people who tried to call Bush the British Nirvana aggravated me.
"Benzedrine telephone" gtfo
― Feta Van Cheese (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:13 (three years ago) link
It's been a long time since I read it, but if I recall correctly Everett True's book contextualises the influence of Riot Grrl and Olympia pretty thoroughly.
― Maresn3st, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:31 (three years ago) link
my dad tried to drill hard into my head that Kurt Cobain was a lazy slacker loser asshole that I shouldn't give my money to
Typical dad behavior!
"if you're racist, sexist, or a bigot, don't listen to our band, I don't care if you love me because I fucking hate you" -
I suppose "In Bloom" was his lament of fans who had no fucking idea who he was and what he represented?
These fans were undeterred, though. The Aerosmith and Van Halen people were more outraged by his lack of chops, iirc.
Keep in mind the context for a lot of ppl was MTV, you'd see Nirvana videos insterspersed with images of partying spring breakers and the like, all muscleheaded Emilio Estevez types and no Ally Sheedys.
The classic interview segment that every band would do then was to refuse to answer questions, stare at their shoes and generally appear as aparhetic as possible, just make it clear that they regarded MTV as rather beneath them, and then cut back to Kurt Loder 15 seconds later.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:32 (three years ago) link
did they even have a lot of fans when he wrote in bloom?
― brimstead, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:33 (three years ago) link
xphttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t92FpC-7Zt0
― like a d4mn sociopath! (morrisp), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:35 (three years ago) link
I became aware of Nirvana thru MTV, the video for Lithium, I think i was 8 years old. I thought the lyrics were funny, it made me giggle. It also struck me as crazed and unhinged, and sounded sludgy. Was def surprised to find out shortly afterwards that they were evidently the most popular band in the world.
Speculation as to why this band became so huge and not the Pixies or Husker Du was obligatory in anything you'd read about them even then. So I'm familiar with the various explanations and I get it, but at the same time they always struck me as the unlikeliest band to achieve that kind of popularity. They really seemed like they could just as easily have been a rando indie pop band on K records, or a band that only ever released a couple pf short run 7" singles.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:43 (three years ago) link
The Vig production and mix, though. Pixies didn't have it and sure as hell Husker Du didn't either.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:45 (three years ago) link
i don't think pixies or husker du would have rejected that kind of thing had they stayed around. breeders and sugar did ok post-nevermind
― Left, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:48 (three years ago) link
Pretty singer with a strong voice, consistent hooks.xps
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:49 (three years ago) link
I based my immediate attraction to Sugar on how massive it sounded.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:49 (three years ago) link
xxxp yeah, of course, but they might have gone another way and their other records paint them in a very different light.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:51 (three years ago) link
Yeah I remember an interview with Lou Barlow who was bitching that Dinosaur Jr "did everything Nirvana did first" or something like that and complained that Kurt's voice was "nectar...fucking nectar" and they couldn't compete in that category.
― pj, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 19:53 (three years ago) link
Love Bob Mould and Frank Black but it doesn't seem mysterious why they didn't appear on as many magazine covers.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:00 (three years ago) link
Sure, and much has been said about this in the last 30 years as I mentioned (I think testosterone and machismo were often cited in explanation, funnily enough). Those two bands were the most frequently mentioned in comparison probably because there were expectations of crossover success which they ultimately did not meet, where Nirvana's success was unexpected.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:15 (three years ago) link
Anyway, re:hooks- much as I came to love Cobain's sort of harmonic asymmetry, it made me queasy age 8 or 9! 'More than a feeling" was much more palatable to me than " smells like teen spirit" at that time, though i seem to be alone in this and they were the most popular band among my age group by a huge distance.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:22 (three years ago) link
I sound like Geir Hongro now.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:25 (three years ago) link
There must be an ancient Geir Hongro thread on here on Nirvana vs. Nirvana Uk where he says that although the American Nirvana had a couple of nice songs, the British Nirvana were much better overall.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:26 (three years ago) link
Listen, you could've produced Kurt's songs any way and they would've been massive -- I don't think the production on Doolittle or Flip Your Wig/Candy Apple Grey did anything good for their respective artists, and yes Vig did an exceptional job on Nevermind, but Kurt is in a league of his own even when he's recording onto a fucking boombox. I think it has a lot to do with the hooks and the really unusual songwriting in a technical sense--I've said this before but there's a series of great posts on ILX in one of the infinite Nirvana threads that analyzes their songs harmonically and whatever, I'm too dumb to go on but the person said something to the effect of Kurt using dissonant thirds or something. Please someone find that post. They talk about the descending vocal line in the chorus of "Lithium."
