Editing Nevermind (section)

===Cultural impact===
[[File:KristNovoselic2011.jpg|alt=Novoselic playing bass guitar on stage|thumb|upright=0.75|Bassist [[Krist Novoselic]] at a ''Nevermind'' 20th anniversary show in 2011]]
''Nevermind'' popularized the Seattle [[grunge]] movement and brought [[alternative rock]] as a whole into the mainstream, establishing its commercial and cultural viability<ref>Olsen, Eric. [http://www.today.com/id/4652653 "10 years later, Cobain lives on in his music"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130622170917/http://www.today.com/id/4652653 |date=June 22, 2013}}. MSNBC April 9, 2004. Retrieved on September 27, 2007.</ref> and leading to an alternative rock boom in the music industry.<ref name="Hogan">{{cite magazine|last=Hogan|first=Marc|author-link=Marc Hogan|url=https://pitchfork.com/features/ok-computer-at-20/10038-exit-music-how-radioheads-ok-computer-destroyed-the-art-pop-album-in-order-to-save-it/|title=Exit Music: How Radiohead's OK Computer Destroyed the Art-Pop Album in Order to Save It|magazine=[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]|access-date=March 11, 2010|date=March 20, 2017|archive-date=December 23, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201223111434/https://pitchfork.com/features/ok-computer-at-20/10038-exit-music-how-radioheads-ok-computer-destroyed-the-art-pop-album-in-order-to-save-it/|url-status=live}}</ref> Though a short tenure from the album's release to the [[Suicide of Kurt Cobain|death of Cobain]], the album's and singles' successes propelled Nirvana to being regarded by the media as the biggest band in the world—especially throughout 1992.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=September 22, 2021 |title=My Time with Kurt Cobain |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-time-with-kurt-cobain |access-date=April 3, 2022 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US}}</ref> As a grunge act, the band's success over the popular [[hair metal]] acts of the time drew similarities to the early 1960s [[British Invasion]] of American popular music.<ref name="Congress" /> The album also initiated a resurgence of interest in [[punk culture]] among teenagers and young adults of [[Generation X]].<ref>{{cite magazine |date=March 5, 2013 |title=How Nirvana Made 'Nevermind' |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/how-nirvana-made-nevermind-194556/ |url-status=live |magazine=Rolling Stone |language=en-US |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019092506/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/how-nirvana-made-nevermind-194556/ |archive-date=October 19, 2020 |access-date=September 27, 2020}}</ref> Journalist [[Chuck Eddy]] cited ''Nevermind''{{'}}s release as roughly the end of the "high [[album era]]".<ref name="Eddy">{{cite book |last=Eddy |first=Chuck |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wl0rlx7DoeIC&q=%22album+era%22 |title=Rock and Roll Always Forgets: A Quarter Century of Music Criticism |publisher=Duke University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-82235010-1 |page=283 |access-date=June 13, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613061600/https://books.google.com/books?id=wl0rlx7DoeIC&q=%22album+era%22 |archive-date=June 13, 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Billboard (magazine)|''Billboard'']] writer William Goodman lauds the album, particularly in comparison to the music and image of hair metal acts: "Instead of the chest-beating, coke-blowing, women-objectifying macho rock star of the ’80s, Cobain popularized (or re-invigorated) the image of the sensitive artist, the pro-feminism, anti-authoritarian smart alec punk with a sweet smile and gentle soul."<ref name="Goodman-2016" /> In its citation placing it at number 17 in its 2003 list of the [[Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time|500 greatest albums of all time]], ''Rolling Stone'' said, "No album in recent history had such an overpowering impact on a generation—a nation of teens suddenly turned punk—and such a catastrophic effect on its main creator."<ref name="nevermind rs500" /> Gary Gersh, who signed Nirvana to Geffen Records, added that "There is a pre-Nirvana and post-Nirvana record business...'''Nevermind''<nowiki/>' showed that this wasn't some alternative thing happening off in a corner, and then back to reality. This is reality."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pareles |first=Jon |date=November 14, 1993 |title=Nirvana, the Band That Hates to Be Loved: The Band That Hates to Be Loved |work=[[The New York Times]] |id={{ProQuest|109121712}}}}</ref>

The album had an enormous impact towards [[youth culture]]. Goodman says that ''Nevermind'' "killed off hair metal, and sparked a cultural revolution across the globe".<ref name="Goodman-2016" /> Speaking to the [[BBC]], Brazilian cultural studies academic Moyses Pinto stated that he was struck by ''Nevermind'', saying "I thought: 'this is perfect'; it sounded like a bright synthesis of noise and pop music."<ref name="Haider-2021">{{Cite web |last=Haider |first=Arwa |title=Nevermind at 30: How the Nirvana album shook the world |date=September 23, 2021 |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210922-nevermind-at-30-how-the-nirvana-album-shook-the-world |access-date=April 3, 2022 |agency=BBC News |language=en}}</ref> In similar praise, Kgomotso Neto says that the impact of Nirvana, as well as MTV, during the time of ''Nevermind'', caused a new youth who listened to the same music and dressed similarly ([[grunge fashion]]). Neto further remarks that "there was a cultural homogeneity probably never experienced before" and that "grunge culture became dominant very quickly; all that had been 'cool' suddenly became ugly and exaggerated, and Kurt [Cobain] was the symbol of transgression."<ref name="Haider-2021" /> [[Michael Azerrad]] argued in his Nirvana biography ''[[Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana]]'' (1993) that ''Nevermind'' marked an epochal generational shift in music similar to the rock-and-roll explosion in the 1950s and the end of the dominance of the [[Baby Boomer Generation]] on popular music. Azerrad wrote, "''Nevermind'' came along at exactly the right time. This was music by, for, and about a whole new group of young people who had been overlooked, ignored, or condescended to."<ref>Azerrad 1993, p. 225</ref>

The success of ''Nevermind'' surprised Nirvana's contemporaries, who felt dwarfed by its influence. [[Fugazi]] frontman [[Guy Picciotto]] later said: "It was like our record could have been a hobo pissing in the forest for the amount of impact it had ... It felt like we were playing [[ukulele]]s all of a sudden because of the disparity of the impact of what they did."<ref>Azerrad, 2001. p. 493</ref> Karen Schoemer of the ''New York Times'' wrote that "What's unusual about Nirvana's ''Nevermind'' is that it caters to neither a mainstream audience nor the indie rock fans who supported the group's debut album."<ref>{{Cite news|title=The Art Behind Nirvana's Ascent to the Top: Not many bands come up from the underground to hit No. 1 as fast as this Seattle trio – or make so few musical concessions.|last=Schoemer|first=Karen|date=January 26, 1992|work=[[The New York Times]]|id={{ProQuest|108871606}}}}</ref> In 1992, [[Jon Pareles]] of ''The New York Times'' described the aftermath of the album's breakthrough: "Suddenly, all bets are off. No one has the inside track on which of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ornery, obstreperous, unkempt bands might next appeal to the mall-walking millions." Record company executives offered large advances and record deals to bands, and replaced their previous strategies of building audiences for alternative bands with the attempts to achieve mainstream popularity quickly.<ref>Pareles, Jon. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE3D71531F937A25755C0A964958260 Pop View; Nirvana-bes Awaiting Fame's Call"]. ''The New York Times''. June 14, 1992. Retrieved on June 3, 2008.</ref>