i don't hate Nirvana. i love their work and was listening to some of their stuff the other day.

it's just that i couldn't keep up with all the other junk and those bunny pics are so cute.

midnightmover said:

Usually, in addition to the body of work, the effect it had is taken into account. I don't know how old you are, but unless you had your head in the sand in 1991/92, Nirvana was EVERYWHERE. And they changed the sound of music because they hit so big, much like Prince did. The 90's BELONGED to Nirvana.

Nick Cave makes good music, but he hasn't had anywhere NEAR the effect Nirvana has, so it doesn't matter. Comparing them is like comparing Prince to Aboriginal Throat Singing. You can make the greatest music anyone's ever heard, but if no one hears it, what does it matter?

I'd dare say Nirvana WAS the Prince of the 90's. Everything changed once they hit it big, and I don't think you'd find too many 20-somethings these days who don't have at least Nevermind in their CD collections. If you want to believe that the millions of people who own Nirvana's music and were spoken to by it are delusional, well, you're welcome to your opinion.

There's a popular conception on this thread that Nirvana wouldn't be as highly regarded had Kurt not commited suicide/been murdered.

I always felt that Nirvana would be more highly regarded had this happened. He most likely would've evolved and matured(he was already tired of his style) and all the signs point to this happening.

I figure he would've pulled a Radiohead and put out an album with Nirvana that would've blown people away, therefore cementing his reputation as one of the greatest bands ever.

As for his lyrics I love them. They might be hard to decipher, but for some reason it feels like art(don't shoot me). I mean if they were just throw away I don't think they would've had the impact that they do. A combination of delivery and wordplay. Same with my favorite lyricist Courtney Love. Now THAT bitch can write.

guitarslinger44 said:

Right, so Nirvana are better than Nick Cave because more people had the chance to hear them. By that logic I guess Def Leopard must be better than Leonard Cohen too. The fact is Nirvana, much as some may not like to admit it, were a COMMERCIAL band, and emerged as part of a scene, so of course they would be heard by a lot more people than Nick Cave who is far too iconoclastic to ever be as mainstream as they were.

It's true that Nirvana influenced more people than Nick Cave, but one reason for that (besides the fact that more people have heard Nirvana) is that they're a lot easier to copy. Most are inferior copies of course, but nonetheless, musically, Nirvana are a pretty straightforward band. On the other hand, the sound of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds is simply imposible to duplicate without a large ensemble of extremely gifted musicians. And Nick Cave himself is far too literary for most to not be intimidated. Lyrically, Cobain cannot kiss his boots. Nirvana are much easier, and the commercial rewards for aping them are greater. Play a Nirvana-type song and you'll get an instant reaction from most rock crowds, beacuse they know where they are with that. But if you even attempted to do a Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds-type track, you would inevitably fail to get anywhere near what you were aiming for, and most audiences would be bemused.

None of this takes away from what a good band Nirvana were, but to deny that they're overrated is to definitively say they're better than all the people they're ranked above. It is to confidently say "Yes, they're better than Prince. Yes, they're better than Jimi Hendrix. Yes, they're better than Bob Marley, James Brown, Nick Cave, Bruce Springsteen, Marvin Gaye, etc." If you step away from your own emotions for a second, you'll see where I'm coming from. Oh, and finally, I have two words of paramount importance in all this.."GENRE BIAS". I'm done.
[Edited 1/24/08 10:47am]

Sometimes, it really is okay to say "when."