What made Nirvana so great/so special? Why the divide between GN'R and Grunge in general?

[Vincent Vega]

Honest discussion.

Also, why are GN'R at times lumped in with bands like Crue, Warrant and all that shit? Why did the Grungers hate GN'R more than most other contemporary bands? What was the barrier? Axl seemed to LOVE Nirvana and alternative bands like Soundgarden and Jane's Addiction and Faith No More years before the mainstream knew about them; Most of those bands hated him or GN'R as a group. Cobain once said GN'R was a bunch of talentless people who made horrible music. What was the disconnect between fans of GN'R's style of music, and "Grunge" or Alternative?

I want to get this discussion to be sociological and intellectual and shit and revisit the early-mid 90s in the feud between GN'R and Grunge.

Similarly, why did the punk rockers in the 70s hate the Stones, The Who and Zeppelin? Again what was the disconnect?

Edited August 30, 2012 by Vincent Vega

[sweetness]

They were different.

Guns N' Roses was the biggest band in the world when they broke through, Nirvana overthrew them as "the next big thing" in a sense

The whole 70's punk scene was against anything they felt was too pretentious/self indulgent, Nirvana felt the same way about GNR

Edited August 30, 2012 by sweetness

[WhazUp]

I would say GNR is lumped into the hair metal scene often because of their image in the first couple of years they were around plus they came from the LA scene which was still "the" scene for hair metal bands.

I would also assume that the grunge bands (especially Nirvana) hated GNR partly because of the huge stage shows in the 90's. Back when AFD broke the guys in GNR were still the kids from the streets of LA, but by the time the 90's rolled around they had horns, backup singers, huge stage productions, lavish after parties, and Axl has a costume change like every other tune.

Grunge is very simplistic in terms of show production. It is most of the time just a "get up and play" attitude, with the stage production varying from nothing at all to a few posters and lights. It was very stripped down and raw. Here is a performance from Pearl Jam in 1992, compare this to the type of shows Guns N' Roses put on in 1992 as well:

Now musically there are some differences as GNR comes from a very Aerosmith type of style where it is loose, bluesy, and a lot of lyrical themes like sex and partying (Nightrain, Rocket Queen, Anything Goes, etc.) because in LA those things were evident. Of course GNR had different lyrical themes for the Illusions but the song styles were too different to be lumped into alternative rock

Seattle was a very close-knit community of bands that were not known for as much debauchery compared to Los Angeles. Musically the influences can very a lot but in general grunge was a lot more serious and dark. Alice In Chains had many songs dealing with drugs and death for example. So all in all it was just two different cultures and lifestyles, and GNR were sort of the poster boys for the huge lavish and decadent rock band at that time

Edited August 30, 2012 by WhazUp

[arnold layne]

Gn'R is a hairmetal band.

[bran]

Gn'R is a hairmetal band.

no they arent

[The Real McCoy]

Gn'R is a hairmetal band.

You obviously hate GN'R, so why are you here?

[arnold layne]

What makes you think I hate hair metal?

[The Real McCoy]

What makes you think I hate hair metal?

Explain how GNR is a hair metal band.

Go on, enlighten me.

[bran]

the reason gnr gets lumped into hair metal is the fact that everything that came out of LA in the 1980s was slapped with the hair metal label even though A. hair metal isnt metal and B. gnr do not belong their music was pretty much 1970s rolling stones, aerosmith, thin lizzy hard rock with a harder edge.

the same thing happend with "grunge" every band thant came out of seattle was "grunge" even though bands like soundgarden who were very influenced by heavy metal music and infused their sound with a lot of doom metal influence they got slapped with grunge. alice in chains who considered themselves a metal band got slapped with the "grunge" label

why? because mainstream media types are retarded and the record labels want to make as much money as possible, the thing with fads is they blow up and make a shit ton of money and then they quickly crash and fade away just like hair metal and grunge did

[deepfreeze]

Axl seemed to LOVE Nirvana and alternative bands like Soundgarden and Jane's Addiction and Faith No More years before the mainstream knew about them;

OP is soooo full of shit. I'm not even...

