10 Hard Rock Albums Critics Were Completely Wrong About

Every so often, there are those records that just seem to hit a nerve with an entire generation. Regardless of whether the music is good or not, these albums stick with the listener throughout life and end up shaping the entire rock world around it. Nevermind by Nirvana is certainly an album worthy of that kind of title, but seeing what some critics were saying about this record back then seems almost sacrilegious.

In one of the more famous cases of a reviewer dropping the ball, Rolling Stone columnist Ira Robbins initially panned Nirvana's sophomore effort, calling it the result of the band getting too polished too fast. While there's a certain amount of sonic sheen to the entire record, the actual poignancy in the tracks overcomes any type of glittery production values.

But he's not done yet, folks. Robbins also goes on to say that this record is not only a disappointment, but the result of the band squandering their potential as songwriters. Even with every objective argument in the world, a song like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a feat of musical genius, with Kurt Cobain using disassociated phrases to bring across the apathy of Generation X.

Rolling Stone may have corrected themselves by calling Nevermind the greatest album of the '90s, but sometimes it's hard to hide from your past.