"Nevermind" sold nearly 30 million copies worldwide and changed the course of rock.
Croutons saturated by brown butter made an otherwise lovely main course of rock shrimp too rich to finish.
John Cale, 63, is perhaps an exception, having found a new lease of life playing "dirty-ass rock'n'roll", as he calls it, in sweaty clubs, almost 40 years after changing the course of rock in his capacity as the viola player with the Velvet Underground.
One of the most romantic of the myths holds that, had the album come out as intended in 1967 – instead of being abandoned unfinished until it was ostensibly completed by Brian Wilson and his latterday touring band in 2004 – it would have been acclaimed as a masterpiece, eclipsed the Beatles' Sgt Pepper and changed the course of rock history.
I look out across the heavily eroded landscape, thankful at least that the race itself won't be as technically demanding as this mangled obstacle course of rock and earth.
It is rare that a band becomes a global influence and changes the course of rock and roll history.
The beach ends in an obstacle course of dark rock outcroppings, but a brief path leads between low hills to another crescent beach more sweeping than the principal one, three miles longer and utterly deserted.
Of course, lots of rock stars did die young, and their short, intense lives are the stuff of legend.
The possible rewards of such risk-taking include money from sponsorships — in addition, of course, to rock-star-meets-motorcycle-gang-member status in certain circles.
The ghosts of Spinal Tap haunt the wings of Dig!, a rambunctious documentary classic that charts the divergent, Cain and Abel-ish course of two American rock bands.
