Poll: Bandwagonesque v. Nevermind v. Loveless

well, I was 9 in 1991, and that was about the year that I became actively interested in popular music. I liked GNR and Def Leppard and Aerosmith, and then when Pearl Jam and Nirvana came out I started to like bands like that more. i'm sure the teens and college students of that era were already up on that stuff but for younger kids it was a big deal, it's really a generational thing,Scott.

also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-ROepOxoGw&feature=related

that's enough PS for now

or was there no desire to explore other avenues until teen spirit was shoved down the throats of nirvana converts?

I think this is the case. At my highschool, the population of kids that dressed like jocks - presumably to fit in - seriously diminished when Nirvana hit.

wait, i take it back! i just figured it out in the backyard smoking a cigarette! it's what soulja said. it's an age thing. if you are 11 and don't follow music much and then you turn 12 and grunge hits and you love it and it doesn't sound like yer brother's crue collection than of course it is like the world has turned and it is revolution.

sorry, should have thought of that.

I was a senior in high school at the time, and Nevermind was the cassette of choice blasting out of cars in the parking lot; but not more so than Achtung Baby, Use Your Illusions I-II, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and a few others. I couldn't hear the differences in greatness between "Come As You Are," "The Fly," "Justified and Ancient," and Amy Grant's "Good For Me," sorry. I KNEW Nirvana were special cuz I read SPIN and Rolling Stone.

in 1985 i was already a big husker du fan - zen arcade spoke to me, blah, blah, blah - but when i heard this it seemed to create beauty in my troubled acid-addled head in such a meaningful way...you know, music can really hit you. and this really hit me. in a way that nirvana never could later. but nirvana were cool. except when they weren't. like the time that doofy dude through his bass up in the air and it landed on his face. and like when they were idiots on headbangers ball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PImYNoVrsl0

same thing at my school. no other band ever had anything close to an impact like that. that's a pretty huge deal. all of a sudden it wasn't cool anymore to be a dick. maybe there are places where my bloody valentine or teenage fanclub had that kind of impact. i wouldn't know. anyways it's hard to separate how much nirvana changed what cool meant (and way for the better) with how great that album is

xpost

Well, no, no one turned into unicorns and handed out flowers in the hallways thanks to Nevermind. Quite the reverse: it was the same as it ever was, except now that the assholes were listening to Gang of Four with the misfits.

I mean, Nirvana was pop music in 1992.

xp Alfred - I also was a senior in HS at the time. Nirvana wasn't the most popular band there either - RHCP, U2, probably Guns and Roses, Metallica, whatever r&b/pop stuff was in the top 40 - were equally played. I think the big difference was the cultural DIY fandom/question authority/emotional vulnerability stuff that Nirvana put out there. I think musically they weren't that big a departure from the rock and metal that a lot of the kids were into, so that it was more approachable/appealing. Nirvana were dudely enough, so that the emotional vulnerability and weirdness wasn't written off as "faggy" - unlike Morrissey or The Cure or Depeche Mode.

"teen spirit" video struck some kind of nerve, depicting the nerdy dudes being dudelier than than the jocks while the cheerleaders cheered them on in the gym. in more sophisticated precincts this might have been met with a shrug or a sneer, but not where i was. all of a sudden girls liked the quiet ratty guys, which the jocks respected, and there was a moment of forest party kegger utopia when everyone got along. the "jeremy" video seemed to seal the shift, but that's a whole other can of worms

child abuse is universal?

http://symonsez.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/bastille-stormed.jpg

Hey I grew up on a fucking goat farm in rural Oregon and was a huge fan of Bleach and Birthday Party and Big Black and what have you. If it takes an MTV video or SNL to make you pay attention... (we had no cable access where I lived, I just asked a lot of questions and went to the library).

I was a freshmen in college when Nevermind hit and I'd been anticipating it madly for several years. Saw Nirvana twice previously, opening for Sonic Youth in '90 and Dinosaur earlier in '91. But by the time Nevermind was released, songs like Enter Sandman had made me question everything these bands were up to.

"Nevermind is thin? It sounds quite beefy to me, especially in comparison to, say, In Utero."

Umm... I don't even know what to say to this. Listen to the rhythm section on both records and get back to me.

Also 1991

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3244/2507911377_cf32745a55.jpg?v=0

the tipping point into ridiculousness comes when you're holding a cup of shitty beer, talking to the homecoming king starting linebacker or whatever about how he really relates to eddie

xpost

And this!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Iu3QYLD0w4M/SCJDmZLtZ6I/AAAAAAAAAkM/VX1XmbP_SQc/s320/Lysol.jpg

u mean this guy right

http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/AsakuraHao2004/eddie_satan.jpg xp

musically they weren't that big a departure from the rock and metal that a lot of the kids were into, so that it was more approachable/appealing. Nirvana were dudely enough, so that the emotional vulnerability and weirdness wasn't written off as "faggy" - unlike Morrissey or The Cure or Depeche Mode.

But what about Faith No More and Jane's Addiction and Living Colour and King's X (all weird beatniky metallic bands who preceded Nirvana onto MTV, though maybe none of them were as ubiquitous as "Teen Spirit" wound up being in late '91) -- were none of them dudely enough either? (Thing that always bugs me the most about the whole "sea change" legend is the "killing off of hair metal" myth -- by '90 or '91, hair metal was pretty much already off MTV, give or take an isolated Extreme ballad or two. No wonder the biz needed a new kind of loud rock to market -- there was a major void to fill.)

