Nirvana - Bleach

I know that this is not a very controversial statement, but I pulled out our Bleach CD and upon listening to this, I think I like this even better than Nevermind, as good as that is.

And while I really don't think that the band sold out with the latter record - after all, they left in mistakes and were still pretty raw - but this record is truly dark, demented, noisy and damn near dangerous. They did clean up their act a little bit for their major label debut, but some of that might have just been the production.

This is also not quite as poppy and formulamatic, though you can still sing - and scream - along with Curt on this record. It is obvious why they had the following that they did by this time and why they were picked up by a major, though I am sure that no one - not the band, managers, label, whoever - expected them to break like they did.

They really did change the face of music, and not a moment too soon! As sick as I got of the "grunge fashion" (and it's hard to believe that guys are still wearing "long shorts" and flannel), at least they did away with the horrific hair metal bands and we got back to some real rock'n'roll. They gave a lot of us hope for the future of modern music and opened the doors for the weird and cool bands to come.