10 Perfect 90s Albums That Changed Rock And Roll Music

As rock and roll stumbled its way into the '90s, the age of excess had really started to catch up with everybody. Around the time that the hair metal scene was starting to die out, even some of the biggest names in rock like Metallica and Guns N Roses seemed bigger than the genre they were leading, almost looking like gods among men compared to what was happening on the ground floor. There was nothing to relate to anymore, until a man named Kurt decided to cause a riot in the middle of a school.

While Nevermind is more than just the song Smells Like Teen Spirit, those 5 minutes kicked down the door for what rock was going to be in the next few years, with Kurt's cynical delivery about wanting to be entertained and every individual line having a subtle hint of sarcasm to it. Once you listened to the rest of the record though, there was a lot more to unpack, like the Beatles-like punk rock of Lithium or the ironic slam against the fairweather fans they were picking up on songs like In Bloom.

There was a dark edge to the music as well though, with songs like Polly and Something in the Way touching on subjects that were a lot more heavy but no less identifiable for fans, talking about misfits that were left out of the crowd or never really quite at home in their own skin. Kurt may have called this album too slick and tried to make light of it after the fact, but it didn't even matter. This was the sound of frustration coming through the speakers, and that kind of aggression seemed to touch rock and roll right on its wound.