What was so genius about Nirvana?

Loved Husker Du.

Any chance you were a Matthew Sweet fan as well?

I lived off them in the early nineties until Uncle Tupelo shifted me around a bit.

Most nirvana songs are simple 3-4 chord strummer songs. They're simple; I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing. AIC songs aren't exactly complicated, but they challenge the listener a bit more and the musicianship and arrangements complement the great song writing.

No Excuses is a great example of this. The verse is two chords on guitar, but you have great syncopation on the drums, a great bass line, and beautifully sung harmonized vocals. Then you get a huge bright hook in the chorus with a badass guitar riff. And on songwriting alone I think it stands up to any Nirvana song. Nirvana wrote great catchy songs, but the execution is lacking.

Your point about songs coming into your head is just your taste. It has nothing to do with the quality of the songwriting. Man in the Box, Sea of Sorrow, Put You Down, Dam That River, Down in a Hole, Rooster, Junkhead, Would?, and No Excuses come to mind for me much more than any Nirvana song.

Mundus Vult wrote:

Loved Husker Du.

Any chance you were a Matthew Sweet fan as well?

I lived off them in the early nineties until Uncle Tupelo shifted me around a bit.

I don't know what happened with writing out "Husker Du" in my earlier post. I was trying to be too cute with the umlauts.

I have some Matthew Sweet (I have Superdeformed and Sick of Myself on my ipod). However, I am a huge Uncle Tupelo fan and post-Uncle Tupelo, I am a big Jay Farrar/Son Volt fan. All of the recent Wilco stuff is unlistenable. To me, the Uncle Tupelo sound is what defined the first half of the nineties for me (probably because Nirvana - who I actually like - was nothing new).

Nirvana looked like just one of many Sub Pop bands. Back in the day I was very much into that scene and even had a subscription with Sub Pop where I got a record single from obscure bands in the mail every month. The big alternative West Coast bands at that time were Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Afghan Wigs and so on. These bands continued the alternative West Coast scene from the mid-'80s with Dream Syndicate, Butthole Surfers etc. Musically it makes no sense to compare Nirvana to GnR, Def Leppard or whatever. But Boston bands like Sonic Youth and Pixies were of course influential.

The dominating trend of the alternative scene in the '80s was that it became less psychedelic, less experimental and less "weird" as the '90s approached. The different metal genres also split off. Nirvana's Bleach took this yet another step. It was softer, simpler and more mainstream. But to most of the "hard core" alternative crowd it was quite uninteresting. Nevermind completed the fusion of mainstream and alternative rock. And both audiences were surprised that it was so successful. The main factor was of course the song SLTS and the Jim Morrison-like Kurt Cobain himself.

To many people of all musical tastes (including me) Nirvana was a one-hit wonder. But you can't deny that they paved the way for lots of other, previously "alternative", now straight rock'n roll bands.

well,. wrote:

The "heavy" rock groups of the 80s were a bunch of guys looking like transvestites with fluffy hair and spandex tights.

As to the strange thinking about The Ramones, or rock, metal, funk bands clothing/hair in the 1960 to 1980s.

These men were so damn masculine, that they could wear anything. They defined their masculinity by what they could do/wear. Not, by what they were too damn scared to do/wear.

They could do/ wear anything, and were still Men.

If outnumbered by adversaries 3 or 5 to 1. On my team, I would not want most ‘cant wear this, cant do that’ men. Id rather have men who can are not afraid to wear anything. Men, like the ramones, blackie lawless, axel rose etc, who would have kept on rocking, and taken as many clowns with them as possible. They were/are tough men.

And, boomer hetero men were so openminded and accepting, that they were happy to have their male star’s in the 60s,70s,80s dressed like that. Of today’s young generation, I suspect even the ‘enlightened’ hipsters would vomit, if their male stars walked around in something as ‘mild’ as shorts(what the young call short shorts)

Finally, who else remembers that Kurt Cobain did wear dresses on a few occasions.

Why nirvana:

But in hindsight, from a musical perspective, nirvana had something different. Namely they had chord progressions and melodies that didn't at all follow the traditional formulas for writing hit songs

Great point,

Was listening quickly to Nirvana’s Peel session(London uk) 1990, and two yrs later they had moved on one or two songwriting levels.

OP, before Nirvana broke, these are the general styles that big league 80s rock/metal bands used to convey raw, intimate authenticity. I agree with what deserver of fudge just wrote,'Musically it makes no sense to compare Nirvana to GnR, Def Leppard or whatever'. However Nirvana did make those bands style, sound 'old fashioned'

moody sound (has a medieval aroma)

1. W.A.S.P. - Sleeping (In The Fire)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_Om_VI_hY

2. Or the hysteria ‘LA at sunset’ type sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwijZPVD7H0

3. or sang over 'sunny sounding' acoustic guitars. Extreme - More than words

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrIiLvg58SY

4. or used a big GnR 'november rain' type sound,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbUC-UaAxE

That’s the sounds that the general public like me, were hearing. Immerse yourself in that sonic-scape, then imagine Then literally out of nowhere* you hear Nirvana’s ‘Heart-Shaped Box’.

Nirvana - Heart-Shaped Box

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6P0SitRwy8

Nirvana - All Apologies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LFVQpDKHk4

The sound of Nirvana's intimacy was different. Starker, less sheeny, almost otherworldly.

It was qualitatively different. It also helped Kurt was a very photogenic frontman, who had a fine voice. New sound+goodlooking front man+voice.

I can see why people were drawn to Nirvana

--

[*this is b.i., before internet so people r flying blind. Little awareness of what scenes are bubbling up (my uk rocker friends, how likely were they to know wats going on in the seattle scent) until either:

1. Yr local independent label rereleases tracks into yr area

2. your music mag (mine was melodymaker) gave u a big headsup with a free cassette

3. the gatekeeper muso radio-dj tells u(in the uk that was john peel, his nirvana 1989 sessions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-bYyhrB6ps

)]

Ackley wrote:

However, I am a huge Uncle Tupelo fan and post-Uncle Tupelo, I am a big Jay Farrar/Son Volt fan. All of the recent Wilco stuff is unlistenable. To me, the Uncle Tupelo sound is what defined the first half of the nineties for me (probably because Nirvana - who I actually like - was nothing new).

Similar experience here. I liked Nirvana but I was a skate punk in the 80's and cut my teeth on 80's punk music so Nirvana just seemed like more of the same. I still think the Pixie's did it better. Aside from that, we had local bands--Superchunk, Small (later Small 23), and the Archers of Loaf--making musis that sounded just the same.

Tupelo's No Depression changed all of that for me. I remember when a friend played me their single "I got drunk and I fell down." Something resonated and I connected immediately with them through all four albums. Those albums are still in heavy rotation on my playlist. I always broke a little more towards the Farrar side of Tupelo and that tendency persisted into the Son Volt v. Wilco era (although I love both Summerteeth and Yankee Foxtrot).

Looking back, the early nineties became the most defining era of my musical tastes. I was fortunate enough to be a disc jockey at a relatively large college radio station which allowed me to see just about any local show I wanted as well as attend CMJ several times. Those were good days.

Any genius was in the good melodies and great dynamics. But what really put them over the top was that thing you can't bottle: charisma.