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Nirvana


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  On 3/13/2019 at 4:37 PM, destroya said:

Class of 93 here.  That's the thing about Nirvana, regardless of what you think about their music, they immediately and throughly killed an entire subgenre of rock and ushered in a completely new sound and look for kids.  They weren't the first Seattle band I heard, Alice and Chains was getting airplay during the summer of 91 and I first saw Soundgarden when the opened for GnR, but no other band from that era can match their impact on mainstream pop culture.

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And not just a single band -- a single song.

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  On 3/13/2019 at 4:37 PM, destroya said:

Class of 93 here.  That's the thing about Nirvana, regardless of what you think about their music, they immediately and throughly killed an entire subgenre of rock and ushered in a completely new sound and look for kids.  They weren't the first Seattle band I heard, Alice and Chains was getting airplay during the summer of 91 and I first saw Soundgarden when the opened for GnR, but no other band from that era can match their impact on mainstream pop culture.

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My intro to grunge was Soundgarden's Louder Than Love in '89.  There was an ad in Hit Parader of the photo from the album cover. It just looked so real and raw, it stuck with me.  Next time I was at Camelot Music in the mall, I bought the CD. 

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  On 3/13/2019 at 3:55 PM, jimmyjazz said:

Sounds late.  The song was released to radio in August 1991, and the album came out a month later.  By year's end the whole thing was massive.

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Yeah was going to say the same... I always associate it with the very beginning of my junior year in HS ('91-92).  I remember a buddy of mine had the CD and played it in his car for me one day... might have been like the first day of school.  He had one of those crazy super loud subwoofer/amp setups that everyone had in the early 90s... that opening drum salvo on Teen Spirit was all it took... I was hooked.

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  On 3/13/2019 at 4:37 PM, destroya said:

Class of 93 here.  That's the thing about Nirvana, regardless of what you think about their music, they immediately and throughly killed an entire subgenre of rock and ushered in a completely new sound and look for kids.  They weren't the first Seattle band I heard, Alice and Chains was getting airplay during the summer of 91 and I first saw Soundgarden when the opened for GnR, but no other band from that era can match their impact on mainstream pop culture.

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  On 3/13/2019 at 5:24 PM, Rimbo said:

And not just a single band -- a single song.

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This is kinda revisionist history. The whole underground/grunge/alternative scene was growing and bubbling for years. If it wasn't Nirvana it would have been Pearl Jam. That door was gonna get kicked down regardless. It happened to be Nirvana that did it. But people want to think that Nirvana basically picked everyone up and carried them into the mainstream, and that's not exactly true.

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  On 3/15/2019 at 4:01 PM, irishtexan said:

This is kinda revisionist history. The whole underground/grunge/alternative scene was growing and bubbling for years.

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I agree.

 

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If it wasn't Nirvana it would have been Pearl Jam.

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I disagree.  Pearl Jam was too much of a classic hard rock throwback to come across as that fresh.  It took Nirvana's pop sensibility combined with the underlying roar of the band to really open eyes and ears.  

I certainly think Pearl Jam would have had their hits, and absent Nirvana, might have steered mainstream rock towards a more traditional hard rock sound as opposed to where it went, but I don't think there were many (if any) other bands that could have totally blown the lid off music the way Nirvana did.  A movement led by Pearl Jam, G'n'R and Soundgarden would have been far better than the status quo at the time, but I don't think it would have been as much of a revolution.

Now, the wild card as I see it is Smashing Pumpkins.  They were more in line with Nirvana, and just as good a band as players, if not better.  Still, Gish came out a few months before Nevermind, and it didn't have the same effect.  

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  On 3/15/2019 at 4:13 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I agree.

 

I disagree.  Pearl Jam was too much of a classic hard rock throwback to come across as that fresh.  It took Nirvana's pop sensibility combined with the underlying roar of the band to really open eyes and ears.  

I certainly think Pearl Jam would have had their hits, and absent Nirvana, might have steered mainstream rock towards a more traditional hard rock sound as opposed to where it went, but I don't think there were many (if any) other bands that could have totally blown the lid off music the way Nirvana did.  A movement led by Pearl Jam, G'n'R and Soundgarden would have been far better than the status quo at the time, but I don't think it would have been as much of a revolution.