[Jakey Styley]

Their songs were catchy.

[bacardimayne]

Kurt had a thing for melody.

[dalsh327]

Honest discussion.

Also, why are GN'R at times lumped in with bands like Crue, Warrant and all that shit? Why did the Grungers hate GN'R more than most other contemporary bands? What was the barrier? Axl seemed to LOVE Nirvana and alternative bands like Soundgarden and Jane's Addiction and Faith No More years before the mainstream knew about them; Most of those bands hated him or GN'R as a group. Cobain once said GN'R was a bunch of talentless people who made horrible music. What was the disconnect between fans of GN'R's style of music, and "Grunge" or Alternative?

I want to get this discussion to be sociological and intellectual and shit and revisit the early-mid 90s in the feud between GN'R and Grunge.

Similarly, why did the punk rockers in the 70s hate the Stones, The Who and Zeppelin? Again what was the disconnect?

There was already a thread on what Kurt didn't like about GNR, but it was typical young band stirring shit up stuff.

A lot of people at the time felt the band GNR were during Appetite were closer to punk rock than a hair band, even on the Street Scene llineup, they were on right before Social D, and I think we can agree they're not a hair band. But when the word got out of two double albums, people getting kicked out of the band, and Axl going on two hours late, it came off as a bloated "corporate" band.

Duff was part of the Seattle Scene right when it was starting to come together. If you read the book, you know why he had to go to LA, but the drummer in Ten Minute Warning wound up being the drummer in Mother Love Bone, and he knew Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament when they were just beginning to play. It goes way back before Pearl Jam. Duff's connections were way closer to Seattle than Kurt's ever were. It was just because he knew the Melvins from high school, and he just became known around Olympia.

Kurt bashed Pearl Jam, and he was on the road with them for a couple of weeks. I remember in the PJ20 documentary, they just felt Kurt was a purist when it came to live music, and Kurt eventually said Vedder was a nice guy, etc etc. Nirvana weren't in the same circles as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains.

If he had stayed, he prob. would've been in any number of bands. Krist and Duff have hashed things out, thought what happened back then was stupid, because it was just band rivalry crap that tends to happen.

It was easy for Kurt to poke fun at Axl, but when Nirvana headlined arenas, how long did that last for? He couldn't handle it, GNR at least were able to tour for 2 years.

As far as the fans go, it wasn't like GNR were playing bars and empty arenas. Right up to the end, the shows were selling out. I think Lollapalooza was the bigger deal in what was to come, REM really was the "indie rock" band at that time that crossed over into the mainstream. The music being played on college radio led to bands like Nirvana being in the mainstream, bands like...The Replacements.

Just like Lemmy brought punk rock and heavy metal together (and yes, Motley Crue did too- GNR owe a lot to Crue, but think Too Fast For Love and Shout at the Devil as the influence. As I mentioned elsewhere, when Too Fast for Love came out, the kids in Seattle thought it was cool because Nikki was one of theirs), Janes brought a lot of elements going on in LA together, and their shows were prob. just as insane and intense as anything GNR ever did.

Labels on bands are convenient for ad agencies and market research companies to see what the kids are into.

As far as what punk rock was rebelling against - most of those bands were losing touch with the audience and playing stadiums, and it was a good time for a teenager to have an outlet where technical ability wasn't as important as how you delivered it.

Hair metal is more like Bon Jovi, Dokken or Ratt, stuff that has a pop hook to it and a fast guitar solo. GNR had elements of glam in the music, couldn't be helped, they all drank from that river of glitter.

[Angelica]

Axl seemed to LOVE Nirvana and alternative bands like Soundgarden and Jane's Addiction and Faith No More years before the mainstream knew about them;

OP is soooo full of shit. I'm not even...

