20 years on, we debate the greatness of Nirvana's 'Nevermind'. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

Nevermind hater Jason Shuttleworth:

On 24th September 1991, an album was released that changed the face of music forever. An album that would forever be spoken of as a classic to rival the likes of Led Zeppelin 4, Dark Side Of Moon, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Transformer, Moving Pictures, Sgt Pepper and Goodbye Yellowbrick Road. An album that captured the imagination of the young adult population around that time.

That said album, was of course Nirvana's 'Nevermind'. The blandest, most overrated, vacuous, uninspiring album ever to have been unleashed on the public.

The rumoured cost of said album was a mere $5000 and that much is obvious. Butch Vig's production is sloppy at best and the fee clearly didn't include guitar tuners. Shockingly monotonous bass playing, some of the dullest guitar work ever put to tape and a land fill of self loathing, self deprecating, garbled and mumbled lyrics. And this has been revered as a classic?

Yes, but a classic that spawned many a half-rate clone band i.e. L7, The Nymphs, Hole, Paw, Green River any many more. Which in turn created a dreadfully over-saturated scene that genuinely talented bands like The Melvins started years before.

Even now that album is still considered a benchmark, firmly placed upon a pedestal as a soundtrack of a generation. Yes, but a miserable, whining, flannel clad, underachieving shoegazing generation.

The band apparently wanted the album to be the antidote to the current Rock/Metal scene at the time. The polar opposite of the overt posturing, the over the top rock star antics & "The Bells, Lights and Whistles" that the music industry was churning out at the time. Why? Rock music always has been, always will be and always should be about over the top characters that create great music that hits you in the pit of your stomach and makes you either feel good, makes you think or forces you to hear the message that they are trying so hard to purvey.

That album SINGLE HANDEDLY destroyed rock music, more so destroying the British rock music scene. Everyone wanted to be the 'Next Nirvana' or release the 'Next Nevermind' instead on focusing on originality. It took music 10 years to recover from that abomination and even worse, it took bands like Oasis to be the ones responsible for dragging bring British guitar music back from the brink of disaster and be at the forefront of people's minds.

2 decades after the release of 'Nevermind'. Geffen Records have decided in their divine wisdom to re-release it. Containing 39 tracks no less. 12 tracks being the original album, which was way more than enough at the time of the release and the rest are live, unreleased session tracks. Cue: more self-loathing than any sane self-respecting music fan can stand.  

Nevermind lover Darren Bibby:

Warrant. Thunder. Cinderella. Poison. Music like this was in serious danger of taking a foothold in my life when 'Nevermind', and specifically the video for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' dropped the bomb on MTV that shook the foundations of both the comfortable 'Indie'/'alternative' world and the tired arena of cock rock. All that stuff might seem like fun now, but as a kid looking for something to believe in, 'Nevermind' came from above and literally destroyed it all; showed up just how irrelevant those scenes had become.

It has shaped my life and broadened my horizons more than I can say. Without it, this teenage metalhead would never have got into Sonic Youth, The Pixies, Melvins, Pavement etc etc etc. It seemed so full of energy and angst; these were verse/chorus/verse, catchy pop songs, but with a hard, sarcastic edge. For all the qualms about Butch Vig's production, the fuzz and feedback seemed untamed, like the bubblegum could burst at any point. The art of falling apart. Every snare hit was like an exclamation mark. Cobain's voice represented true expression; it sounded REAL when there was so much fey posturing around. There was a femininity to the rage when the rock world was full of boorish lunkheads crushing beer cans and cliché Sunset Strip casualties in leather trousers. Did we care about how many notes were played, or subtle interplay between bass and guitar on 'Territorial Pissings'? Did we fuck, it sounded amazing and still does! History has already told us that whether music moves us is not directly proportional to the technical prowess of the players, or how clever the concept is. You know when something comes from the heart.

While it's true that the 'grunge explosion' spawned its fair share of moping also-rans playing up to a self-pitying archetype, this happens to every 'scene' that record companies jump onto. For every Sex Pistols there is a Splodgenessabounds, for every Oasis a Menswear (oh, and without 'Nevermind', there's no way that 'Definitely Maybe' would have sounded like it did). There was indeed a black cloud that hung over 'The Seattle Sound', which at its worst was nauseatingly cynical. But listen to this record now and try and tell me it is a constant dirge: songs like 'On A Plain' and 'In Bloom' are huge, joyous tunes. The thing is crawling with hooks, but has enough danger to stay on the edge. On the now more sparse occasions I return to it, I always play it from start to finish. Nirvana never claimed to be providing answers to our existential malaise; nor did they purport to represent a water-tight political ethos. They were principled in not compromising what their music represented or what it rejected.

Familiarity often breeds contempt, and there's no doubt these songs are now very familiar. Also, the well-worn death cult myth has sadly been the point of entry into Nirvana's music for some. It's easy for chin-strokers to quote the superior longevity and harrowing depth of 'In Utero'. But I'd argue that this record opened doors, opened minds and provided a punk rock injection to the mainstream when it was most needed. A true classic, our world would be a much poorer place without it. Do you agree?