It's in the power chords he used, how they make NO sense together, yet somehow do. "Lithium" is not only immediately recognizable on an acoustic guitar, it also sounds completely different from most other pop music using standard major and minor chord patterns.
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:31 (three years ago) link
Quite Lennonesque
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:42 (three years ago) link
In the somedayWhat's that sound
― Feta Van Cheese (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:42 (three years ago) link
xxp That's just it, though, I experienced those harmonic things as very bitter and syrupy as a child, in Nirvana and in grunge more broadly to an extent, I probably associated it with a seasick feeling more than anything else. This does not seem to have been a common side effect, of course.
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:47 (three years ago) link
Not to undercut Cobain's agency, but with breakthroughs as seismic as Nevermind's you can't overlook serendipity. The album broke the autumn when (a) alternative/college/'modern rock lol' culture had made considerable commercial and cultural inroads, thanks, in part to Pixies, the Smithereens, and their friends in the UK; (b) Soundscan had just made this breakthrough possible. In '91 we learned how popular country and hip-hop were and had always been; now the actual sales told the tale.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:48 (three years ago) link
I mean, Trompe Le Monde, the best sounding (and, to my ears, best) Pixies album, came out the same month as Nevermind. Only one of them knocked Dangerous from the top of the Billboard chart.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 20:50 (three years ago) link
Jane's Addiction & FNM also helped sell alt rock/metal to the Kerrang crowd.
― Pfunkboy AKA (Oor Neechy), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:00 (three years ago) link
he clearly had something else going on in the songwriting department
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:08 (three years ago) link
Alfred OTM throughout this thread. Also, I'd like to second recommendations of Everett True's Nirvana biog (both, in fact), which are my favourite Nirvana texts by some considerable distance.
― burnt hombre (stevie), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:11 (three years ago) link
most successes can be owed to right place/right time dynamics but i am kinda sympathetic to flappy's argument, dude was just a cut above, very individual voice that struck the balance between sophisticated and raw/tossed off, and the latter gave so much energy and verve to the former that it's irresistible xp
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:13 (three years ago) link
It's not a binary, though. Talent + luck.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:15 (three years ago) link
One of my postulates is that, contrary to the received wisdom, Nevermind didn't signal the end of the Poppy Bush Interzone but was another weird product of it.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:16 (three years ago) link
So what was the first post-Bush hit or phenonenon?
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:19 (three years ago) link
Something that gets overlooked by those who say that "Pixies/Husker/Replacements should have made it..." is that by the time that serendipity that Alfred mentions, those bands were DONE. I mean, Husker Dü broke up before Billboard even had an Alternative/Modern Rock chart, The 'Mats broke up the summer before Nevermind, and The Pixies were very nearly on life support.
OTOH, Nirvana comes in with a strong major-label debut, a video that hits outside of 120 Minutes & Headbanger's Ball PLUS THE SERENDIPITY.
― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:22 (three years ago) link
Biggie feels distinctly '90s. Garth too, despite getting his start in the Interzone.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:22 (three years ago) link
otm
xpost
I'm with Alfred here. I don't think the extra Neil Young debt that elevates Cobain above his PNW contemporaries is entirely commensurate with the level of his band's accomplishment. The FNM/Jane's/general-gradual-acceptance-of-harder-rock-as-possibly-acceptable-style quotient is a big factor
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:24 (three years ago) link
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 2, 2021 2:15 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
oh yeah, ofc, i just also don't necessarily credit it to vig/wallace, guess i'm still talking about production here
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:25 (three years ago) link
nevermind does sound really really incredible tho
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:26 (three years ago) link
when my buddy Greg bought it on a late November morning record store trip (I bought Robyn Hitchcock's Perspex Island) and put the tape in the car, it boomed like Def Leppard.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:27 (three years ago) link
Sidenote: It took me way too long to realize FNM wasn't a mistyped REM or NIN (both of whom also as important as FNM to this discussion).
― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:31 (three years ago) link
so do a lot of the records Butch Vig worked on around that time! none of those records had "teen spirit," but "teen spirit" plus the full court press goes a long way.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:31 (three years ago) link
― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain)
I thought it stood for Fine Noung Mannibals.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:33 (three years ago) link
trust me i am not trying to downplay butch vig's work lol, even his later records which are mastered abominably i tend to still love the sound of
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:37 (three years ago) link
There must be an ancient Geir Hongro thread on here on Nirvana vs. Nirvana Uk where he says that although the American Nirvana had a couple of nice songs, the British Nirvana were much better overall.― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, June 2, 2021 3:26 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, June 2, 2021 3:26 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
lol he made a post like this in this very thread
― eisimpleir (crüt), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 21:50 (three years ago) link
nirvana ruled
― brimstead, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 22:24 (three years ago) link
Of course he did.