Now, the wild card as I see it is Smashing Pumpkins.  They were more in line with Nirvana, and just as good a band as players, if not better.  Still, Gish came out a few months before Nevermind, and it didn't have the same effect.  

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Maybe. The larger point I was trying to make is that Nirvana didn't single-handedly kill hair metal. That pop culture was primed for a change, and that Nirvana was right place/right time to be the band to break big.

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  On 3/15/2019 at 4:01 PM, irishtexan said:

 

This is kinda revisionist history. The whole underground/grunge/alternative scene was growing and bubbling for years. If it wasn't Nirvana it would have been Pearl Jam. That door was gonna get kicked down regardless. It happened to be Nirvana that did it. But people want to think that Nirvana basically picked everyone up and carried them into the mainstream, and that's not exactly true.

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Yeah that scene had been bubbling for years, but Nirvana opened the floodgates. Alice in Chains, didn't kick that door down, Soundgarden didn't kick it down. Jane's Addiction didn't. The Pixies didn't.  Of course, the reason Nirvana had the cultural impact they did is there were a ton of great bands right there with them; it was never just Nirvana.  Like you said, pop culture was primed for a change.  Nirvana was the spark, and all those other bands brought a hell of a lot of fuel to the explosion that followed.

How old are you?  I was 16 when teen spirit caught fire in the fall of 91.  So my perspective is as a high schooler in the Houston suburbs.  Interested to see how your age and place informs your perspective.

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  On 3/15/2019 at 5:20 PM, destroya said:

Yeah that scene had been bubbling for years, but Nirvana opened the floodgates. Alice in Chains, didn't kick that door down, Soundgarden didn't kick it down. Jane's Addiction didn't. The Pixies didn't.  Of course, the reason Nirvana had the cultural impact they did is there were a ton of great bands right there with them; it was never just Nirvana.  Like you said, pop culture was primed for a change.  Nirvana was the spark, and all those other bands brought a hell of a lot of fuel to the explosion that followed.

How old are you?  I was 16 when teen spirit caught fire in the fall of 91.  So my perspective is as a high schooler in the Houston suburbs.  Interested to see how your age and place informs your perspective.

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This.

I would argue that Nirvana DID basically carry that scene to the mainstream.  Yeah, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden had already kind of hit, but they were considered more niche... they were grouped in with "metal"... they were on like Headbangers Ball or whatever hard rock radio station.... they weren't being played in high rotation on "regular" MTV or on top 40 radio stations...until Nirvana.

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  On 3/15/2019 at 6:00 PM, oSuJeff97 said:

I would argue that Nirvana DID basically carry that scene to the mainstream.  Yeah, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden had already kind of hit, but they were considered more niche... they were grouped in with "metal"... they were on like Headbangers Ball or whatever hard rock radio station.... they weren't being played in high rotation on "regular" MTV or on top 40 radio stations...until Nirvana.

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Correct.  It's (partially) because Nirvana had the same insane energy, but they combined a McCartney & Lennon melodic sensibility with a sort of oblique lyrical nihilism that the other bands just couldn't articulate.

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Here they come to snuff the rooster, ah yeah
Here come the rooster, yeah
You know he ain't gonna die
No, no, no, ya know he ain't gonna die

VS

With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us

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Which one do you think spoke more to teens?  What did that generation know about the Vietnam War?

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  On 3/15/2019 at 5:20 PM, destroya said:

Yeah that scene had been bubbling for years, but Nirvana opened the floodgates. Alice in Chains, didn't kick that door down, Soundgarden didn't kick it down. Jane's Addiction didn't. The Pixies didn't.  Of course, the reason Nirvana had the cultural impact they did is there were a ton of great bands right there with them; it was never just Nirvana.  Like you said, pop culture was primed for a change.  Nirvana was the spark, and all those other bands brought a hell of a lot of fuel to the explosion that followed.

How old are you?  I was 16 when teen spirit caught fire in the fall of 91.  So my perspective is as a high schooler in the Houston suburbs.  Interested to see how your age and place informs your perspective.

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I'm 41. So a couple of years younger than you? 

