A few months after the release of Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, 1987’s <i>Appetite for Destruction</i>, went platinum, Axl Rose gave an interview in which he described a piano ballad he’d been working on called “November Rain.” By that point, the band knew it well: They’d recorded a demo of it nearly a year before starting <i>Appetite</i>, and their guitarist, Slash, remembers an even earlier version that had expanded to 18 minutes. The song seemed to torture Rose—or, at least, represented an ideal he was obsessed with bringing to life. If he didn’t get it right, he told the interviewer, he’d quit music.<br />
The best comparison for 1991’s <i>Use Your Illusion I</i> and its fraternal twin, <i>Use Your Illusion II</i>, isn’t music, but film. The budget, the combined two-hour runtime, the scale, the fact that the band was almost never in the same room at the same time: This isn’t music captured, but music built—piece by audacious piece. Riki Rachtman, a former MTV personality and friend of the band, joked that the moment he knew they’d changed for good was during the last sequence of the video for “Estranged,” in which Axl not only jumps off an aircraft carrier into the ocean, but follows it with a sequence of him swimming with dolphins.<br />
This, though, is where Rose’s head was at, and what <i>Use Your Illusion</i> represents: not the spontaneity of bar bands, but the methodical grandeur of blockbusters. The climactic held vocal note of “Don’t Cry”—nearly 30 seconds, twisting in the spotlight—confirms what some listeners probably already figured out: Rose dreamed of opera. He later said he didn’t just want to outdo their debut, but bury it. And in a way, <i>Use Your Illusion</i> is an even scarier effort: tender one minute (“November Rain,” “Dead Horse”) and cruel the next (“Back Off Bitch,” “Bad Obsession”), an exercise in emotional whiplash that verges on the psychopathic.<br />
But even by the band’s own standards, it was vicious: Where <i>Appetite</i> talks about addiction with a sense of swagger or double entendre (“Nightrain,” “Mr. Brownstone”), <i>Use Your Illusion</i> offers a 10-minute death fantasy called “Coma”; where <i>Appetite</i> is “feel my serpentine” (“Welcome to the Jungle”), <i>Use Your Illusion</i> is “suck my fucking dick” (“Get in the Ring”). Of the two volumes, the second is weirder and more adventurous. Slash once compared the entire project to The Beatles’ White Album (only not as good, he genuflected), but the experience is more like The Rolling Stones’ <i>Exile on Main St.</i>: sprawling, dislocated, less about any single song than the rollercoaster-like effect of the larger picture. And as massive as its impact was on the shape of ’90s rock, there are elements of the albums—and <i>II</i>, especially—that resonate even more closely with gangsta rap: the cinematic scope (“Civil War”), the mix of nostalgia and sentimentality (“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”) with almost paranoiac meanness (“You Could Be Mine”).<br />
Both of its volumes seeing release on the same day, <i>Use Your Illusion</i> came out at a time when a wave of underground bands was redefining mainstream rock by trading grandiosity for modesty. But 1991 also marked the death of Freddie Mercury and, by extension, the end of Queen as we often remember them. The coincidence is poetic: As Nirvana and their peers largely eschewed rock’s taste for spectacle, G N' R embodied it. Like a fading starlet leaning into a nervous breakdown, Axl preens for the camera, knowing it won’t look away.

Nevermind is the second studio album and major-label debut by American rock band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991 by DGC Records. It was Nirvana's first release to feature drummer Dave Grohl. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind features a more polished, radio-friendly sound than the band's prior work. It was recorded at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California, and Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, in May and June 1991, and mastered that August at the Mastering Lab in Hollywood, California.

Written primarily by frontman Kurt Cobain, Nevermind is noted for channeling a range of emotions, being noted as dark, humorous, and disturbing. Its themes include alienation, frustration, anti-establishment and anti-sexist views, and troubled love inspired by Cobain's broken relationship with Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail. Contrary to the hedonistic themes popular in rock music at the time, writers have observed that Nevermind promoted the image of the sensitive artist in mainstream rock. According to Cobain, the sound of the album was influenced by bands such as Pixies, R.E.M., the Smithereens, and Melvins. Though the album is considered a cornerstone of the grunge genre, it is noted for its musical diversity, which includes acoustic ballads ("Polly" and "Something in the Way") and punk-influenced hard rock ("Territorial Pissings" and "Stay Away").

Nevermind became an unexpected critical and commercial success, reaching the top 10 on charts across the world. On January 11, 1992, it replaced Michael Jackson's Dangerous at the number one spot of 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 propelled Nirvana into worldwide superstardom, 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. It has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. In 2024, it was certified 13× platinum 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.

Radiohead的处女作《Pablo Honey》虽然十分出色，但现在看来它更像是乐队在为这一张更加舒展的经典《The Bends》所做的准备，热身。同《Pablo Honey》一样，这张唱片的整体音乐构架仍然是建立在不断回旋缭绕的吉他声音之上，三把吉他共同奏出的断断续续的旋律不仅仅是唱片中最为精彩的部分，同时也成为了Radiohead的音乐标志。这种用最传统的乐器所奏出来的不同声响在听觉上创造了一种有力的回馈，它将听者的欲望和痛苦共同挖掘了出来。同时从某种程度上说《The Bends》又是一张深受前人影响的摇滚专辑，偶尔从唱片中你会发现U2,Pink Floyd,R.E.M甚至是The Pixies的影子，但是Radiohead将前人的音乐手法用不同的音乐气质进行了一个极为另类的演绎--专辑中的音乐极具空间感，却并不像Pink Floyd蒙胧缥缈，这就让歌曲听起来更加具有生命力，更富有执着的感情。Thom Yorke那些充满了反复的自问，纠缠，扭曲和欲望的歌词赋予了唱片另外一种忧郁的气质，在音乐之外，一股精神暗流通过他时而温柔时而神经质的演唱传达给了听众。Thom的嗓音应该是让人温暖的，但当感情爆发的时候，你依然能见到它高亢的一面，在汹涌的音乐下这病人般的声音实在令人无法自拔。等到这张唱片出现的时候，摇滚乐已经走过了四十年的路程，而《The Bends》却还是轻易的成为了经典，这正是因为Radiohead在努力创造独特的音乐情绪的同时也保留了摇滚乐的爆发力和极佳的旋律性，这使得这张唱片不仅仅得到了评论家的一致好评，同时也在市场上获得了巨大的成功。直白的说,《The Bends》是一张让你第一次聆听就能被深深吸引，而在接下来的每一次听觉过程中又都能发现新的音乐细节和聆听乐趣的摇滚专辑。