Nevermind became an unexpected critical and commercial success, reaching the top 10 on charts across the world. By January 1992, it reached number one on the US Billboard 200 and was selling approximately 300,000 copies a week. The lead single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit“, reached the Top 10 of the US Billboard Hot 100 and went on to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Its music video was also heavily rotated on MTV. Three other successful singles were released: “Come as You Are“, “Lithium“, and “In Bloom“. The album was voted the best album of the year in Pazz & Jop critics’ poll, while “Smells Like Teen Spirit” also topped the single-of-the-year and video-of-the-year polls. The album also garnered the band three Grammy Award nominations in total across the 34th and 35th Grammy Awards, including Best Alternative Music Album.
Nevermind made Nirvana one of the biggest bands of the 1990s, with Cobain being dubbed the “voice of his generation”. It brought grunge and alternative rock to a mainstream audience while accelerating the decline of hair metal, drawing similarities to the early 1960s British Invasion of American popular music. It is also often credited with initiating a resurgence of interest in punk culture among teenagers and young adults of Generation X, becoming seminal to the counterculture of the decade. It has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. In March 1999, it was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Among the most acclaimed and influential albums in the history of music, Nevermind was added by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry in 2004 for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”, and is frequently ranked highly on lists of the greatest albums of all time, including being ranked number six on Rolling Stone‘s 2020 and 2023 lists of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time“. The album has since been reissued with alternate takes and live performances.