I'm not denying that Nirvana was the band to break it open. I just think sometimes they get too much credit, as if everyone would still be listening to fucking Warrant if Nirvana had never recorded Smells Like Teen Spirit.

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  On 3/15/2019 at 6:57 PM, irishtexan said:

I'm 41. So a couple of years younger than you? 

I'm not denying that Nirvana was the band to break it open. I just think sometimes they get too much credit, as if everyone would still be listening to fucking Warrant if Nirvana had never recorded Smells Like Teen Spirit.

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I don't think anyone is arguing that.  Musical styles in pop culture are constantly changing...

But I think the point is that while, say, Soundgarden's Louder than Love or Alice In Chains' Facelift were good and getting some national attention, it was Nevermind that caused almost an instant sea change, vaulting "grunge/alternative/punk" (or whatever we want to call it) music to the epicenter of pop culture at the time.

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  On 3/9/2019 at 12:10 AM, Patricio Swayze said:


Too bad he puts out some of the most milquetoast music now.

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Meant to reply to this earlier but got distracted.

I mean...I think Dave Grohl would be the first person to tell you that he's not the songwriter that Kurt was... but the dude is a legit badass. 

He's written probably 5-10 GREAT songs and dozens of very good songs.... He's a top 5 all time rock drummer and has been consistently touring and putting on badass shows for 20+ years.... and is considered an all-time awesome dude by pretty much everyone who has ever come across him.

I honestly think one of the great "what-ifs" of all time is what would have happened with Nirvana had Kurt not killed himself. It would have been really something if Dave started contributing more and more songs to Nirvana over the intervening years.  Man that would have been great.

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  On 3/15/2019 at 7:58 PM, oSuJeff97 said:

Meant to reply to this earlier but got distracted.

I mean...I think Dave Grohl would be the first person to tell you that he's not the songwriter that Kurt was... but the dude is a legit badass. 

He's written probably 5-10 GREAT songs and dozens of very good songs.... He's a top 5 all time rock drummer and has been consistently touring and putting on badass shows for 20+ years.... and is considered an all-time awesome dude by pretty much everyone who has ever come across him.

I honestly think one of the great "what-ifs" of all time is what would have happened with Nirvana had Kurt not killed himself. It would have been really something if Dave started contributing more and more songs to Nirvana over the intervening years.  Man that would have been great.

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I wonder how well Grohl would have fit that band if (when) some of the less Nirvana-friendly songs he later wrote got turned down. As in, he brings Everlong to rehearsal and Kurt's like "no". 

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  On 3/15/2019 at 4:34 PM, irishtexan said:

Maybe. The larger point I was trying to make is that Nirvana didn't single-handedly kill hair metal. That pop culture was primed for a change, and that Nirvana was right place/right time to be the band to break big.

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Oh, absolutely. But then, as JimmyJazz said -- there were other bands from that era that didn't knock the door down. There was a special blend in Nirvana that made it work.

And I also agree (what the fuck is even going on) -- even before he wrote it, jimmyjazz is right on the Smashing Pumpkins. But honestly, I don't think SP was quite as consistently good as Nirvana. There really isn't a stinker on the whole album of Nevermind; whereas SP's songs can sometimes stay overlong.

  On 3/15/2019 at 4:38 PM, jimmyjazz said:

Yep.  Frankly, in hindsight I'm surprised hair metal hung on as long as it did following the release of Appetite for Destruction.  Nirvana's smash was 4 years later.  

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That's because Appetite for Destruction was hair metal. But it was DLR-style Van Halen in the era of Van Hagar, a callback to what hair metal had started out as, back when it was fresh and new, instead of the corporate garbage it had become.

I mean... not saying that G'n'R weren't as corporate as the worst of the W bands, either. RHCP know exactly what I mean.

  On 3/15/2019 at 5:20 PM, destroya said:

How old are you?  I was 16 when teen spirit caught fire in the fall of 91.  So my perspective is as a high schooler in the Houston suburbs.  Interested to see how your age and place informs your perspective.

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Freshman at UT in the Fall of '91. And yeah, not only was hair metal stale then, it'd been stale for a couple of years. Richard fucking Marx, man. Boy Meets Girl, "Waiting for a Star to Fall," my high school senior classmates were singing along. Fucking "Achy, Breaky Heart." Top 40 was getting unbearable. And the bloom was definitely off of Van Hagar's rose.

