Meanwhile... Pt. 1

[berk]

I haven't listened to a lot of Nirvana, but from what I have heard I think their big hit, Teen Spirit, probably isn't one of their best songs, so they might suffer a little from that in the ears of casual listeners like myself. My take on them is that they had a good sound, and Cobain had an awesome voice, one of the best in-tune screams in rock history, but their song-writing wasn't of the very first rank. Certainly one of the best of the grunge scene, though.

But I'm generally not a huge fan of the whole grunge era. Not that it didn't produce a fair bit of very listenable music, but I think it was pretty over-rated. It sounded fresh at the time because that sort of basic, no-frills hard rock hadn't enjoyed widespread mainstream popularity for a quite few years previously. But it didn't really bring any new energy or ideas to pop music, just re-hashed stuff that had been done better years before. Unlike the punk era, which IMO really did bring something new to the pop scene.

[dan bailey]

My interest in grunge began & ended with Nirvana, no doubt for the reasons berk cites. If I hadn't been immersed in punk for the previous 13-odd years, that probably would've been different ... but I had been, so it wasn't.

One thing I really respected Cobain for was his enthusiasm for acknowledging his debts, as it were, through such gestures as insisting on touring with the Buzzcocks & pretty much single-handedly spearheading the revival of interest in the Raincoats. The latter's reunion LP, Looking in the Shadows, is one of my favorite albums of the '90s (exceeding even the former's Trade Test Transmissions), & there's little chance it ever would've existed without Cobain's interest in the band.

Compare that to the poseurs in U2, whose Rattle & Hum would have us believe that their music sprang fully formed from the heads of BB King & Memphis, conveniently ignoring their beginnings as little more than acolytes of the Virgin Prunes (whose lineup included, IIRC, the Edge's older brother).

[CromagnonMan]

i find Nirvana to be overrated, except in their role and acheivements as a commercial rock band

**ooh controversial!**

[The Confessor]

One thing I really respected Cobain for was his enthusiasm for acknowledging his debts, as it were, through such gestures as insisting on touring with the Buzzcocks & pretty much single-handedly spearheading the revival of interest in the Raincoats.

The same could be said for The Vaselines. I was already listening to Eugene Kelly's follow-up group Captain America (later re-named Eugenius) in the early '90s, but it was Nirvana's covers of "Molly's Lips", "Son Of A Gun" and "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" by The Vaselines that got me interested in the earlier group. Turns out that The Vaselines were actually much better than Eugenius, but without Nirvana's patronage, it's unlikely that I would've ever bothered to seek their music out. Actually, I bet the vast majority of people who today own music by The Vaselines, do so thanks to Nirvana...either directly or indirectly.

i find Nirvana to be overrated, except in their role and acheivements as a commercial rock band

**ooh controversial!**

I'm not exactly sure what you mean? Nirvana indeed produced some tremendously commercial rock music. For this listener, it was Cobain's impeccable pop instincts and the way that they intersected with the band's punk roots and indie aesthetic that made the band so great. It's also why the Foo Fighters bore me so much, they're just not pop enough and they swathe their songs in too much overly serious rock bluster for my liking. Dave Grohl's a dude though.

[dan bailey]

i find Nirvana to be overrated, except in their role and acheivements as a commercial rock band

**ooh controversial!**

I find Stan Lee to be overrated, except in his role & achievements as a comic book writer & editor.

**ooh controversial!**

[dan bailey]

Good point on the Vaselines, Confessor. See also: Puppets, Meat.

[CromagnonMan]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean? Nirvana indeed produced some tremendously commercial rock music. For this listener, it was Cobain's impeccable pop instincts and the way that they intersected with the band's punk roots and indie aesthetic that made the band so great. It's also why the Foo Fighters bore me so much, they're just not pop enough and they swathe their songs in too much overly serious rock bluster for my liking. Dave Grohl's a dude though.

i mean, in my view theyre not at all punk and have limited artistic merit as band. depends how you rate "good", i dont think Nirvana were pushing at the envelope in any way , shape or form. their only contribution or role as being 'influential' was how to craft commerical rock songs that chimed with the masses and were commercially successful.

kind of like somebody who can paint commercially successful art but really is just aping the great masters without contributing anything significantly new themselves. you catch my drift now?

**oooh!**

[dan bailey]

i mean, in my view theyre not at all punk and have limited artistic merit as band. depends how you rate "good", i dont think Nirvana were pushing at the envelope in any way , shape or form. their only contribution or role as being 'influential' was how to craft commerical rock songs that chimed with the masses and were commercially successful.

"Limited artistic merit as band" is of course by definition entirely subjective; I've heard it applied, for instance, to just about anyone the speaker happens not to particularly like, up to & including the Beatles. And despite my fondness for punk, the fact remains that all sorts of worthy artists aren't punk (as I certainly didn't take Nirvana to be when I first heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit"; the fact that they weren't just another vile, useless hair-metal band was endorsement enough).

