Contest: Nirvana's "Nevermind" Super Deluxe

One of the most influencial albums of our generation, Nirvana's Nevermind, celebrates 20 years in 2011. To celebrate, we at The Scenestar want to give a lucky reader a limited edition, numbered Super Deluxe Edition of Nevermind (Only 10,000 copies are available in North America, 30,000 globally)! The Super Deluxe edition features not only the original remastered album and accompanying studio and live B-sides, but the first full official release of the pre-Nevermind demos recorded at producer Butch Vig's Smart Studios, as well as boombox recordings of subsequent rehearsals through which the listener can actually experience "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come As You Are," "On A Plain" and more.

Also featured in the Super Deluxe edition are a pair of previously unreleased BBC recordings and the aforementioned 1991 Paramount show available for the first time and exclusive to this format on CD and DVD (which also features all four music videos from Nevermind), as well as a 90-page bound book full of rare photos, documents and various other visual artifacts of the Nevermind era.

To enter, comment on this post and tell us what Nirvana means to you (music, image, cultural or personal meaning) for a chance to win a copy of the Super Deluxe edition of Nirvana's Nevermind before Friday, Oct. 7 at 9 a.m. Please be sure to use your contact e-mail so we can contact you if you won as well as opting in for more info on upcoming Nirvana releases. Good luck as we celebrate 20 years of Nirvana's Nevermind release and its influence on our cultural landscape!

Comments

[Renowned]

i grew up listening to nirvana as a teenager - loved what they stood for

[Dave]

My friend and I would spend hours trying to decipher the lyrics to Nevermind. It was the first time I felt personally invested in music.

[DJ]

Nevermind was the first CD I ever bought. And probably the best.

[Jorge Madrigal]

First heard of Nirvana in high school. One of the many tapes I played over and over. Good knows how many times I fixed that tape because it would get eaten up in the tape deck. Lot of good memories behind a lot of the songs. Music that would get me through some rough times.

[dbm]

back in 91 when Nevermind just came out, i saw them play in Atlanta. when Kurt jumped off the stage after he and Chris dumped ice on the crowd, i was the guy who rushed through the crowd and gave Kurt a full-on kiss on the lips. it was part of a dare and Kurt got really shocked then jumped back on stage and left. Courtney referenced this in a 1995 Vanity Fair article

[Jose Torres]

Nirvana was the first CD I owned. That's when my whole life changed...I saw music in a total different way. It became a passion and allowed me to obtain a personal style in all aspects of my life. They mean the world to me!!

[Rob]

Nirvana means being whatever you want to be and saying what you feel. I was a preteen when Nevermind came out and wasn't supposed to be listening to Nirvana due to the explicit lyrics. I'd have to sneak listens with my older brother's CD.

[a hall]

i went to see my friends band 'slaughter shack' play @ a frat at MIT in cambridge .. my friends brother told use we should go early cause a band called 'nirvana' will be playing there in the basement + he heard 'they were pretty good' .. yup .. unreal. i absorbed all their vinyl after + wouldnt go out o the house until i BLASTED mollys lips or bleach .. right time right place right band.

[Andrew]

Nirvana means leave me the hell alone... I do what I want and I am who I am.

[Noe]

Nirvana is an inspiration to me. They came out of nowhere to turning into the biggest band at the time. It shows me anyone can make it if they try hard. Also, kurt cobain stood up for many people that i can certainly relate to.

[Scott I.]

what does nirvana mean to me? it means the last bastion of counter culture generated through actual human contact; where "the culture" was created through live music scenes and swapping CDs, not through a google search bar or a chat room.

[Jaclyn Arellano]

To be honest with you, I have only been listening to nirvana for like five years now. But I dont think that matters. I'm such a big fan as compared to a fan around the early 90's. My parents are really into the foo fighters and I would always hear their albums being played in my childhood. They would also play Nevermind. My Dad bought the album when it came out, so he could play guitar along with the tracks. Everyone loved it. Even though all the years I've been hearing this album, it still sounds like it was made today. It never gets old to me. I can listen to every track and enjoy it thoroughly. The album never let's me down. The only Nevermind copy I own is the one my dad bought in the early 90's. Winning this contest would be the best thing that could happen to a big fan.

[shoegaze45]

Nevermind brought an end to the "glam rock" era of the late eighties/early nineties. It embodied the innocence and purity that punk rock and new wave surfaced during the late seventies/early eighties. The business still seeks a prolific band that can capture youth and modern counter culture of this magnitude 20 years later...

