1991

Smells Like Teen Spirit became an unexpected hit shortly after its release. The song caught on both rock and student radio stations, and after a positive response to its video on its night-time schedule, MTV also started playing it during the day. For the next few weeks, it settled in the 'Buzz Bin' section – a menu of clips predicted to be a success on MTV, played several times a day.

Nirvana could be heard everywhere and Nevermind, its first effort for a major label, was beginning to make music history. The band recorded it with the intention of capturing a more intense pop sound. Compared to their two-year-old independently released debut, on its follow-up, they played more with the dynamics of the songs and worked on the melodies, trying to break out of the sound template of the home grunge scene. And it succeeded, creating a captivating straightforward record filled with catchy songs. At that point, it had no idea it would start an avalanche of events to impact the world music scene. Pearl Jam debuted just a month earlier. Their album Ten was no sensation at first. They had only been playing together for a short time and had no audience, but they immediately went on tour to support the record. It lasted nine months, had 148 stops, and by its end, legends were already spreading about the band. The ferocious anthemic songs, the emotive, skin-piercing vocals, but especially the unbridled concerts caused fans to flock to stores to buy Ten even two years after its release. A new album was also recorded by the veterans of the grunge scene, Soundgarden. On Badmotorfinger, they considerably pushed the limits of their compositional mastery in a perfect mix of crushing riffs and vocal escapades, completing the year's batch of essential albums from Seattle, which documented the local musical diversity.

Nirvana's sound was nourished by the wildness of punk, Pearl Jam developed a hard rock legacy, and the complex work of Soundgarden unmistakably referenced metal. Therefore, although they were shaped by a similar environment and were labelled as the main representatives of grunge, with the growing artistic originality of their recordings, this designation was losing its justification.

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The rise in popularity of alternative music genres and their gradual penetration into the mainstream was also reflected in the list of performers as well as nominees in individual genre categories at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards.

The most (more specifically, ten) nominations were earned by R.E.M. for the video to their Losing My Religion. Michael Stipe, the lead singer of the band, had prepared a set of different colour T-shirts for the occasion; on each of them, with an apt slogan, he expressed his support for issues ranging from racial equality and safe sex to the right to vote and the regulation of the possession of firearms. He intended to come and collect each of the potential awards in a different one of them. Ultimately, his original campaign was successful, as R.E.M. was pulled out of the envelope as many as six times, once for the Video of the Year.

The most (more specifically, ten) nominations were earned by R.E.M. for the video to their Losing My Religion. Michael Stipe, the lead singer of the band, had prepared a set of different colour T-shirts for the occasion; on each of them, with an apt slogan, he expressed his support for issues ranging from racial equality and safe sex to the right to vote and the regulation of the possession of firearms. He intended to come and collect each of the potential awards in a different one of them. Ultimately, his original campaign was successful, as R.E.M. was pulled out of the envelope as many as six times, once for the Video of the Year.