I found myself spinning the albums of my childhood—literally, in my hands and through a player—when I realized something surprising: a huge chunk of my early favorites came out in 1991.
The original plan was to make a YouTube video about the very first albums I ever owned. One angle would’ve taken me straight into the late‑’80s with Scorpions and Iron Maiden. Another would’ve traced the records I borrowed from the library as a kid—or, to be honest, the ones I didn’t even borrow but listened to at those magical library listening booths. That lineup would have included things like Pet Shop Boys’ Introspective, Madonna’s Like a Prayer, and Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
Back then, anything that resonated even a little bit had a way of lodging itself permanently into my brain. If something hit, it really hit—had to hear more, had to hear everything. Looking back, I actually made some pretty solid picks from the Vilppula library shelves. I’m sure the album covers played their part, but chances are I’d also soaked up some background info from Suosikki magazine.
But 1991… that year feels like a turning point in my evolution as a music listener. Early in the year came Queen’s studio album Innuendo, Freddie Mercury’s last while he was still alive. And toward the end of the year came Greatest Hits II, a compilation that would become hugely important to me—released just shortly before Mercury passed away. And between those two releases? A whole universe of musical upheaval.
Somewhere in that in‑between space, grunge rose up and swept aside the pomp of stadium rock almost overnight. Nirvana dropped Nevermind, and just a week earlier, Guns N’ Roses had unloaded the twin Use Your Illusion albums. The irony? GNR’s decline had already begun before they even reached their peak. Strange, but true.
I turned ten in 1991. I can still remember sitting on a backyard swing, listening to freshly dubbed Guns N’ Roses tapes—copied from library CDs—through my trusty Philips headphones. (That stereo still works today, by the way. The swing set doesn’t.) I was still ten the following summer, when the albums of ’91 really took hold of me. That’s when I bought a GN’R cap at the town market and wore it everywhere—probably even indoors.
Then came April 20, 1992. Wembley Stadium. The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, broadcast even on Finnish TV. And right at the start of this massive event, on walks a band known as Metallica. Or really—Metallica, without any extra qualifiers. The moment the opening riff of “Sad But True” hit, something irreversible snapped into place. Metal had claimed my heart. Everything I’d heard before seemed to fade just a little. That riff was that powerful.
And the whole concert? Absolutely unreal. Extreme ripping through a Queen medley. Axl Rose duetting with Elton John. James Hetfield returning to the stage. Tony Iommi showing up to lend his unmistakable guitar tone…
Without knowing it at the time, I was watching the end of an era. In hindsight, it feels like more than Freddie’s memorial; it was the symbolic closing chapter of stadium rock as I had known it. Grunge didn’t immediately take over my own cassette player—far from it. Everything I had just witnessed needed time to sink in. I hunted down Metallica’s entire back catalogue. I bought Extreme’s III Sides to Every Story—and was found also from the library’s CD collection. And when U2 appeared via satellite from Sacramento, performing “Until the End of the World,” it left such a mark that Achtung Baby later found its way into my growing tape collection as well.
Toward the end of 1992, Erasure released their compilation Pop! The First 20 Hits, and that cassette also logged plenty of hours in my player. So while I was diving deeper into metal, I was still absorbing a steady stream of electropop. In 1993, I even asked for Pet Shop Boys’ Very on cassette for Christmas. But after that, pop music took a long hiatus in my life. Once I reached middle school, it was metal, metal, and more metal—Sepultura, Pantera, you name it. But that’s another story entirely.
Thankfully, today I can listen to all of it with ease. Extreme metal and electropop may not often end up back‑to‑back on the turntable… but on my shelf, they coexist in perfect harmony.