I'm kinda torn on the rating here.

Nirvana were my favorite band for many years, and still are easily in my top 10. This album was never my favorite from them. That honor has always gone to In Utero for me, but this is the classic that made that album possible, and there was a time where this was probably my 2nd favorite album of all time behind In Utero.

I'm giving a 4 star rating, because anything under that seems ludicrous, judging the songs by themselves. I, however, agree with all the 1 star reviews complaining about the remaster, and if I wasn't worried about it impacting the rating of an all around fantastic piece of music, I would give it the same.

I was ecstatic when this remaster was first announced. By the time it was announced, the original version of this album sounded dated to me. It didn't always sound this way to me, but by 2011 this album sounded most definitely like it came out in 1991 and no other year. It's a shame when over-production stops well written songs from being timeless.

On this remaster, however, they went way, way, way overboard. Rather than fixing the 1991 polish to make it sound more like 21st century polish, they just cranked the volume up and ruined the 'loud, quiet, loud' aspects that made this album so great to begin with. Luckily, In Utero received the treatment it deserved, but this remaster destroys the dynamics of this entire album.

I think the problem with this remaster was with the marketing team. They probably thought, "what made this album so popular? Oh, it was loud and abrasive, so if we make it louder we'll also make it more abrasive!" The strategy kinda makes sense to marketing teams who don't understand art, but it completely undermines the point of this album which made it so popular. Yes, it was partially that it was loud and abrasive in a time where most music was very pretty and glossy. Popular rock music in the 80's sucked, and this album was the perfect gut punch to get culture away from the dumb hair bands and pop songs that dominated the decade (not that all 80's music was bad... rock certainly was pretty bad, unless you were listening to hardcore punk, but some of the New Wave and Synth pop was quite excellent, and really paved the way for a lot of today's great Indie bands)

However, the point of this album, and the thing that made it such a hit, was it's Pixies formula. It was the dynamics. Moments of hushed tones waiting to be shredded to bits by a roaring chorus. The song structures in this album are very basic pop, and not terribly impressive (though, melodically very impressive), but it was the dynamics of this album that made it a classic. Turning up the volume the way they did just butchers those dynamics, and ruins the album.

The album itself gets a 4 star rating from me. It's not as good as In Utero. While I blame the production more than the song writing, this album does sound quite dated, even in it's louder form (almost worse because of it). I would, however, rate this remaster 0 stars, and would recommend against it. I wouldn't recommend the CD or MP3 of the original, non-remastered edition very much either. If you want to listen to and enjoy this album the way it should be enjoyed, I'd actually recommend the 180 grain vinyl edition. That doesn't sound as dated, it has the right and proper dynamics and would get a 5 star rating from me based on those merits.

I hope that they do a 30th anniversary remaster and fix this crap so that I have something as enjoyable as this album deserves to remain in the 21st century. Oh, not sure if I mentioned it, but I would still strongly recommend In Utero's 20th Anniversary remaster. That album already had a timeless sound, and didn't really need the remaster, but somehow the remaster of that album made the dynamics even better. I'll do a separate review of that at another time, but having listened to the orignal and remastered In Utero side-by-side, they actually turned down the volume on some parts of it and made the loud-quiet-loud aspects much sharper, like I wish they did here.