I really have to go look through the shelves but my honest recollection of fave release of '91 was this one:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000018VT.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

And kinda shocked no one has mentioned this yet (not that many of us heard this until a few years later):

http://metal-blogs.com/blackiss/files/2007/12/2282.jpg

The last two hair metal hits I remember getting mad rotation in the late '91/early '92 era were Mr. Big's "To Be With You" and Firehouse's "Love of a Lifetime." I guess Ugly Kid Joe count too.

But what about Faith No More and Jane's Addiction and Living Colour

I think they definitely paved the way for Nirvana ... but I guess what I was trying to get at was the acceptance of weirdness/emotional vulnerability that Nirvana prompted. The aforementioned bands were definitely dudely but didn't really question the average high school boy's rules about masculinity.

ian, if only

Hmm...I'm gay, and Nirvana didn't make me question masculinity at all. Not a jot. I'm not trashing your experiences; they just weren't mind. Buying the Pet Shop Boys' Behaviour in spring '91 and Suede the next year stirred something more ominous than anything from the Pacific Northwest.

mind = mine

i've talked about this before, but the classic rock radio station i listened to at work in 91/92 had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the grunge era. they held out for as long as they could until it became impossible NOT to play the stuff. i think they were really worried that they would lose their older dude two for tuesday crowd if they went grunge. but when they did switch, it was literally all grunge all the time. they went from stubbornly playing kiss's "domino", mr.big, jackyl, brother cane, sass jordan, and def leppard to nirvana, temple of the dog, pearl jam, etc. along with red hot chili peppers and other nu-rock hits.

emotional vulnerability that Nirvana prompted. The aforementioned bands were definitely dudely but didn't really question the average high school boy's rules about masculinity

Thing is, hair metal bands (at least at first) dressed like girls. Poison were total drag queens with pink guitars, until they chickened out. And power ballads had emotional vulnerability up the wazoo -- especially say "Sweet Child O' Mine," and Axl was pretty girly in his own right. So I've never gotten how that was such a humongous change, either; why hadn't Poison made the average high school boy question rules about masculinity already? (Hell, Sylvester was supposedly a big fan of that band!)

no, alfred, i think the point was that listening to nirvana was a way for straight boys to be emo without getting beaten up. kinda like def leppard were before them.

xh-post

xp - what I meant by "question masculinity" was basically saying a guy can be cool and be "in touch with his feelings," as opposed to acting like a macho jock.

xxp what scott said.

yeah but the glammy hair bands were all about getting laid and chicks digging the way they looked, and some of them, especially Axl, liked to say "faggot" a lot -- Kurt wore a dress onstage and slipped things like "everyone is gay" and "rape me" into his songs that were a little more ambiguous, which isn't in itself a huge deal but there was definitely a different attitude being put forth

xpost

yet Axl also loved the Pet Shop Boys, would drive around in a limousine with the stereo blasting "Being Boring," and backstage at a show told Neil Tennant that he'd love to write with them sometime. That's just our Axl.

Just because it wasn't my experience, I still understand that Nirvana had this effect on a lot of people. Thriller was an event for me. Smells Like Teen Spirit was a big deal for another (even my) generation. It's all part of believing that you're part of the myth. I just knew too much so it couldn't affect me the same way. I don't discount its importance to the culture at large. I just deny that it's musically better than a lot of other things going on before, during, or afterwards.

yeah, plus Axl loved Elton and Freddie...guy had issues, definitely.

had issues maybe, but if g'n'r are one of the most traditionally macho bands i can think of.

xp Axl lived in LA. I think he loved these people because they were famous.

don't know where i was going with that. scratch the 'if.'

xp I was always kinda confused by the way the hair metal bands dressed. Their songs showed such little respect for women, I couldn't understand why they were dressing like them.

yet Axl also loved the Pet Shop Boys, would drive around in a limousine with the stereo blasting "Being Boring," and backstage at a show told Neil Tennant that he'd love to write with them sometime. That's just our Axl.

My favorite Nirvana moment: When Dave Grohl screamed over-and-over into the mike, at the end of Nirvana's ferocious set at the MTV Music Awards, "Hi, Axl! Hey, Axl! Hi, Axl!" Don't know why his juvenile taunting made such an impression on the 22 year old me, but it did (maybe because I wanted to see a GnR/Nirvana fistfight on the VMA stage).

Apropos of nothing, obv.

king's x were on mtv?

i remember seeing the video for "Black Flag" a lot between airings of "Evenflow" and "Come As You Are," believe it or not.

Kurt wore a dress onstage

A lot more heavyhandedly/grandstandingly than Poison wore their frocks and makeup in 1987, at least to my eyes. He looked like he was trying to make a point or something. They looked like they were doing it because it was fun, and because it felt good.

king's x were on mtv?

"Over My Head" was on a lot, in 1989/90. (And Pinnick was a gay black Christian, right? Not sure whether he was closeted then or not, though.)

Axl also a major George Michael fan back then, btw.

Also don't remotely understand how Axl could be seen as "traditionally macho." He sang like a girl, danced like a girl, wrote love poems like a girl.

so you're asking why millions of teenagers responded to heavyhanded grandstanding gestures towards questioning gender roles better than a bunch of effeminate but ultimately macho-minded peacocking?

yeah, kurt in the wedding dress on headbangers ball was just dumb. like he thought it was a big deal to do it. it wasn't even funny. i mean, by then, even my brother had been wearing dresses on stage for years. maybe his fans thought it was radical though. again, the age thing.

...and apparently Axl used to get called "faggot" himself plenty back in Lafeyette, Indiana for liking Devo and the Sex Pistols etc. so much. (So yeah, he had issues. No argument there.)

I agree that it seems lame now and it seemed lame to me then, too. I'm just saying, I knew straight guys who'd wear dresses to school as a stunt or a way to seem 'different' after that. xpost