Matthew_Page2000:
I agree that the deification of Cobain is absurd but I don't at all agree that the Nirvana was on the way down. In Utero was a great album and Unplugged in New York is one of the finest live albums of all time.
The hype would have gone away but Cobain would still be making great music.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I think In Utero was a much better album than nevermind. Cobains strong sense of song craft only improved and the range of sounds and colours was great.
Zoo Schabow:
One thing I'm curious about is the Unplugged album. Do you think they would have released that if Kurt wouldn't have killed himself?
I think so, Nirvana was a big commercial presence and if I'm not mistaken Unplugged had already released cd's of lesser selling bands in the Unplugged series.
I also think Kurt was headed in a direction where the unplugged release would have made sense. From interviews I've read anyway.
The saddest thing about Kurt's suicide is that he wasn't really brilliant yet. He wrote some amazing songs, but he wasn't anywhere near the potential In Utero and Unplugged showed. He could have become something brilliant, his lyrics were clever and twisted and his song craft was growing more and more advanced.
Nirvana, and a lot of other bands, got labeled grunge when that label really didn't fit at all. I can remember when the Pixies were getting labeled as grunge, and I couldn't help but thinking "what?".
To me Nirvana always sounded crisper and sharper than other "grunge" bands at the time. Much tighter music and melodies, real power pop stuff.
All in all I Think Nirvana got a bum rap, they are deified for breaking open grunge, and demonized for breaking open grunge.
They've been held responsible for the dirge rock we have now. But I really don't think that's fair. When you look back at grunge the big bands beside Nirvana were, soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, and a few others who didn't really have anything in common with Nirvana.
All Nirvana did was put out a very good album in Nevermind, one that had song craft that was obviously good at reaching the masses, but like nothing the masses had embraced in a long while. The rock of today seems to be much more influenced by the other big grunge bands than Nirvana, no matter how much lip service Nirvana gets. Nirvana may have been inspiring, but their influence on the public is almost non-existent. The real influencers are bands like pearl jam, sound garden and Alice in Chains, it's that sound that people want, that sounded watered down and easy to swallow, which is how we get Creed(Pearl Jam), Godsmack(Alice In Chains) and countless others.
I wonder what would have happened if Nirvana hadn't have been cut short. Would more bands today be power pop oriented and intelligent or would dirge rock and idiot pop-punk(i.e.. every Green Day imitator) still have rolled over everything and taken over rock like it has today.
Now, since Kurt is dead, there's a gaping hole in his legacy where music should be, and we all try to fill it by adhering labels and beliefs that tell more about ourselves than anything Nirvana did.
[This message has been edited by hermes (edited 12-05-2001).]
