Sunday Nothings ~~Live Through This~~

With the obvious exception of Newt Gingrich, was there anyone more hated in the nineties than Courtney Love? If Yoko Ono broke up The Beatles, Courtney Love broke down Nirvana's door with a can of gas in one hand, a blowtorch in another, a burning cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a dirty syringe hanging haphazardly from her arm.

Other nineties grunge bands had a devoted following, but none had done what Nirvana did when they released "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in 1991 and it became a staple on MTV. The song no one could understand but everybody loved changed MTV's playlist almost overnight, and teens and college kids across the county could not have been more enthusiatic.

Not The Beatles enthusiastic, no. It was more of a stoic, this is, like, really cool, laid back enthusiasm. Grunge had effectively arrived and was A Thing. The over-indulgence of '80's hair metal quickly became a joke, and budding guitarists no longer had to become Olympians on the fret board. They just had to know a few chords and feel shit.

And Nirvana, whether they liked it or not, became the face of the whole popular music sea change.

Kurt Cobain killed himself on April 5th, 1994, and it shocked, stunned, and saddened an entire generation and then some. Although they certainly weren't the first band to embrace heavy power chords while shunning the rock star image, they were, inexplicably, the first to become mainstream.