Otherwise, granted, they weren't the Velvets, the Stooges, Pere Ubu, Wire, etc. Very, very few bands are, & if "their only contribution or role as being 'influential' was how to craft commerical rock songs that chimed with the masses and were commercially successful," I guess that put them one step above their huge influences the Pixies, who in a just world would also have clicked with the masses ... the time, I guess, just wasn't right.

[CromagnonMan]

"Limited artistic merit as band" is of course by definition entirely subjective; I've heard it applied, for instance, to just about anyone the speaker happens not to particularly like, up to & including the Beatles.

ha, yes its just my opinion.

Otherwise, granted, they weren't the Velvets, the Stooges, Pere Ubu, Wire, etc.

Glad you acknowledge it! We are agreeing here.

I guess that put them one step above their huge influences the Pixies, who in a just world would also have clicked with the masses ... the time, I guess, just wasn't right.

the Pixies i would award more artistic merit to than Nirvana. Nirvana's music was very mainstream, the Pixies did have a little bit of the weird about them.

[adam_warlock_2099]

i mean, in my view theyre not at all punk and have limited artistic merit as band. depends how you rate "good", i dont think Nirvana were pushing at the envelope in any way , shape or form. their only contribution or role as being 'influential' was how to craft commerical rock songs that chimed with the masses and were commercially successful.

kind of like somebody who can paint commercially successful art but really is just aping the great masters without contributing anything significantly new themselves. you catch my drift now?

Killing himself certainly helped the bands latter popularity. Good music or not, dying young, drug overdoses, suicide and mysterious deaths have always sky rocketed a band/artists/writer/etc's work. Future generations know Cobain for his sorted death as the spring board for listening to his music. And that's not wrong. I discover much entertainment of all kinds of media through this forum of people long dead, some through mysterious circumstances and many not. dan himself turned me on to Mario Bava's work and I find the majority of it unwatchable, but there were several movies that I found awesomely entertaining. But I still say whether the material is good or bad no matter what the popularity of the material was at it's peak. Like Cromagnon I assert that Nirvania offered nothing new, and contributed only to a genre that other did a far better job at achieving. It's all about taste and what people like, that's just how I feel.

[dan bailey]

KLike Cromagnon I assert that Nirvania offered nothing new, and contributed only to a genre that other did a far better job at achieving. It's all about taste and what people like, that's just how I feel.

Just out of curiosity, what did Led Zeppelin offer that was new? They were hardly the first to rob old blues artists blind; the Stones, & certainly others, had already been doing that. And while I've done no research on the matter, I seriously doubt that Robert Plant was the first to shriek as if he'd never enountered testosterone in his life (Lou Christie, for instance, comes to mind here; so does Frankie Valli).

The fact of the matter is, if we're only going to pay attention to artists that "offered nothing new," I need to pitch out about 98 percent of my music collection. Which I guess would be cool; I'd have lots more room to accommodate my comics. Thought if I make ridding myself of work that "offered nothing new" my life's mission, about 98 percent of those will need to go as well.
Ditto, I'm sure, for my books, VHS tapes & CDs.

I'll have so much room I won't know what to do.

[Romero]

Moving from "Bleach" to "Nevermind" to "In Utero" you can definitely see how Nirvana was a band that made some changes and some "progression." I could never listen to "Nevermind" ever again and not miss it, as I've heard it so many times, but I think "In Utero" demonstrated something brewing that, of course, got cut short. They were the right band at the right time for mainstream radio,and even amongst their "indie rock" peers, they could still stand out.

It's too bad the Foo Fighters recorded "Everlong" one of the best songs of the whole era, but are now bound and determined to make rock music suitable for the dentist office.

All that being said, I'd play Mudhoney songs before Nirvana, if I am in the mood for grunge.

[Aaron King]

I'll have so much room I won't know what to do.

Get more cats.

More on-topic: there's a band gaining popularity here (and, I assume, elsewhere) called Fitz & the Tantrums. They have this sort of popped-up, whited-out Motown funk feel. They're very technically skilled. However, all I notice when I listen to them is that they're not Motown.

Now, my mom loves Motown and I was pretty lucky to be raised around it. Maybe a lot of the people my age didn't have the same experience, and hopefully this band will lead them to explore the influences on their style.

I think I look for novelty in the music I listen to, but it doesn't have to be much: a small spin on an old subject, some new instrumentation, etc. Someone trying to recreate something and doing it well just doesn't interest me. This applies to books and comics that I like, too.

Of course, I'm sure there's some note-for-note pastiche that I just love and I'm not aware of its sources.

[dan bailey]

Get more cats.

I'd have to make sure they offered something new to the household.

For that matter, Mr. King, I'm not absolutely positive you're doing a satisfactory job of offering something new to this forum. More innovation, please.

[Aaron King]

I'd have to make sure they offered something new to the household.

For that matter, Mr. King, I'm not absolutely positive you're doing a satisfactory job of offering something new to this forum. More innovation, please.

All posts will now consist of five iambs
Strung coupled like a prisoner's bound hands.

I know that it was done back in the past.
I won't be first; I'll try to be the last.

I'll wear it down to nil, so help me, Lord,
By bringing poesy to our message board.