I'll say it again. Nevermind changed the music industry and rock radio/music television. It's not just a saying, it's music business history.

The summer of '91 the biggest hits were Warrant's Cherry Pie and Queenzryche's Silent Lucidity. One traditional metal romp and a bloated power ballad. Within six months of Nevermind's release, both bands were dropped by their lables.

Prior to Nevermind's success, the benchmark for a successful Alt-rock (at the time called college rock) was 100,000 units. Bands like REM, Pixies, Sonic Youth, Replacements were measured in terms of "will they break the 100K sales plateau" and it was a plateau in that 100K was about all you could expect from an Alt release. The thought was that there were only 100K people who would ever buy that style of music. Rock radio (the old guard) did not add these records to their playlists and openly mocked these bands and the only place to hear them was on college radio. (hence the term left of the dial) And the only time MTV would play them was during late night special blocks. (120 minutes)

That all changed with Nevermind which sold 100K+ a week for months on end. Within a few months, radio stations fired program directors and changed out DJ's at an alarming rate. Axl Rose himself lamented the death of hair metal and cursed Kurt Cobain by name. Labels went out and promoted younger A&R guys and started signing acts at a record pace. Bands who were used to a 30K record budget and a 30K promotional budget were now expected to move 500K in order to make it to the next level. Artists like The Smiths, The Pixies, Love and Rockets, etc have been quoted talking about this "sea change" in the industry and how they broke up just before the money began to roll in. They regret it.

The economics of rock music had changed.

The reception those hair bands received had changed. Beavis and Butthead openly mocked bands like Winger and radio station festivals had dropped those bands off their line-ups. They were downgraded to theater and club shows and their merch companies dropped them from their contracts. The shit just didn't sell anymore.

Now, in hindsight...no, hair metal was not completely dead and some of those with actual talent survived. But the game was different. Now rock radio was sequeing from Zeppelin to Soundgarden and the phrase "It doesn't have to be old to be a classic" was added to the DJ script. Soon enough, the next generation of metal bands rose and guess what? They were no longer wearing glam clothes and playing power ballads. They had adopted the long shorts and short-form song writing and become "Nu-Metal". They still were seperating themselves from the spectre of old hair bands at their own design but thanks to the success of Nevermind, they could now sell a million units instead of 100K.

Real metal? Bands like Motorhead, Ozzy, Metalica, Megedeath, etc...they were much less affected by the impact of Nevermind except for the economics. They too were now on a scale where 500K was the new benchmark and it was much harder for them to get adds on rock radio. Those adds were being taken by Nu-Metal and Seattle sound acts and the market was much tougher.

Now of course, everything old is new again. Hair metal revival came and went. (remember metal school?) Some of the old guard industries like pro wrestling never gave up on hair bands and bands like Great White went on to murder clubgoers with their spandex era cliche's.

This sea change in '91 was pretty much the last major shift in the record industry. The next one would be the harbinger of Napster and file sharing and the closure/merger of all the labels. Rest in peace, Charlie Minor.