Two Albums, a 30th Anniversary, and Some 300 Words of Applause

By Hannah Quinque

Do you believe in fate? I like to think I don’t, and yet I always find myself look­ing for how the pieces of real­i­ty fit togeth­er to make a big pic­ture that is more than the sum of its parts. I only recent­ly became aware of one such coin­ci­dence. On Sep­tem­ber 24, 1991, two momen­tous albums, Nev­er­mind by Nir­vana and Blood Sug­ar Sex Magik by the Red Hot Chili Pep­pers were released to applause so tumul­tuous it resounds today, 30 years later.

 

Sep­tem­ber 24, 1991, changed the world of alter­na­tive rock music. It also changed the world of one future blog writer who wouldn’t see the light of day for anoth­er eight years. That’s the mag­ic, or the magik, of music and music on record.

While both Blood Sug­ar Sex Magik and Nev­er­mind are cred­it­ed on their Wikipedia pages as being for­ma­tive in the ampli­fi­ca­tion of the alter­na­tive rock genre, the lega­cy of Nev­er­mind reigns supreme in both length and con­tent. That com­men­da­tion echoes the pres­ti­gious renown attrib­uted to the album by crit­ics and just about every­one else.

You don’t have to like Nir­vana, hell, you don’t have to actu­al­ly have lis­tened to the album. The asso­ci­a­tion between band and record is instan­ta­neous, leg­endary, and entrenched in the gen­er­al con­scious­ness. I say Nir­vana, you say Nev­er­mind. Like­wise, I say grunge or 90’s music, you say Nir­vana. Here’s to anoth­er wor­ship­ful entry to Nirvana’s eter­nal eulogy!

Blood Sug­ar Sex Magik holds its own on the impor­tant albums lists. The record is equal­ly illus­tri­ous for the sake of this blog post because of what it means to the author. Just glanc­ing at the cov­er, leaf­ing through the book­let, and, of course, notic­ing the edgy bding­bad­abad­ab­d­ing open­ing evokes vis­cer­al mem­o­ries of my entire life from ele­men­tary school up to this very moment. The Pep­pers got under my skin, and so did the first album I ever owned – my first tat­too at age 18. Here’s to music so beloved it inspires sap­py blog entries and life­long joy when­ev­er I hear it.

Last­ly, here’s to fun­ny coin­ci­dences that make life just that lit­tle bit more extraordinary.

Hap­py Sep­tem­ber 24, 2021, every­one. I hope you find joy in your lit­tle puz­zle pieces, whether they fit or not.

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