Awesome. Some pretty insightful comments. Greatness transcends life/death.
There is no other band (with the exception of Pink Floyd) in the history of bands that is more overrated than Nirvana. And I was a junior in high school when Nevermind came out.
David's Groohl wrote:
There is no other band (with the exception of Pink Floyd) in the history of bands that is more overrated than Nirvana. And I was a junior in high school when Nevermind came out.
The most ignorant comment ever posted on this message board. Congrats!
Dang, I need to go listen again to Nirvana immediately - haven't listened to them in at least a week.
Ummmm...ever heard of Led Zeppelin?
I agree that Nirvana is pretty overrated. The legacy is that they were a little minor band just starting out that completely shifted the face of rock music for 20 years.
You can't understand this unless you were around in the late 1980's. MTV controlled the industry. And Nirvana was the one band that they were looking for to be the next big thing. REM was the first "alternative" band that made it big but Nirvana was the first that captured a much larger audience. Before Nirvana, the masses dismissed anything different as "college music" or "fag music". Nirvana hit popularity with the all the young masses that probably indentified with the angst and the noise but the production was the key. It was lightening striking at the very right time.
They were the luckiest band of all time. I think they were pretty great. At a time when the big money was signing up light weights like Poison, Skid Row, Warrant, Cinderella.
After Nirvana killed that genre every hard-rock band on the radio shifted from light guitars and high Robert Plant vocals and Power Ballads to a whole different sound.
What other band can you think of that changed music for an entire decade? After Nirvana rock music changed. "Bush, Stone Temple Pilots, SilverChair, Pearl Jam, and pretty much any popular hard rock music that wan't positioned as either gangster rap or music for teenage girls like the boy bands.
Today there is no more current young hard rock band that has current mass popularity. They were the last one.
Hated this band even when I was a teen in the 90s and "should" have liked them.
Bland, cleanly-produced pop-rock. Yuck.
Really? Bland cleanly-produced pop-rock?
They were a great band and Dave Grohl is a great drummer. This is no pop-rock.
Start a "Thirty-somethings wank to Sonic Youth and Husker Du" thread of your own
Chef Gordon Ramzi wrote:
Hated this band even when I was a teen in the 90s and "should" have liked them.
Bland, cleanly-produced pop-rock. Yuck.
Josh Hamilton's Addiction wrote:
David's Groohl wrote:There is no other band (with the exception of Pink Floyd) in the history of bands that is more overrated than Nirvana. And I was a junior in high school when Nevermind came out.
The most ignorant comment ever posted on this message board. Congrats!
Ha ha! You wish. I've heard all their songs 100s of times. A particular favorite was their unplugged album and the song "Come As You Are" (so it's not like I don't "get them"). It's not that they're a horrible band - they're just extremely overrated.
If Cobain hadn't become a Klonopin addict and killed himself (a common side effect of benzo addiction) Nirvana would have ended up like Soundgarden, a hugely popular chart-topper buried under the sands of time and forgotten.
Back then you didn't really have much choice what to listen to, as radio was often the only source available. If they played Nirvana or Soundgarden, you either listened to it or switched to the classic rock station to hear the Eagles or Allmann Brothers for the millionth time. If you turned off your radio, you'd hear it on someone else's radio instead. Because of this, almost anything could be popular. In retrospect, both bands sucked.
I disagree. I love Nirvana. To me, they are the only band since the 60s/70s that belongs in the same pantheon as Beatles/Stones/Who/Kinks, etc.
I think Kurt Cobain had an amazing gift for using his pretty basic guitar skills to compose some unforgettable riffs. His sense of melody was also fantastic, and a few of his songs actually remind me of a fuzzed-out version of the Beatles.
The only shortcoming I can see is that he died before NIrvana could accomplish all that they were capable of. Nevermind and In Utero are the only 2 albums I think of as Nirvana at the height of their powers, so they are a little slim as far as output goes. If things had worked out differently, I believe a couple more albums of that caliber would have been made before Kurt moved on to something different.
I think the reverence with which other musicians hold Nirvana serves as evidence that they were not overrated.
would
David's Groohl wrote:
There is no other band (with the exception of Pink Floyd) in the history of bands that is more overrated than Nirvana. And I was a junior in high school when Nevermind came out.
Kind of with you here. While I certainly realize the impact (not so sure it was +) they had on music at the time, I just never got them. I definitely gave them plenty of listens, but it wasn't happening. FF on the other hand - pure genius.
Ca$hclay wrote:
David's Groohl wrote:There is no other band (with the exception of Pink Floyd) in the history of bands that is more overrated than Nirvana. And I was a junior in high school when Nevermind came out.
Kind of with you here. While I certainly realize the impact (not so sure it was +) they had on music at the time, I just never got them. I definitely gave them plenty of listens, but it wasn't happening. FF on the other hand - pure genius.
Freddie Fender?
I kinda feel like those kids react to Cobain the way kids in my era reacted to Jim Morrison. Some good looking crazy guy who was big in music for a couple years and then died. Rinse and repeat.
I was in college when he died and I wasn't a huge Nirvana fan. Listening to it now though, I do like it.
And Pink Floyd is NOT overrated!
The most revealing thing is how these kids say there is nothing as fill-in-your-adjective as Nirvana today. I'd agree.
Musically we live in dead times where lifestyle and internet memes have somehow trumped actual musicianship. It's sad but this incessant screen time makes it inevitable.
Long live stage-jumping, the pit, and 10x1200 workouts in the snow with nary a helicopter parent in sight.