― NickB (NickB), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 14:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 14:31 (eighteen years ago) link
MCR might not fare as well in the retrospective critical opinion, but does that matter to their core fanbase? I mean, look at the NME readers in the UK -- they think that there's some canon with Arctic Monkeys and this Pete Doherty stuff near the top! That sounds like kids thinking they're living in some crucial moment to me.
― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 14:37 (eighteen years ago) link
Pash, OTM It wasn't until the deification of Cobains death in the late 90's that the angsty kid's became their core audience.
― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 14:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan (Blech) Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 14:59 (eighteen years ago) link
these seem to be the four things that made nirvana the nirvana of their generation: loved by the kids, loved by the non-kids, enjoyed by the critics, suicide.
― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:13 (eighteen years ago) link
x-post the children of rich white people?
― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link
I accept My Chemical Romance. I think they are totally relevant for 2006, but certainly won't be remembered that way in, say, 2010. They write OK rock songs that are pretty fun now, but won't be much more than nostalgia in the longrun. MCR is this generation's Bush.
― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link
(xpost x 3)
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:22 (eighteen years ago) link
Or maybe not.
― Jubalique (Jubalique), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:24 (eighteen years ago) link
ok grandad.
― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:27 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost
― regular roundups (Dave M), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:28 (eighteen years ago) link
the children of white people?
― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:29 (eighteen years ago) link
My whole investigation was largely based on working with a 19-year-old metalhead whose description of the rock world was largely foreign to me, even when he talked about "indie" and pop-rock kids; he knew a lot about music, but the set of things that mattered to him and the lineages he saw in them were completely non-canonical. Unfortunately after a few months of listening the main thing I would up listening to a lot was Nightmare of You, who just sound like Morrissey.
― nabiscothingy, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:37 (eighteen years ago) link
In the UK, MCR have thus far had four Top 40 singles, none of which has climbed higher than #19, and one Top 40 album which spent one week at #34. So in British terms, "we" need to grapple with them about as much as we need to grapple with Dave Matthews or Phish or Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds.
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:41 (eighteen years ago) link
too funny...
― eedd, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Soundgarden, Primus, Alice in Chains -- these are 90s rock acts that "everyone" listened to, but none of them hold much critical sway anymore. Even assuming that MCR wind up in that category, don't critics benefit from knowing what Soundgarden, Primus, and Alice in Chains were about?
Further complication: part of why bands like that don't "hold critical sway" is that we ignore the people for whom they were formative -- people, so far as I can tell, in nu-metal acts. Same probably goes for the Get Up Kids.
― nabiscothingy, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link
???? Nickelback (sadly) sound more like Nirvana than Poison or Ratt!
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:48 (eighteen years ago) link
Yes, if only to avoid having to "grapple" with them. We were too busy here drooling over transient novelty American acts like Jeff Buckley, Wu-Tang Clan, Will Oldham, DJ Shadow, etc.
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabiscothingy, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:50 (eighteen years ago) link
Yeah, you find out that Godsmack isn't as original as you thought.
― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 15:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabiscothingy, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: keeping his reputation for an intense on-set presence (latebloomer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:04 (eighteen years ago) link
I would agree that if you have pretensions toward "big picture" criticism, then you should at least be familiar with someone like MCR. But that doesn't mean you have to buy into Ultragrrrl's premise that you have to believe they are central to music.
which I suppose they historically haven't.
?!?
― mitya is really tired of making up names, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:06 (eighteen years ago) link
Chris OTM.
Without Nirvana, there'd be no MCR. Without MCR there'll be no...?
And isn't Pfork the "young critical establishment"? They seem to care about MCR in roughly the same measure that they care about CCR.
― js (honestengine), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: keeping his reputation for an intense on-set presence (latebloomer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:12 (eighteen years ago) link
"plenty of stuff by people whose fans are *younger*"
and
"half as fun or catchy as Poison or Ratt"
Also, somebody should force Ultragrrrl to read this:
Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:28 (eighteen years ago) link
North America has scores of Mallcore/emo bands that are covered by Alternative Presshttp://www.altpress.com/
In the UK they aren't many of these type of bands, e.g the awful "Funeral for a Friend" have had a slice of commercial success.
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:29 (eighteen years ago) link
Maybe becuse Teenpop ROCKS more than Teenrock does? (Just a thought.)
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: keeping his reputation for an intense on-set presence (latebloomer), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:33 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm sure in a decade or two when these kids are pushing a stroller through B&N and they see some book that establishes the favorite bands of their teen years in the critical canon that they'll take a look.
― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:51 (eighteen years ago) link
Er, just for the record, for most 26-year-olds I know, and even 24- and 25-year-olds, Nirvana was HUGE HUGE HUGE. They are certainly the reason I started listening to non-pop music, and indeed, for most of the people that age I play music with, it can be sorta hard to get them out of the Nirvana mindset sometimes.
The line usually peddled re: Nirvana was that Nevermind got a lot of attention but then In Utero was seen as something of a sophomore slump and they were regarded as fading before the suicide. I was pretty much teaching myself to sing by listening to that album, so I can't vouch for that either way, but I think that's the established narrative.
If Nirvana was regarded as important, I think it was for bringing underground music to the mainstream--someone or other from the Pacific NW saying "they were actually a good band having success" or something like that. Maybe today the problem is that the underground is already transparent to the mainstream, that the barriers to entry have been lowered. I dunno. It's an interesting question.
― Eppy (Eppy), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 16:58 (eighteen years ago) link
is my chemical romance the one w/the alice in wonderland video?
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 17:04 (eighteen years ago) link