Multi camera PRO-shot video, with soundboard audio, recorded by MTV. This near complete pre-broadcast source leaked from MTV.

If we date the takeoff point of the Internet as a dominant force in music culture to the turn of the millennium (the point at which broadband enabled the explosive growth of filesharing, blogging, et al.), it is striking that the decade that followed is characterized by the absence of epochal character. It's not that nothing happened ... it's that so many little things happened, a bustle of microtrends and niche scenes that all got documented and debated, with the result that nothing was ever able to dominant and define the era.

The 1992 MTV Video Music Awards aired live on September 9, 1992, honoring the best music videos from June 16, 1991 to June 15, 1992. The show was hosted by Dana Carvey at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles. Performances by The Black Crowes, Bobby Brown, U2 and Dana Carvey, Def Leppard, Nirvana, Elton John, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Jackson, Bryan Adams, En Vogue, Eric Clapton, Guns N' Roses and Elton John.

New and rare live footage. Cow Palace, Daly City, CA, 31.12.1991.

Crocodile Cafe, Seattle 10/4/92.

"1991: The Year Punk Broke is a 1992 documentary directed by Dave Markey featuring American alternative rock band Sonic Youth on tour in Europe in 1991. While Sonic Youth is the focus of the documentary, the film also gives attention to Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., Babes in Toyland, Gumball and The Ramones. Also featured in the film are Mark Arm, Dan Peters and Matt Lukin of Mudhoney, Courtney Love, and Joe Cole, who was murdered in a robbery three months after the tour ended."