One of the first music related texts I had was this Life magazine special issue from 1992 on the last 40 years of rock that i swiped from my dad. It had a big feature on Guns N Roses at the end and made a point of saying how Axl Rose was totally macho even though he wore a blouse. In the accompanying photo of some of the band are sitting in a hot tub backstage with varuious blonde groupies.
I don't think Kurt Cobain wearing a dress would have been seen as necessarily effeminate by their college jock fans at the time, let alone offputting.
The FNM/Jane's/general-gradual-acceptance-of-harder-rock-as-possibly-acceptable-style quotient is a big factor
From what I remember, a lot of the contemporary press coverage had it the other way around, taking the acceptance of hard rock/metal as a given and suggesting that discernable hard rock roots, however embarrassing to the band, may have been key to Nirvana's broader appeal.
very individual voice that struck the balance between sophisticated and raw/tossed off
Precisely the qualities that make me inclined to perceive their superstardom as an unlikely twist?
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 22:40 (three years ago) link
I was three years old when Smells Like Teen Spirit came out and I had pretty much no concept of Nirvana and Cobain until I was older. Lots of people at school had Nirvana hoodies but they were the "mosher" crowd, the same folk who had Slipknot and Limp Bizkit hoodies, very much music for a certain type of teenager (and in my experience, overwhelmingly male). It's what put me off investigating them for so long despite having discovered and loving Pixies on my own - it was loved by an audience who weren't welcoming to me as an effete gay teenager, and who seemed to like a lot of music that was characterised by things I don't enjoy the sound and style of. The idea of Cobain as anti-heteronormative really didn't align with the people who I saw identify as fans.
― boxedjoy, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 22:50 (three years ago) link
OTM Alfred. I also want to add Sinéad O'Connor and R.E.M. in there for making the U.S. pop charts much more alt-friendly by the time Nevermind and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" landed in the fall of '91 - both got a multiplatinum album and a #1 and a #4 single respectively. And something about the Soundscan thing always unnerved me - like, if Soundscan had been delayed by a few years for whatever reason, what would that mean? Would the actual sales for people like N.W.A. or Nirvana have been undercut and reported at a fraction of what they really were? In all seriousness, I wouldn't know how much of a difference it would make, but could they seriously have been merely gold records at best going by the old system?
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 2 June 2021 22:55 (three years ago) link
Listen, you could've produced Kurt's songs any way and they would've been massive -- I don't think the production on Doolittle or Flip Your Wig/Candy Apple Grey did anything good for their respective artists, and yes Vig did an exceptional job on Nevermind, but Kurt is in a league of his own even when he's recording onto a fucking boombox. I think it has a lot to do with the hooks and the really unusual songwriting in a technical sense--I've said this before but there's a series of great posts on ILX in one of the infinite Nirvana threads that analyzes their songs harmonically and whatever, I'm too dumb to go on but the person said something to the effect of Kurt using dissonant thirds or something. Please someone find that post. They talk about the descending vocal line in the chorus of "Lithium."It's in the power chords he used, how they make NO sense together, yet somehow do. "Lithium" is not only immediately recognizable on an acoustic guitar, it also sounds completely different from most other pop music using standard major and minor chord patterns.
Yeah, I wouldn't say the chords make no sense together but the modal mixture and melody-writing is definitely distinctive and effective - to me, though, this answers "why the songs are good", not "why they became Michael Jackson-level popular".
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 22:57 (three years ago) link
And something about the Soundscan thing always unnerved me - like, if Soundscan had been delayed by a few years for whatever reason, what would that mean? Would the actual sales for people like N.W.A. or Nirvana have been undercut and reported at a fraction of what they really were? In all seriousness, I wouldn't know how much of a difference it would make, but could they seriously have been merely gold records at best going by the old system?
Yes! Rob Harvilla's Ringer article from last week has the tasty details.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 22:57 (three years ago) link
I mean, I was 11 in 1990 and I could tell that hair metal was done and the next big rock thing was probably going to be one of the bands they were calling 'alternative', though I would not have expected it to be as big as it was.xp
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 22:58 (three years ago) link
to me, though, this answers "why the songs are good", not "why they became Michael Jackson-level popular".
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r),
Exactly!!
― Fauna Sukkot (Deflatormouse), Wednesday, 2 June 2021 23:03 (three years ago) link