Impactful hip-hop releases (Main Source’s Breaking Atoms, De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead, Black Sheep’s A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing) helped propel rap into mainstream culture in the coming years, and weathered titans of rock and roll - Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Ozzy, Motörhead - were duly represented as hair metal breathed its last gasp. and Red Hot Chili Peppers ushered in a new popular sound, and September 24 brought perhaps the decade’s defining release: An LP called Nevermind that would sell more than 30 million copies worldwide, and by January of the New Year, in a symbolic moment of cultural shift, supplant Michael Jackson’s November record Dangerous as the Number 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart. On the alternative rock spectrum, the rise of grunge here in the States (Nirvana, Pearl Jam) was paralleled by first-strikes by some of the UK’s most impactful bands of the decade (Blur, Massive Attack), while albums regarded as all-time classics, from My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless to Spiderland by Slint, helped set a noisy tone for the rest of the ’90s.Įfforts from R.E.M.
Any way you slice it, 1991 was a breathtaking year for music.
