. Having recently installed Scream drummer Dave Grohl into their lineup, Nevermind was recorded with producer Butch Vig, and the band recorded a video for the track Smells Like Teen Spirit to launch their new music.

The video would go on to be a monumental success on MTV, with Nirvana soon becoming the biggest buzz band in the world as Nevermind became a musical phenomenon. The album showed Kurt Cobain’s creativity as a masterfully complete songwriter, as he moved beyond the largely distorted punky collection of songs on their first album, writing with a pop melody on tracks such as Come As you Are and Lithium, and with a haunting melancholy on Something In The Way.

Nevermind has gone on to sell over 30 million copies, but the success it brought for Cobain was not the success he wanted. He struggled with the fame and adulation that was thrust upon him and, as we know, Kurt took his own life just three years later- a tortured artist who just couldn’t find peace with living under the spot light, as one of the biggest rock stars in the world.