  On 3/15/2019 at 8:18 PM, 4th&Five said:

I’ve always thought nirvana wouldn’t have lasted more than another few years. 

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They wouldn't have. If Kurt hadn't have offed himself with a gun, he probably would've done it with drugs.

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  On 3/15/2019 at 9:15 PM, SwanderedTalent said:

I wonder how well Grohl would have fit that band if (when) some of the less Nirvana-friendly songs he later wrote got turned down. As in, he brings Everlong to rehearsal and Kurt's like "no". 

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Would Grohl have even bothered writing his own songs if Nirvana had stuck together?

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  On 3/15/2019 at 9:19 PM, Rimbo said:

Would Grohl have even bothered writing his own songs if Nirvana had stuck together?

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He had the whole first Foo Fighters record written before Kurt died and had already put out a pseudonymous record just to amuse himself. I think it's likely he'd have kept writing. Now, the circumstances of his life would have been so different that's it's impossible to say whether he ever would have hit on something like Everlong, etc. 

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  On 3/15/2019 at 9:22 PM, SwanderedTalent said:

He had the whole first Foo Fighters record written before Kurt died and had already put out a pseudonymous record just to amuse himself. I think it's likely he'd have kept writing. Now, the circumstances of his life would have been so different that's it's impossible to say whether he ever would have hit on something like Everlong, etc. 

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Huh. I was watching this video last night, and it made it sound like he didn't start until several months afterwards:

 

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  On 3/15/2019 at 5:20 PM, destroya said:

Yeah that scene had been bubbling for years, but Nirvana opened the floodgates. Alice in Chains, didn't kick that door down, Soundgarden didn't kick it down. Jane's Addiction didn't. The Pixies didn't.  Of course, the reason Nirvana had the cultural impact they did is there were a ton of great bands right there with them; it was never just Nirvana.  Like you said, pop culture was primed for a change.  Nirvana was the spark, and all those other bands brought a hell of a lot of fuel to the explosion that followed.

How old are you?  I was 16 when teen spirit caught fire in the fall of 91.  So my perspective is as a high schooler in the Houston suburbs.  Interested to see how your age and place informs your perspective.

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Signing to Geffen has a lot to do with it, too.

there was a ton of good stuff bubbling under in the late 80s, but a label like 4AD (Pixes), or Sup Pop (Soundgarden, Mudhoney), or Drag City (Pavement). or Merge (Superchunk), or SST (Dinosaur) didn't have the capital or know-how to promote and distribute to the masses like Geffen did.

and to add, i completely agree... your age and place completely informs ones perspective on this. A 16 year old in Kansas isn't getting an opportunity to be exposed to any of those bands above, but they sure as hell got the opportunity with Nirvana. You couldn't walk 10 steps anywhere in this country with out seeing a poster of the  Never Mind cover plastered on every available vertical surface.

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  On 3/12/2019 at 1:03 AM, Buzzrock said:
I have kind of a strange mentally internalized thing regarding Nirvana. I graduated high school in 1990, so they are right in my early-adulthood formative wheelhouse. I vividly remember exactly where I was when I first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit (The Taco Stand in Athens, GA) and saying to my friends, "Are you hearing this?" I'm a rock guy at heart so all of that should add up to them being way up there on my "list".
But in terms of having *songs I like* I'd put them behind Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and even STP (I know, not Seattle grunge). I thoroughly recognize how important they are and their impact on music at the time, but I don't enjoy their songs all that much. When Cobain died I didn't really feel any kind of way about it (Chris Cornell, otoh, ruined me for a month).
Negative Creep is probably my favorite song.

Pretty much this for me. Graduated HS in 86 though.

Was in a bar in FW in graduate school at 22ish when I first heard slts. And it did blow me away but for whatever reason I was just never into Nirvana that much. I would never argue they aren’t all they get credit for but I just didn’t dig it that much. The next time I purposely put on a Nirvana tune to listen to will probably be the first.

The song that really changed me during that era was Man in the Box. Holy fucking shit.
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  On 3/15/2019 at 11:02 PM, tbone_ said:

Oh and whoever posted on Appetite for Destruction above, I always thought of that album as Aerosmith on crank while on steroids.

