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


Vincent Vega

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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

hey that's your opinion :takethat:

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Also, why are GN'R at times lumped in with bands like Crue, Warrant and all that shit?

I never lumped GnR in with any of those bands.

They were a cut above all of it.

Why did the Grungers hate GN'R more than most other contemporary bands?

Because Cobain proclaimed it and a legion of blind sheep followed.

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

I don't think it was a case of geuine hate per say.

I think some of it was done for shock value (cue photo of I Hate Pink Floyd t-shirt).

What has to be remembered is the 70's punks grew up on those bands, watch any documentary and any "punk' being honest in front of the camera admits it.

The thing is, it was time for something fresh, something with a bit of angst and cutting edge to it.

Bored kids in the 5O's whose soundtrack of their lives was their parent's music in the background on the radio (think about that for a minute) Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Doris Day...not too many parents were hip to R+B dig?

So one day all of a sudden you hear Jerry Lee Lewis or Little Richard or Chuck Berry,Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochram, Carl Perkins..and the brakes go on and you think "hang the fuck on for a second...what is THIS!!..and count me the FUCK in!"

It just speaks to you, it resonates, it feels right and it belongs to you...and it's GOTTA be good because your parents hate it!

So the powers that be try to hide all that under the rug, throw them in jail or toss them in the army, clean those sissies up.

So it all becomes watered down pap with teen idols like Fabian, Frankie Avalon etc.

All of a sudden the Stones come along, and the Animals, and the Who and the Kinks...and again, what's going on over here?

Things are getting interesting again.

Everyone tires of the matching suits and songs about the swingin chick at the dance, and then John Lennon gets dissed by Dylan and quite rightly reacts in the positive.

So you get musicians starting to put some thought into what they are saying.

Then someone lays out a big platter of hallucinogenics and the shit hits the fan again.

All of a sudden your parents don't mind those clean cut Beatles in matching suits from three summers ago.

So everything becomes a Sgt. Satanic Hearts Club Majestic Request-a-thon.

That peters out by the time of Woodstock and the Who give it a right kick out the proverbial door AT Woodstock.

So the tie-dye love the earth thing hits the skids and a new crop of bored teenagers can't relate anyway.

Knock knock..who's there?..Alice Cooper.

Hello...yes please and thank you very much.

And a guy who thinks he's a spider from Mars?...sounds prententious but what the heck, the tunes are good and it's all a bit of fun.

Meanwhile the kids who gravitate to the fringes of that stuff, are also following the mainstream stuff like Zep, Areosmith etc.

BUT...and it's a good BUT.

There was an element of youth who just did not,in any way, relate to Zep and all the 29 minute solos with your knuckles stuff.

Just didn't register on their radar at all.

Those kids found there way to the Stooges, The Dolls, MC5, extremely cool shit happeneing "over here".

That's when the great divide happens, because the Zep kids basically said "halt, this shall not pass". Disingenious grievances over the lack of guitar virtuosity or something.

That's when the great divides really started.

But, for the most part, you sampled bits and pieces of all of it and just dug what you dug.

Some people were willing to listen to Page wail until they die.

Others were tiring of hearing Stairway To Heaven at the school dance.

You can only get high and listen to Zep 2 in the basement so many times ya know?

The drugs were kicking in and the albums were starting to show the wear and tear.

Things were stagnating.

Throw salt on the wounds and you couldn't walk to the store to buy a chocolate bar without hearing disco in every fucking nook and cranny.

And then..you kicked right square in the nuts by the Pistols.

And it hurts so fucking good!

Then the Dead Boys, the Ramones, The Clash and it's hang on a minute, what the fuck is happening over here!!!

It was a natural thing to gravitate to if you were fed up with the rest of it.

It was like the group of kids on the corner who heard Jerry Lee Lewis for this first time standing around a car radio.

It's just like...yeeeeeah!

Full circle!

Someone finally found their way off the misty mountains and into the back alleys with some speed and a bottle of cheap wine!

Rock and roll stripped down to the bare bones!

I'm hanging up the Page violin bow solos and gravitating over here for awhile.

Every so often something would come along and shake things up, and it felt real, genuine and right!

The hippies kept on loving the Dead.

The Zep heads continued to refuse to expand their horizons and based everything against the holier than thou powers supreme of a Jimmy Page solo....and picking fights with those who didn't fall in line.

And those who got it, happily joined in.

Bottom line was, and I say this with great confidence because I've discussed this with many 70's punks in the last decade or so.

It was just something fresh and new to the ears.

A three minute song shredding your senses instead of fucking Kashmir yet again.

I think I'll just set this stack of records over here for a while and get into what's going on in the here and now.

Everyone eventually found their way back to the music they grew up on, it was inevitable.

The majority didn't really hate it, they were just tired of it.

No one's ever questioned me on here about all the rock shows I went to during my 70's punk years.

I never bought into the hate this hate that aspect of punk.

And I certainly wasn't about to because of a picture of a Sex Pistol in a I Hate Pink Floyd t-shirt.

That felt contrived to me.

Wearing an actual Pink Floyd shirt while posing for a band photo session would have been FAR MORE punk rock.

But again, it was played for shock value, like the whole swastika thing was.

It's just that, every once in a while something comes along that feels right, that people naturally gravitate towards.

Something unspoken that seems to tap into the intended essence of rock and roll.

After punk, I didn't feel it again until i saw Guns live in '91.

It was one of those look at the heavens and say thank you moments.

Nirvana?

Been there done that mates, sorry, but if your plaid jacket fans want to think you're on par with John Lennon, have at it. :shrugs:

NIN wre interesting in a how far can we take this way.

After that...well... :shrugs:

At least I still have Slash.

:devilshades:

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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

Darby took Bowie's "Five Years" to heart. That's full on anger and resentment at life itself that he was carrying around, but people like that live in the moment, go for broke, and have no plans to grow old. Unfortunately, people like that wind up setting examples. Sad that people actually decided to off themselves after Kurt died. At that time, late 70s, threat of nuclear meltdowns and global war was real.

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Its probably got a lot to do with the natural progression of creativity. I think in music when one band or style has its moment there's always a sector of the community that feels isolated or alienated by it because it doesn't express their personal viewpoint. Naturally another act comes along that addresses that mood or climate and if what they do is any good and connects with a decent portion of the audience, they become the next big thing.

You can't really say that GNR is better than Nirvana or Nirvana better than GNR because they're different. A personal preference is always there, but ultimately they were both really good at filling the void that existed at the time.

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Its probably got a lot to do with the natural progression of creativity. I think in music when one band or style has its moment there's always a sector of the community that feels isolated or alienated by it because it doesn't express their personal viewpoint. Naturally another act comes along that addresses that mood or climate and if what they do is any good and connects with a decent portion of the audience, they become the next big thing.

You can't really say that GNR is better than Nirvana or Nirvana better than GNR because they're different. A personal preference is always there, but ultimately they were both really good at filling the void that existed at the time.

No GN'R is better. Theres a case for any of the other four big grunge bands but not Nirvana. Sorry no sale. *wipes Nandos sauce off brand new Nevermind t shirt*

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