The album that ended the careers of so many glam rock bands.


Thank you, Kurt




Thank you!

If I recall it was also the album that knocked the current MJ album at the time from the #1 position on the charts, no?



I remember the lead singer of Loverboy saying, "Kurt Cobain ruined my career".

How did Nirvana end Loverboy's career? Wasn't already over by that point?
And really, what can you say about such an iconic song and that hasn't already been said?
[Edited 1/26/10 8:26am]

scriptgirl said:

That was a statement put out by the Loverboy lead singer.




I think what he was generally pointing out was how difficult it was for established acts to get their videos played on MTV after Nirvana's nevermind was released. Within less than 2 years, well established commercial successes like Poisen, Skid Row, Slaughet ( ) , Def Leppard, and the list goes on and on.... couldn't get their videos played on MTV to save their lives. The final nail in the coffin came in the form of two things:

1) Poison's dreadful last performance on MTV's music award.
2) MTV's long established metal show (I forget the name of that stupid show) playing Seattle bands in their lineup.


There was also a shift at that time from 'glam' hip hop over to more gritty stuff. The symbolic moment there was MC Hammer's filing for bankruptcy.

Of course neither movement was permenant, and the music industry has an interesting way of copying to more substantial stuff with copy cat acts or silly throwaway crap (see much of the hip hop on radio today--or the seattle copy cat acts like Creed, Seven Mary 3, etc.) that no movement in music ever last very long in one incarnation.


But for a short period of time in the 80's I got to see bands I absolutely loathed fall right off the charts into commercial oblivion.


Sabastian Bach of Skid Row once called the 'alternative music movement', and these are his words, "Revenge of the nerds."

TheVoid said:

Revenge of the nerds that couldn't play is more like it. Aside from Alice In Chains and a couple of others, most of those bands SUCKED. Where are they now? Replaced with emo crap bands.

What awful Poison performance do you mean?
the name of that show is Headbanger's Ball

BlaqueKnight said:

Depends on the band I guess. Also, I think when we think of Nrivana, 'alternative' comes to mean the Seattle Rock sound. But the overall breath of bands who were being labeled alternative (Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Sonic Youth, The Cure, etc. etc.) couldn't really be thrown into the same mix without that term becoming an ubiquitous catchall term. Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails no more identified with each other than The Dixie Chics and Kanye West would.

Many of the bands were and are excellent bands. Whether they could play guitar like some of the hairbands of the 80's is a another story. But their music is more interesting, the tunes are more to my liking, and they colored much of my 20's. I was happy to see them kill off the hairbands in the media. But I was also equally happy to see them drift back into relative obscurity because the copycat acts that were being released afterwards were just too much to stand.

I mean, once that dreadful band, Evanescence started labeling themselves as 'goth' bands, I started to pray that the 'alternative' music seen would drift as far from mainstream as possible.

Nirvana was like a molten blast that cleared out all the hairspray and cobwebs from rock music. Such a tragedy it would be so short-lived.

overplayed and overrated imho

they were ok but don't deserve the worship status
[Edited 1/26/10 11:01am]

NoVideo said:

I think there was already an underccurent of desire amongts the youth at the time to rid themselves of hairband music.

The Cure and Red Hot Chilly Peppers both had big hits before Nirvana scored big with their second album. I think if not Nirvana, somebody was bound to be the nail in the coffin. It just so happened to be Nirvana. I thought In Utero was a far better album than Nevermind.

TheVoid said:

Part of what you say is true - other artists were thrown in the mix and labeled as "alternative" - BECAUSE THEY WERE. Alternative = not of the mainstream. "alt rock" was a different beast - which included Nirvana and the rest. NIN, Depache Mode and The Cure already preceeded the "alt rock" scene. I find all of the above mentioned more interesting musically than Nirvana. I was around during the whole Nirvana scene and I saw some of the worst musicianship EVER being passed off as "genius".

BlaqueKnight said:

Some where alternative, but I'm referring to bands like "creed" and "Evanescence" which are just mainstream rock bands copying the styles of the Seattle bands. The death nail for me was when Metallica headlined Lalapalooza.

I wouldn't call Metallica mainstream (if you look at the whole of their work), but their inclusion on the la la palooza ticket only showcased how all-inclusive such a term could be. The term "Alternative' music collapsed under the weight of ambiguity and commercialism.

I would imagine had Kurt Cobain still been alive, he would have drifted into obscurity and 'side' projects before the end of the 90's. I could never see him doing what Chris Cornell did by teaming up with Timberland (sp?).

I remember reading a great interview with Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins where he described the hip hop music scene during the mid-to-late 90s as possessing the same 'energy' and 'excitement' many of the 'alternative' bands had in the late 80s. Corgan's take was that it was just one of many 'phases' in pop music and didn't really standout amongst the others.

It was special to me, because I was a teenager back then, and it was the music I identified with (The Cure, The Smiths, etc.). So it was nice to see all those fools in high school who worshiped David Lee Roth's assless pants ass feel a bit out of place for a couple of years.

