What was the best selling grunge album ever?

No one in their right mind was really prepared for something like grunge when it burst onto the airwaves. The whole meaning behind the genre never had a proper description, and if every band happened to come from the same area, it wasn’t like everyone played the same style of music whenever they got into the practice space. When looking at the biggest names of the genre, though, there is a crowning victor for who had the most sales during the alternative revolution.

But sales didn’t seem to matter to these bands in the early days. The idea of living their lives playing music was enough for them, but the thought of them selling millions of copies of one of their albums felt like a pipedream when the biggest names in music were coming from further south with acts like Guns N’ Roses and Warrant still on the charts.

Contrary to popular belief, though, Alice in Chains became the first band to break through to the mainstream from Seattle with ‘Man in the Box’. Despite the massive single, their album Facelift only sold three million copies, and their magnum opus, Dirt, only managed to sell five million in the process.

While some pieces of the Seattle scene were bound to be relegated to indie labels for the rest of their lives, there was some energy in the air by the time 1991 started. Once acts like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden released records in massive succession, the entire world seemed to throw out glam metal like a used can of hairspray and began adopting flannel shirts and Doc Marten boots.

So, what is the best-selling grunge record?

Despite Soundgarden being the one grunge band there since the beginning, they were always going to be on the fringes. Their artsy approach was too weird to reach the mainstream even with Chris Cornell’s fantastic voice, and despite Superunknown selling nine million copies in its day, it was no match for Pearl Jam’s Ten, which went on to shatter records and reach 13 million copies. But not even Eddie Vedder’s trademark baritone could compete with Kurt Cobain on Nevermind.

Outside of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ Nirvana’s second album is a masterclass on how a great rock album should sound. Even though Cobain was critical of how the album is mixed, there’s no denying that the album has perfect production, with the hookiness of ‘In Bloom’ and ‘Come As You Are’. And compared to the rest of the ‘Big 4’ of the genre, it was no contest for Nirvana to win, ultimately moving over 30 million copies of the album.

But Nirvana’s success goes much deeper than the songs. Cobain’s entire attitude was built on the foundation that started with the punk movement, and even if not every one of his songs had the same rebellious attitude as John Lydon’s, hearing him wear his emotions on his sleeve made millions of people connect with them, eventually inspiring other artists to make their own classics like Linkin Park.

And seeing how the subsequent generations have adopted Nirvana as their musical heroes, it’s easy to see Nevermind less like a proper album and more like a mission statement from Cobain to the rest of the world. People had become sick of hearing something manufactured on the radio, and when everyone recognised his authentic approach to rock, there was no chance of going back to hair metal ever again.

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