No, it's true. If you go back to old interviews, he was speaking about all of them before they broke (except for maybe FNM, I don't think he was hip enough to have jumped on that bandwagon when Chuck Mosley was still around).

OT: Cause by 1991 they had become a big, bloated corporate behemoth who did overblown stage shows and made ridiculous videos and wore unintentionally hilarious bike shorts and whatnot. So they were scoffed at by the then cooler, more down the line, DIY kids.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Angelica

[Ragnar]

Nirvana and "great" don`t go hand in hand good band ? yes great ? hell no way overrated, overhyped and overappriciated Kurt slammed GNR for being corporate but he was more mainstream and attention craving whore then anyone from Guns

[Lithium]

Nirvana and "great" don`t go hand in hand good band ? yes great ? hell no way overrated, overhyped and overappriciated Kurt slammed GNR for being corporate but he was more mainstream and attention craving whore then anyone from Guns

Yeah, they sucked because they were really really mean to Guns :(

[Dazey]

Kurt had a thing for malady.

Fixed!

[Guest Len B'stard]

Some bands are cool forever, some bands ain't. And i don't think GnR were really cool in the way that there was ever a time where they kinda covered a broader scale, they were always gonna appeal to a certain kind of person, they were never popular among certain circles like say your more alternative or punk or whatever type circles, that weren't never gonna happen.

Then you have a band like Nirvana or The Stooges that are just kinda lauded by both communities and quite honestly, i'm probably gonna get a lot of shit for this but it's about being real and i don't think Guns ALWAYS fit that particular criteria. Or at the very least, their reality became very remote from most peoples reality...and it wasn't even particularly interesting while i'm about it.

Because after a while, who REALLY cares about a band like GnR? I mean they're brilliant and they can still be brilliant i think, even in their current incarnation but Lord do they get tiresome. Bands are supposed to be about music and GnR don't make a lot of music.

And especially after Chinese Democracy i don't think there are even really any positive expectations of a band like that. Cuz you got brilliant debut, cool, then their sophmore throw-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink-at-it album and for all the shit thrown at it, it's just a pretty straightforward rock n roll album (lumping the Illusions together here), Then what, a cover album that sucked and then 15 years later, Chinese Democracy and even Chinese Democracy, even after all those years, he couldn't REALLY come up with something very interesting. I mean it's great but it's just basically same ol' rock n roll stuff at it's core with a lot of stuff layered on it but quite frankly thats kinda disingenuous, thats sort of like the difference between leaving the christmas tree bare and decorating the fuck out of it, which ever you do it's still just a fucking Christmas tree, once the wowing over, i dunno, a little trip-hop beat and flamenco guitars is over and done with what you're left with is basically an extremely over elaborated rock n roll album and not a lot more to it than that.

Point being, if you don't have or don't look like you have something interesting to say people will just tune out. If you were lucky enough to have a monster fuckin' debut and a very successful follow up, well you can ride that til it's time to collect your pension but Guns n Roses aren't really interesting and haven't been post the release of the Illusions albums.

There will always be a divide between the humanity of someone like Kurt Cobain and the histrionics of someone like Axl Rose. One invites empathy, the other invites tedium.

Edited August 30, 2012 by sugaraylen

[Ragnar]

Nirvana and "great" don`t go hand in hand good band ? yes great ? hell no way overrated, overhyped and overappriciated Kurt slammed GNR for being corporate but he was more mainstream and attention craving whore then anyone from Guns

Yeah, they sucked because they were really really mean to Guns :(

Man you have reading comprehension issues and you better work on it nowhere in my post did I say that " they suck because they were mean to Guns" you read too much in posts just because I don`t worship Nirvana and am n`t deluded like some of their zealot moron "fans" does n`t mean I automatically hate them or think they suck far from it, actually i dig them but I don`t understand all this worship and adoration Kurt gets he`s portrayed like some kind of deity, saint if he had n`t swallowed a shotgun now Nirvana would be just another obsure "Grunge" band their popularity and relevance was already fading when In Utero hit stores Nirvana was good band but best of all times ? don`t make me laugh please they changed absolutely nothing and did nothing earth shattering ground breaking or innovative that had n`t already been done by Punk bands before them next time read carefully!!!!

