Nevermind that album, Here's the Best Pistols (of 1991)

Nobody asked or tagged me on that blue thing that starts with an F for 10 albums that have 'changed my life' or 'influenced me profoundly' yadda yadda... I'm not sure about the 'changing my life' actually. For me music is a daily habit that I cultivate and, like food. I try to vary as much of what my daily intake is, but I have my preference. Normally one would be able to just mention a few albums or maybe have to do a bit of mental juggling to pare down the number to ten by counting on their motherfucking fingers.

Please excuse, don’t you know my name is phonono and extreme melomania is my name which means I can’t even bring my roster down to a 100. Hell, ALL the albums I listened to, voluntarily or involuntarily, over the years, have had an influence on me. Even the albums I have learned to abhor, I am grateful for those because they steered me away from something towards something better, like a crazy ex that have brought me to learn the tell-tale sign of shitty with a capital S. So since, again, my name is phonono, and I rarely do things the normal, right or usual way, I am going to up the ante and offer you eleven, yes I went up to ELEVEN, not ten albums, that are better than Nirvana's Nevermind.

'But, dude, why THAT album?' says the mentally challenged, to which I reply 'Hang on, man, this is not TikTok and I need context'.  Everybody was fawning up on Nirvana when it started to be famous, and indeed, at the time, it was like a breath of fucking fresh air after the perfume and the fragrance of the hair metal crowd began to stale, punks started to sound normal (I'm looking at you, John Lydon) and the new wave like elevator music, sometime in late 89, early 90. I guess some people started to realize that, when you focus on the image and not the music, things get boring as shit pretty quickly, and that if you have to waste money on drugs and a hairdo that's a fucking fire hazard, well guess what goes first when the economy starts to tank?

So Nevermind came out in early September 1991 and, at that time, it went completely unnoticed. I remember buying it at a record store that had been set up in a building that use to house an outlet for aluminium fittings. I had listened to it in the store and found it waaaay slicker in production than the previous album, and when I brought it to a friend, I immediately said, "Whoa, this is gonna be big".

But I was talking about that first song, not the whole album! I never thought they'd become SO famous. I was already still knee deep in 'real' grunge such as Screaming Trees, Tad, Mudhoney and even Pearl Jam (which was better than Mother Love Bone, IMHO) but around me, not many in that small mining town in the Northwest were waiting for the new Nirvana. In fact, even some of my musically inclined, like-minded friends and acquaintances were not even interested. But slowly, the video had its effect, and then in a few months the CD was constantly changing hands, coming back to me only at the very end, at one point where I gave it to one of my best friend's brother, who really wanted it. It was the Holidays, man, why not? Anyway I didn’t even OWN a CD player! I was the only dude who liked the Goo Goo Doll AND White Zombie AND The Accüsed.

Meanwhile, I was dedicating my free time (and more money because of my first love breakup) on dozens of mail order records. And I discovered not dozens, but HUNDREDS of new bands. Me single... Why not join the Subpop Singles Club and have one 7" in your mailbox every month for a year? And I got a subscription to Reflex Magazine to get a monthly fix in new music on a floppy 7" as well as record reviews from all the record labels I was buying from, C/Z, Subpop, Popllama, Touch & Go, Trance, SST, Boner, Big Money Inc. Twin Tones, Dischord... which brings me to the eleven albums that came out the same year as Nirvana's second album.

So, Nevermind that album, Here's the Best Pistols (of 1991, in alphabetical order) as well as 1991 songs which were better that Smells Like Teen Spirit (not the best song on the album). Let's start with Barkmarket, and each day I will publish my take on the ten other albums.