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That was me, and the irony is that I've NEVER been a metal or even heavy hard rock guy.  No Dio, no Sabbath, no Maiden, no Metallica, none of it.  My hard rock was KISS and Rush and Blue Oyster Cult and a little Priest.  But G'n'R really worked for me, at least on that first album.  I think "Welcome To The Jungle" is damn near "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in its effect.  Unfortunately, in my mind they became bloated and awful after that album, save The Spaghetti Incident, which I gather most G'n'R fans loathe, but I love.

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I've always wondered how much of the Nirvana sound was due to Dave (and maybe Kris), beyond their instrumental performances.  I have no doubt of Cobain's ear, but Dave has a pretty unique way with a song, too.  Which guy rubbed off on the other, I wouldn't pretend to know, and it could be that it was more of a two-way street, but I don't think it's pure coincidence.

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Interesting discussion.  I graduated law school in 91 and it had kind of killed off a lot of leisure pursuits, so I wasn't actively listening to music from about 88-91.

But, at the end of undergrad in 88, I was listening to rap and country (Dwight Yoakam had kindled my interest in old-school and outlaw type country).  And I think that was a product of staleness in Top 40 and even "college" music in those years.  And I had grown up with MTV when it was actually a good source of new music and not a top 40 video station with a lot of idiotic programming.  It had all basically turned to shit by the late 80s.

Like jimmy, I had eschewed hair metal entirely and even resisted GnR because I thought they were just another hair metal band.  I remember that the Austin radio stations were fairly horrible that way and was very grateful for KNNC (Psychobaby tshirts!!!).

I never was a fawning fan of Nirvana, but I enjoyed them on the radio and that's probably a product of being 25 when they hit.  Also, one of my roommates was a Duke grad who was very into the SubPop catalog, but more the noisy Sonic Youth Mudhoney end of it but he never got me real interested.  I think that was just a product of law school malaise.

But even to me it was obvious that Nirvana had ushered in a new and refreshingly exciting era of rawk.

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  On 3/15/2019 at 5:41 PM, Bogeywon said:

I’m 37 today. I remember summer before 8th grade my best friend played me school off of bleach. Changed my life 

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I'll be 37 in 2 weeks. Nirvana was the band that pulled me out of my early 90s country music thing back in 1993. 5th grade was Garth Brooks and Achy Breaky Heart.. 6th grade was "listen to this cool shit" ... I had just really gotten into it when Kurt died. Then it was a heavy 3 year dose of AIC, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc... until I discovered Tool. 

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  On 3/16/2019 at 4:52 AM, NorthLoop said:
I'll be 37 in 2 weeks. Nirvana was the band that pulled me out of my early 90s country music thing back in 1993. 5th grade was Garth Brooks and Achy Breaky Heart.. 6th grade was "listen to this cool shit" ... I had just really gotten into it when Kurt died. Then it was a heavy 3 year dose of AIC, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc... until I discovered Tool. 

What's up, mirror universe twin me.  I hope you relish in the fact that you were of semi-prime age to have lived and experienced the second greatest mainstream musical transition in the history of our species (nothing will probably ever touch the 50s to 60s period). Lucky you, I mean us. (Had you been just a touch older you might have had the benefit of witnessing, if only as a passing tourist, the sub-cultural shift from punk to rap roughly over a half decade prior which might also have informed your further appreciation of the grunge movement that forced even our beloved country music to adapt in fun, new, and interesting ways before dying a slow and painful death, but we can't all have everything. And besides, we had Tool and Korn to see us through.)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  On 3/15/2019 at 9:36 PM, Rimbo said:

Huh. I was watching this video last night, and it made it sound like he didn't start until several months afterwards:

 

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I didn't watch the video but my understanding has always been that he recorded in the fall of 1994 but that he already had three dozen songs written when he went into the studio.

Someone said in the Foo Fighters thread that Grohl can be a little loose with the details and references to the origins of the band on occasion. 

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I was in a shitty garage band in high school when Nirvana hit.  We started because the bassist and I had a common love for Iron Maiden.  Before Nevermind, we were playing Van Halen, Skid Row, and Metallica.  After Nevermind, it was all grunge all the time.  It was like a switch just flipped.  