[Ragnar]

it`s time to end this GNR Vs Nirvana or Axl Vs Kurt bullshit it`s like beating a dead horse over and over and over again nothing comes out if it enjoy both bands, both artists for their music seperate artist from person Axl and Kurt both were insanely talented but mentally challenged douchebags none of them were perfect!!!

[deepfreeze]

Axl seemed to LOVE Nirvana and alternative bands like Soundgarden and Jane's Addiction and Faith No More years before the mainstream knew about them;

OP is soooo full of shit. I'm not even...

No, it's true. If you go back to old interviews, he was speaking about all of them before they broke (except for maybe FNM, I don't think he was hip enough to have jumped on that bandwagon when Chuck Mosley was still around).

OT: Cause by 1991 they had become a big, bloated corporate behemoth who did overblown stage shows and made ridiculous videos and wore unintentionally hilarious bike shorts and whatnot. So they were scoffed at by the then cooler, more down the line, DIY kids.

Miser from time to time likes to give credit to Axl's clairvoyance for discovering Grunge the way Christopher Columbus gets credit for "discovering" America. Axl had no impact on the success of Grunge. Why doesn't he thank Axl Rose for discovering other bands that never made it and failed? His premise is anachronistic and exaggerated. Nirvana may not have been mainstream but they were a known band before Nevermind because of Bleach. When nevermind was released, the record company had positive expectations for selling 500K, around the same time Axl wore the cap for Don't Cry.

Janes Addiction's biggest song Jane Says came out in 1989. Faith No More definitely were popular despite Axl's help, anyone around that era can remember seeing Epic played round the clock on MTV. As far as Soundgarden, they may not have been at their peak buty they were still a known band. There is nothing profound in Axl Rose having known these bands and liked them.

[JKKDARK]

Image over substance. If you copy Bon Jovi's haircut, don't expect to be welcomed in the Grunge scene.

[Vincent Vega]

Axl seemed to LOVE Nirvana and alternative bands like Soundgarden and Jane's Addiction and Faith No More years before the mainstream knew about them;

OP is soooo full of shit. I'm not even...

No, it's true. If you go back to old interviews, he was speaking about all of them before they broke (except for maybe FNM, I don't think he was hip enough to have jumped on that bandwagon when Chuck Mosley was still around).

OT: Cause by 1991 they had become a big, bloated corporate behemoth who did overblown stage shows and made ridiculous videos and wore unintentionally hilarious bike shorts and whatnot. So they were scoffed at by the then cooler, more down the line, DIY kids.

Miser from time to time likes to give credit to Axl's clairvoyance for discovering Grunge the way Christopher Columbus gets credit for "discovering" America. Axl had no impact on the success of Grunge. Why doesn't he thank Axl Rose for discovering other bands that never made it and failed? His premise is anachronistic and exaggerated. Nirvana may not have been mainstream but they were a known band before Nevermind because of Bleach. When nevermind was released, the record company had positive expectations for selling 500K, around the same time Axl wore the cap for Don't Cry.

Janes Addiction's biggest song Jane Says came out in 1989. Faith No More definitely were popular despite Axl's help, anyone around that era can remember seeing Epic played round the clock on MTV. As far as Soundgarden, they may not have been at their peak buty they were still a known band. There is nothing profound in Axl Rose having known these bands and liked them.

Never said he had any effect on the success of Grunge. But he did know about these bands before a great majority of the public did, same goes with NiN. Even the guys from Metallica said something to that effect about Axl listening to NiN long before a lot of other rock people did. But that doesn't mean he helped the music get big in any way shape or form, though in Jane's Addiction's case, he did try to get them signed to Geffen, and did try to promote Nirvana in his own ways. There is an interview I remember reading long ago from like late '91 or early '92 where Axl said Nirvana's music stopped him from killing himself or something like that, I have to find it.

