Rock just keeps on dying. But it doesn't matter. 1991 became the year that punk broke, mainly because a documentary came out with that name, but Nirvana did suddenly top the charts and rock and roll was born again, like it has been at least twice before, and rock was exciting again, for a moment or two. To be young and a rock fan then was sheer heaven, at least that's what they tell me. Too bad the defining image of 90s rock and roll is Cobain blowing his brains out.
Suicide makes great copy.
It's a brand new era, but it came too late. A case can be made that the decade's rock and roll peaked in 1994. Maybe it wasn't 1965 or 1977, but it was something that gave hope for the future. Nirvana was gone but it hardly seemed to matter, not with Hole, Sugar, Soundgarden, Pavement, Liz Phair, Sonic Youth, Sebadoh, Freedy Johnston, Archers of Loaf, the Breeders, Afghan Whigs, and Yo La Tengo still around, and those were just a sampling from alternative white America. By 1996 it mattered that Nirvana no longer existed.