Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind

When most other 13-year-old girls were listening to New Kids on the Block in the early '90s, I had no interest in Joey, Jordan and the rest of the Hangin' Tough crew. I was all about Kurt, Dave and Chris. I loved Nirvana. Big time.

I remember sitting in my friend Alison's room listening to the "Nevermind" CD on repeat for hours and hours trying to figure out the lyrics and just loving every second of it. Although I was a generally happy teen and I had very little angst, something about Nirvana's music really resonated with me and ended up inspiring most of my music preferences throughout my teens years. Instead of cheesy pop, I was all about the grunge. My very first CD was Pearl Jam's "Ten," which, along with "Nevermind" still ranks as one of my all-time favorite albums. Yeah, my music taste was way cooler back then than it is now. I mean, my 13-year-old self would die knowing that 17 years later, I'd actually be singing along to "My Humps."

So today when NPR did a story about the naked baby on the cover of that iconic "Nevermind" CD, I got all nostalgic. Turns out the "Nevermind" baby is now a 17-year-old high school kid who's "so over" high school. One of my favorite things he said in the interview was that it would have been so much cooler to be a teenager in the '90s than it is today. He noted that teens in the '90s who loved music would actually form bands; whereas today's teens just play "Rock Band" or "Guitar Hero" when they feel the need to jam.

And you know what? The Nevermind baby/angsty teen was right. Growing up in the '90s was pretty awesome. Aside from the wasting the skinniest days of my life wearing baggy jeans and oversized flannels, the '90s gave us awesome music, classic television (hello, My So-Called Life), too many Bulls champions to count, cheap gas, and an overall fun time to be a teenager.

If you feel like revisting the '90s for a few minutes, listen to the story about the Nevermind baby by clicking here.