Nothing profound in it, the guy just had at one time a good sense for what was going to be big, and was cool in the sense that he actually praised up and coming bands that weren't exactly mainstream yet and even promoted them above his own band (he once said he felt Faith No More's music was "the future") rather than shit on them or not comment at all.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Vincent Vega

[Dan H.]

Some bands are cool forever, some bands ain't. And i don't think GnR were really cool in the way that there was ever a time where they kinda covered a broader scale, they were always gonna appeal to a certain kind of person, they were never popular among certain circles like say your more alternative or punk or whatever type circles, that weren't never gonna happen.

Then you have a band like Nirvana or The Stooges that are just kinda lauded by both communities and quite honestly, i'm probably gonna get a lot of shit for this but it's about being real and i don't think Guns ALWAYS fit that particular criteria. Or at the very least, their reality became very remote from most peoples reality...and it wasn't even particularly interesting while i'm about it.

Because after a while, who REALLY cares about a band like GnR? I mean they're brilliant and they can still be brilliant i think, even in their current incarnation but Lord do they get tiresome. Bands are supposed to be about music and GnR don't make a lot of music.

And especially after Chinese Democracy i don't think there are even really any positive expectations of a band like that. Cuz you got brilliant debut, cool, then their sophmore throw-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink-at-it album and for all the shit thrown at it, it's just a pretty straightforward rock n roll album (lumping the Illusions together here), Then what, a cover album that sucked and then 15 years later, Chinese Democracy and even Chinese Democracy, even after all those years, he couldn't REALLY come up with something very interesting. I mean it's great but it's just basically same ol' rock n roll stuff at it's core with a lot of stuff layered on it but quite frankly thats kinda disingenuous, thats sort of like the difference between leaving the christmas tree bare and decorating the fuck out of it, which ever you do it's still just a fucking Christmas tree, once the wowing over, i dunno, a little trip-hop beat and flamenco guitars is over and done with what you're left with is basically an extremely over elaborated rock n roll album and not a lot more to it than that.

Point being, if you don't have or don't look like you have something interesting to say people will just tune out. If you were lucky enough to have a monster fuckin' debut and a very successful follow up, well you can ride that til it's time to collect your pension but Guns n Roses aren't really interesting and haven't been post the release of the Illusions albums.

There will always be a divide between the humanity of someone like Kurt Cobain and the histrionics of someone like Axl Rose. One invites empathy, the other invites tedium.

This

[Vincent Vega]

AXL: Part of it is because GN'R is like a living organism. It's not an act. Even if I'm doing the same jump during the same part of a particular song, it's not an act. That's the best way for me to express myself at that point. I get there, and I let it out. Certain ways I move, like during "Brownstone," is the way to get the best out of myself. It's like, how can I give the most at that without giving up my life? We don't go onstage like Guns N' Roses used to, or like a punk band - and I'm not knocking punk bands - thinking that if we don't make it to tomorrow, that's okay. Now there's a lot of things depending on tomorrow and GN'R. It's like, how can we give the most and turn around tomorrow and give that much again? It takes a lot of work, a lot of effort and a lot of maintenance. When I went onstage in San Diego, I got on thanks to Nirvana. I used their music to inspire me. I took their attitude and got up in jeans and a T-shirt - I never do that. I got out there and told Slash that I didn't know what was going to happen. I thought I was going to go out there and quit. If I go out there and can't do it because I have no energy, the I have to walk away. When I got out there, the crowd was very giving with their energy towards us, and it actually fueled me. There's energy in the crowd that, unless you've seen and felt it, there's no way to describe. It's f!?kin scary. Darby Crash [lead singer of the L.A. punk band the Germs] was scared to death of that energy, and his only way of rising above it was by getting wasted, acting like it didn't exist and showing that he could do more damage to himself than the crowd could. That's how he rose above it, but it finally killed him.

- Axl, 1992