Still trying to figure out how one wretched Poison perf doomed hair bands

scriptgirl said:

It didn't doom them, but it was considered the symbolic ending moment for hair bands.

Kind of like Nirvana's album knocking MJ's from the #1 spot didn't start the alternative music scene, but it was a symbolic 'beginning'.


It's about symbolism--not tangible results or numbers.

TheVoid said:

I definitely agree that hairbands were already waning years before Nirvana hit big. The novelty had definitely worn thin.

I'd also agree that In Utero was a better album than Nevermind, but I wouldn't characterize it as "far" better. Nevermind is a pretty kick-ass record. It just struck a chord at the right time and the right place, and really helped define an era. There are only a few albums each decade that can say that.

NoVideo said:

Cobain had admitted to Nirvermind being a compromised album in the sense that he had additional ideas for the album that he suppressed because the record execs wanted a stripped down album. It was a great 'pop' album in the sense that the songs were catchy, easy to sing along to, and 'different' from the brand of rock currently dominating the radios at that time.

scriptgirl said:

It was the MTV performance where CC had come on stage and performed whatever song he felt like despite the band's rehearsal. I believe it was the one Arsenio hosted which debuted Prince's "Gett off" performance at the end.

I remember watching it and thinking, "What the hell is going on?"

Brett Michaels and CC (sp?) stopped talking to each other after that night. It was dreadful.

I understand it is a good song and it broke barriers, but I remember they WOULD NOT STOP playing that song for years. It has gone to Billie Jean / Play That Funky Music / Sex Machine status in played-outness. I really hope one day this song will disappear for a while as i cannot get away from it

TheVoid said:

It was, but then Cobain also approved a more radio-friendly, Nevermind-esque remixed version of "Pennyroyal Tea" before his death - it was planned as the next single, and ultimately cancelled. He was proud of it and wanted it to be heard. I think Nevermind benefits from its superb production - gives the songs, and their big choruses, a certain punch. The rawer vibe of In Utero suits that albums material more, IMHO.

TheVoid said:

I understand and sympathize with the fond memories, but David Lee Roth had Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan - both monsterously talented musicians of whom garner more respect than pretty much anyone from the grunge community. Its true that by the late 80s, rock bands had become somewhat of a parody of themselves and it was time to hang up the tights but the music itself was about fun and proficiency. If you couldn't play, you were left behind, which is why I found the "revenge of the nerds" comment amusing. A lot of the 90s music was about making the less proficient more popular, thus lowering the bar. It is why we are where we are today in music and its part of why the bottom is falling/has fallen out of the music industry. And to be real, if more proficient musicians didn't try to mask their abilities and play to the mainstream of the moment, they wouldn't have had work. Just ask Alice In Chains about that.
[Edited 1/26/10 12:20pm]

NoVideo said:

Did you like Bleach?

I always found it odd that Nirvana and Pearl Jam got grouped into the same bunch. Nirvana took it's influences from The Meat Puppets and other art-rock/punk style bands, where Pearl Jam was Neal Young with more amps.
Alice in Chains, to me, was a hairband that reinvented itself with swiftness in the early 90s.

I'd love to see what the next decade holds as far as musical 'movements'. It seems the music 'scene' if there is even one is so diverse now that it would be hard for any specific genre to stand out.

BlaqueKnight said:

Oh My god, I haaaaatttteeee David Lee Roth.

Hate. him.

But I liked Van Halen despite.

i like a few nirvana songs (this one included), but can't stand some others and to me they weren't "all that". could've been, maybe . i listened to hole's live through this more than i ever did any of there's

BlaqueKnight said:

Respect from whom? I've yet to see a Steve Vai or Billy Sheehan record mentioned among the best of any year or decade by any survey of critics or artists that I have seen, yet Nevermind is universally hailed.

Being a technically gifted musician is not all their is to making great music. You can have the most extraordinary guitarist in the world make the most uninteresting, soulless music - i.e. most of Steve Vai's recorded output.

TheVoid said:

Yeah, I love Bleach. The songwriting wasn't quite there yet overall, but I love the rawness of it. And I agree, there was very little in common with Nirvana and Pearl Jam - how they ended up lumped in the same category always bewildered me. Pearl Jam was more of an intense stadium rock band, whereas Nirvana had a more intense visceral punch-to-the-gut appeal. But I don't see Alice in Chains as a hairband at all... to me they are a great psychedelic rock/metal band. Their harmonies are just sick. Love all 3 bands, but they couldn't be more different... yet somehow were all called "grunge." Just an example of our obsession with neat little labels.
[Edited 1/26/10 12:34pm]

fun song to completely let out on the guitar

also a fun song on Rock Band (or is it Guitar Hero? i have both and can never figure out which songs are on which.)

Yes, this is what ruined rock 'n roll.

NoVideo said:

Respected in the sense that they are musicians' musicians. I bet a lot of your favorites are fans of Steve and Billy as musicians. The kind of music they make isn't made for the mainstream; its made for people who have a more in-depth understanding of musicv. It usually, in turn, inspires some of the same charting musicians to make the music they make. You may find the music "soulless" but I bet a lot of the people you listen to listen to them for inspiration.