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  On 3/15/2019 at 10:59 PM, tbone_ said:


Pretty much this for me. Graduated HS in 86 though.

Was in a bar in FW in graduate school at 22ish when I first heard slts. And it did blow me away but for whatever reason I was just never into Nirvana that much. I would never argue they aren’t all they get credit for but I just didn’t dig it that much. The next time I purposely put on a Nirvana tune to listen to will probably be the first.

The song that really changed me during that era was Man in the Box. Holy fucking shit.

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First time I heard Man in the Box was at a skanky titty bar in Dallas for OUSUX weekend in 1990. I had to go ask the dj who the fuck that was, and bought Facelift Monday when we got back to Austin.  I was hooked. Had a buddy that worked at Blockbuster Records and got me a copy of Dirt before it came out. That stayed in the CD player for a long time

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  On 3/15/2019 at 10:59 PM, tbone_ said:

The song that really changed me during that era was Man in the Box. Holy fucking shit.

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I was still in HS when "Man in the Box" hit Mtv, and was caught between loving the piece and struggling with the lyrics, since I was a rather sheltered, strait-laced square who recoiled from anything that would mention "God" in a potentially negative way.

 

 

 

I got over the hangup and now just enjoy the song.

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Every one has already kind of crystallized my thoughts/experience with Nirvana/Grunge...   but in '92 another album was released that slams and goes hard.  The Seattle scene just sucked the air out of the room though....

Kinda the birth of Stoner Rock....  

Followed up in '94 with this...

Listen to Space Cadet through to the End of Demon Cleaner...  so fucking good.

If you see Dave Grohl's Sonic Highways, he spends a lot of time on this group... would have loved to have been at one of their "Generator Parties" in the dessert.

 

now back to your commercially successful high school rock band... nttiawwt

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  On 3/17/2019 at 3:39 PM, tbone_ said:

“Jeeeeeeeaayaysysysssssuuuuuuusssss Chriiiiiiiiiiiiist, deny your maker” offended you high school sensibilities huh? I’m pretty sure it was supposed to

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I never took it that way. I don't see that line as prescriptive so much as observational and even then, contextually so. 

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I can only speak for myself, but Nevermind marks the dividing point in my childhood.  Before that, I listened to my parents' 60s music and shitty current top 40 pop music and random bullshit like MC Hammer.   I was a total dork and didn't have cable/MTV and was completely out of it.  I was so clueless that it wasn't even Nirvana that exposed me to Nirvana.  My friend brought over his new Weird Al cassette in 1992 and I couldn't stop listening to his parody of teen spirit; it was pretty much the best thing I'd ever heard in my life.   I went out and got the real thing, and the whole album was literally life-changing. 

I was in middle school, so part of it was just the timing, but it was more than just great new music.   Somehow Nirvana's sound expressed exactly how I felt inside, more than I even realized how I felt inside.  It's hard to describe, but it was like a release from the cognitive dissonance of seemingly having a normal childhood with nothing to complain about, yet having all of these internalized feelings of rage and sadness and frustration with no obvious reason to explain why except to blame myself.   I imagine that it was the same for a lot of Gen X kids dealing with emotional neglect by self-centered Baby Boomer parents.  I've only realized some of this stuff recently, but Nirvana somehow had it nailed in 1991. 

I've heard a ton of great music since, and have had many different favorite bands at various times, but nothing else has or will ever hit me like the opening of Teen Spirit or the Yeahs in Lithium.

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  On 3/18/2019 at 2:19 PM, Mojo Hand said:

Oh, and I also went right out to get a guitar, and Teen Spirit was the very first thing I learned. 

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same but it was school for me and my friend taught me about a girl.  he wanted me to practice transitioning chords Em G Em G.  then later I mastered the bar chords

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  On 3/18/2019 at 5:30 PM, Bogeywon said:

same but it was school for me and my friend taught me about a girl.  he wanted me to practice transitioning chords Em G Em G.  then later I mastered the bar chords

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I’m still not sure whether that’s an E minor or E major in About a Girl.  Neither sounds exactly right, and I tend to think it’s actually an E5.

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