1994

Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president after the country's first fully multiracial elections, and the Channel Tunnel opened between England and France. It was also a year of grief: Rwanda's genocide began in April, and Formula One lost Ayrton Senna at Imola in May.

Guitars were loud, and not all of them were polite. Green Day's Dookie arrived in February and set off a punk revival, while Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, out in March, helped drag industrial rock into the mainstream. Soundgarden's Superunknown, Pearl Jam's Vitalogy and Alice in Chains' Jar of Flies kept grunge in charge. Jar of Flies went straight in at No. 1 in the US, the first EP to manage it. Britain answered with Oasis's Definitely Maybe and the bleaker Holy Bible from Manic Street Preachers, while Pink Floyd turned The Division Bell into a tour that played to 5,500,000 people. Metal went two ways. Korn's debut is generally considered the first nu metal album, while Slayer's Divine Intervention reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and Pantera's Far Beyond Driven and Megadeth's Youthanasia kept the older sounds heavy.

The year's great shadow was Kurt Cobain. Nirvana played their last concert in Munich on 1 March, he overdosed in Rome two days later, and on 5 April he took his own life at his Seattle home. His body was found three days afterwards. Nirvana ended, and MTV Unplugged in New York, released in November, became the quiet farewell. Elsewhere, Testament carried on without Alex Skolnick, and Ralf Scheepers left Gamma Ray.