[david]

Nevermind was probably the most important album to enter my life at the beginning of high school. That album alone is responsible for making me aware of and seeking out music that wasn't widely available or played on the radio. This was not an easy feat while living in Alabama, but I believe I'm so much better for it. During a time when I felt like I couldn't relate to my surroundings, I was suddenly aware of new music that spoke more to me than anything I'd heard before Nevermind. Kurt Cobain's songwriting also influenced me to write and play my own music. My musical interests have expanded well beyond the grunge guitars of Nirvana over the past twenty years, but I'll never forget the huge impact of Nevermind and still love it to this day.

[Audi]

My life can be divided into "Before Nevermind" and "After Nevermind." Before Nevermind, I was boring, self-involved, and pretty lame. After Nevermind, I was less boring, less self-involved, and just a touch cooler. This is the one album that changed me. For the better. I think.

[srfndoc]

Nevermind represented the 'ultimate storm' of music that just blew me away the minute I heard it. You could tell the music was honest and spoke for our generation.

[David Hall]

Nirvana means: picking up an electric guitar for the first time and instantanously learning how to tell your parents to "fuck off" using three chords and 300-watts of poorly-emulated Cobain-esque distortion instead of curse words.

[László Reszegi]

NIRVANA is still my biggest influence in music and art. Unfortunately I did not see them live, but I still collect their vinyls and stuff. Kurt's vision of the punk rock freedom is in my heart and I cannot say thank you enough to him and his mates (Krist, Dave and Pat) for those amazing years they had done! This band changed everything and their influence is still around here.

[Steven Gullett]

Lyrics to a song I wrote.

WHAT'S A HEADLINE TO A JUNKIE?
WHO'S AN ARTIST TO HIS FANS?
MAYBE YOU HIT THE WALL AND FELL INTO YOUR COMFORT MAN
BOTTOM LINE BOYS PAY HIM WELL

AND I BET YOU'RE A LEGEND NOW
HAD TO GO OUT SOMEHOW
GET YOU IDOL ON A T-SHIRT WHILE YOU CAN
THE WIFE IS GETTING OVERBOTHERED
YOU GOT RAPED AND YOU GOT SLAUGHTERED
AND I BET YOU'LL BE A LEGEND NOW

WHO AM I TO CHRONICLE?
WHO AM I TO REAP THESE WORDS?
IN SOMEWAY YOU GAVE THEM
WHAT THEY WANTED FROM YOU ALL ALONG
NOW THE MERCHANDISE IS MOVING QUICK

AND I BET YOU'RE A LEGEND NOW
HAD TO GO OUT SOMEHOW
GET YOU IDOL ADDED TO SOME STUPID LIST
WE'RE ALL GETTING SENTIMENTAL
RELIEF IS SO EXPERIMENTAL
AND I BET YOU'LL BE A LEGEND NOW

FULL SCALE MARRIAGE DEATH AND MUSIC
2ND COUSINS DRUGS AND FAME
TURNING BLUE FROM VAST CONFUSION
NOW EVERYBODY LOVES YOUR NAME
I HOPE YOU GOT WHAT YOU WANTED
CAUSE NOW IT'S IT'S OUT OF YOUR HANDS

[stacy]

hearing nirvana through the wall of my brother's bedroom was the first taste i got. before that i was into hair bands and teenage pop groups. it instantly awoke something in me and i thought, "this is good!". i copied a cassette tape of it when my brother was gone and told all my friends about it. when i told my brother i liked that nirvana record i think i got a lil more cred as the "cool lil' sister" that his friends didn't mind having around. listening to this band got me into the kind of music i am into today. real music. music that means something. i tore all the hair band posters off my wall for good! and still, 20 years later, this record means something. would be awesome to have the deluxe version. i still have the cassette tape with my scribbled 7th grade writing on it..

[3po1nt0]

Like many, I wasn't entirely aware of Nirvana until the release of Nevermind and, at that time, didn't delve deeper into their catalog than their CDs and the videos in heavy rotation on MTV. Big mistake. Kurt's death was without a doubt the end of an blissful era as a teenage music fan. It didn't strike me as too surprising given the behavior he displayed and some of the lyrics he wrote but it epitomized a band whose skyrocketing career trajectory was cut short before my eyes. this was the one musician and band's passing that i can definitively claim to have jolted me out of the naivety of youth and into adolescent (and subsequently adult) cynicism. I look back and listen to their music with a melancholy reflection of what could have been.

[eric]

Before Nirvana blew up, I had a friend get me into more artistic thinking music than I was listening to. I was around 15 and music really helped me get through high school. It was 1991 and my friend got us tickets to see a Mudhoney/Supersuckers concert. I still remember people hanging from the ceiling when the show ended. After this I started to look into what other music was out there and a lot of what I liked came out of Seattle. Nirvana was one of the groups that I fell in love with. I still feel this void because I never got to see them in concert. We didn't have the internet to hear new bands. We relied on the bands we liked to tell us who to listen to. Kurt got me to listen to even more great music that my friend started me on. Nirvana was a major influence of who I am today.