There's nothing I can say about this album that hasn't been said, contradicted, paraphrased and scrutinized backwards, forwords and at more rpm's more than a Beatles' album circa the mid to late-60's.
I count this album among the iconic objects that would bulge from my personal "time capsule." Although I associate both manically joyful and ledge-skirtingly dark times with the songs on this album, it never frustrates me or makes me regret playing it. It's not so much that I discover new things each time I hear it intentionally or coincidentally. I marvel at the eerie, spontaneous relevence, pegging my slant du jour on life, regardless of the particular phase through which I find myself earnestly stumbling. The songs are deliciously accessible, uncannily intuitive, evoking waves of somehow anything buy non-mutually exclusive invasive/welcome penetrating junctions that intersect,to conversational inroads charted by the Davinciesque nakedness of bluntly confessed
lyrics and unpretentious emotions. Few other classic rock albums can recreate. Even though this album was called "Alternative Rock," it is at its core unselfconscious Rock 'n' Roll with its simplicity and palpable descriptions of the human condition. Nirvana's surgically accurate capacity to erect songs that neither glorify or self-aggrandize the band members' familiar growing pains and akward metaphysical revelations includes us in an ardent discussion that we could just as easily be having in our own living room after too many beers, tenderly tracing our own new scars fresh from uncautious emotional end-overs. I'm so grateful to have been intellectually mature enough (arguably) when it came out that was able to take it in. I appreciate how I have this relational logistic rapport with Nirvana through their well-thumbed musical photo album and mark time by its advent. It has long since now become a landmark in the panorama of my own chronology and personal voyage nto and through functionalmythology. Far from generic, Nevermind includes us in the cryptic in-joke unlike so many ethereal abstract poets who seem to serenade their own demons with no epilogue or backstory to guide the listener. This musical teain rebounds pole to pole, nevef reaching the end of the line and always saving a seat for us to dismount and reboard at will.

Those who argue that Nevermind is one of the greatest albums of all time do so on the basis that it changed and defined music, single handedly, for the first five years of the 1990s. You would be hard pressed to find a single album that has done so before or since. The impact that the ultimately doomed Seattle trio made, over just seven years, makes Nirvana one of rock's most successful artists.

Nevermind begins with Nirvana's signature track: Smells Like Teen Spirit, which Rolling Stone Magazine ranks at #9 in its 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time for its influence and lyrics about the social pressures and anxieties faced in adolescence with a massive chorus:
With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid, and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us!
The aggressive, four powerchord opening echoed down the line of the early "˜90s, being sampled by many imitating artists.

Nevermind was never meant to be as huge on the pop scene as it was. Kurt Cobain worried that his grunge credibility would be threatened. His gloom was increased when Smells Like Teen Spirit, which he didn't feel was anywhere near his best lyrical effort, was demanded at concerts. Ultimately, Cobain's fractured, unbearable youth would provide the lyrical structure for much of Nevermind: Smells Like Teen Spirit, the anti-judgemental Come As You Are, the chilling Polly, the characterised denial and confusion of On A Plain and the heartbreaking Something In The Way all have evidence of a troubled, anguished childhood and the terrible inner turmoil that was, sadly, never too far under the surface.
However, not all of Nevermind is a collection of underlying teenage unrest by an alternatively brilliant, damaged young man. The frenzied shred of Breed and Territorial Pissings are music as a party drug, the latter being most enjoyable when control is thrown out the window, Cobain's voice cracks and the song smashes through logical structure of music.
In Bloom, with its blaring riff and murmured, boiling verses, would become a fan favourite and a radio staple, as would Come As You Are.
Cobain loved Drain You, which is brash, faintly repulsive yet somehow un-put-down-able. The clean cut, cynical Lithium is Cobain's lyric writing at its best on the album, with wry, almost funny one liners turning personal slights into rebound attacks:
I'm so ugly?/ That's OK, "˜cause so are you!
Polly, an acoustic about the rape of a young girl, is hard to listen to too often, especially with the line
Let me clip your dirty wings.
Ultimately, what makes the album is the final track Something In The Way. After the pounding and thundering of the first eleven songs, its soft, quiet desperation stands out a mile. The depressing lyrics, about Cobain living under a bridge as a young man, are graceful and poignant, with a mournfully beautiful cello playing over the chorus. A stand out.
Nevermind is difficult to fully judge. The music is more than a classic of its genre; it is the genre. The lyrics, while at times unpleasant, fit perfectly with the sound. The disillusion that Cobain felt following its success makes it tragic.
If you look at it in a purely music relevance sense, it is a classic, and arguably the most influential album of all time.

This is an iconic album and I love listening to it in its entirety.

Quick shipping and all that good stuff. No bent corners. The sound quality is above average to me. Sounds digitalized as I have other versions. My personal fav is 2001 european pressing, then pallas for strong sounding pressing. I will give this copy to my college bound daughter, she will love it regardless of my audiophile ears.