Nirvana Tops Alternative List

Earlier this morning, I played the top ten alternative songs of all time here on the Q.  Filled with some of the best tunes ever penned, the list only has room for one "best of the best" at the top spot. Unless today is the first time you've ever turned on the radio, it should be no surprise to you that Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" regins supreme.

Released as a single in September of '91 off of their second studio album, Nevermind, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" put sales of the record through the roof, an un expected surprise. According to MTV.com, initally, the record label thought the album would sell 100,000 copies. However, after the video was played heavily on MTV, the record quickly sold 50,000 of it's intial copies.  In five months, the album went triple platinum.  As MTV.com puts it, "Prior to Nirvana, alternative music was consigned to specialty sections of record stores, and major labels considered it to be, at the very most, a tax write-off. After the band's second album, 1991's Nevermind, nothing was ever quite the same . . .Nirvana popularized punk, post-punk, and indie rock, unintentionally bringing it into the American mainstream like no other band to date."

Certain words and names that are synonymous with their genre come along only once a generation.   You can't think of the 60's without thinking Beatles.  Disco - 70's at it's best.  Who thinks they can say 80's without a hair band comming to mind?  If you're a Gen X or MTV Generation kid like myself, you can't think of our generation without saying Nirvana.