Because the 80s were kind of a period of a certain kind of gigantism and that really had an impact on Gen X,” DeCurtis said. “Growing up in the 80s is also significant. But while the oldest Gen X members were entering their early teen years in the 1980s, DeCurtis from Rolling Stone sees the music from that decade, which was dominated by more light, feel-good pop, dance and digital music, as still belonging to Baby Boomers rather than Gen X.īut the ’80s superficial feel gave rise to the music that has come to represent Gen X. Vasquez is a fan of punk bands like X too, which emerged in the early 1980s. “Nirvana was the first who got attention and with the others (grunge bands) that followed, they just destroyed the crappy music that was all over the place,” Vasquez said shortly before seeing the punk band X perform at the Roxy in early December. He remembers buying the “Nevermind” CD at Tower Records shortly after it was released. I felt like I mattered more after hearing it,” said 40-year-old Gustavo Vasquez, a self-described music fanatic from Van Nuys. “It felt vital, important and it spoke to me more than any other music had before. It quickly climbed to the top of the Billboard charts and thrust grunge into the mainstream thanks to the single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which Billboard called “the Gen X anthem.” The album was filled with angst, anguish and haunting honesty that reflected Cobain’s troubled life. The original grunge bands may have come from Seattle, but Nirvana’s landmark “Nevermind” was recorded here in the Southern California at Sound City Studios, which was in a gritty industrial area in Van Nuys through 2011. I think there was a sense of emerging out from underneath something, of being very conscious of what had come before them in a certain way but also very conscious about the hypocrisy of a lot of what had come before them,” he added. “That remains for me the kind of sensibility that I think of when I think of Gen X. Nirvana and ‘Nevermind’ was really a watershed moment,” said Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor for Rolling Stone and an arts and popular culture professor at the University of Pennsylvania, referring to the band’s 1991 album. “When I think about Gen X, really it was the early 90s.
And it was Cobain’s death by suicide in 1994 that also began to signal the end of the era while solidifying his legacy as the John Lennon of his generation. Thanks to the immensely talented but troubled singer and songwriter Kurt Cobain, it was Nirvana who was at the forefront of the grunge movement.
It was real, it was relatable and it was led by such bands as Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and in particular Nirvana. Grounded by candid and angst-filled lyrics, distorted guitars and a moody raw sound, grunge was the antithesis of the over-the-top theatrical hair metal and the overly polished progressive rock that preceded it.
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