Listening to Nirvana is making me appreciate GN'R more

[Caught_in_a_Coma]

14 hours ago, Ak1nney said:

How in the hell is this thread still open? A GNR forum with taking shots at Nirvana. Who gives a fuck? Grow up, move on. These bands have no similarities besides some off the stage bullshit.

 

BORING.

The original post of this thread was not about taking shots at Nirvana and the bulk of the replies have been praising Nirvana

[Bono]

5 hours ago, iceman51999 said:

Sorry brother you like wanker bands I dont - its all good everybody has their likes and dislike in music- Nirvana is beyond a joke to me 

Sorry brother you feel the need to try so hard to be cool. I mean comments like the "grunge era is the modern day Justin Bieber" really drive home the point of your badassery. Your street cred just went up 10 points by referencing Justin Bieber in a negative light. All the "cool" rock n roll guys do that. I mean how else would we know you're a rock n roll guy. Also A for effort by trashing the two biggest and most successful bands of the "grunge genre" How very cool different of you.  We get it dude you're a badass who thinks Alice in Chains are heavy metal. Why can I not help but think if Pearl Jam were opening for GnR your opinion would flip. 

[iceman51999]

3 hours ago, Bono said:

Sorry brother you feel the need to try so hard to be cool. I mean comments like the "grunge era is the modern day Justin Bieber" really drive home the point of your badassery. Your street cred just went up 10 points by referencing Justin Bieber in a negative light. All the "cool" rock n roll guys do that. I mean how else would we know you're a rock n roll guy. Also A for effort by trashing the two biggest and most successful bands of the "grunge genre" How very cool different of you.  We get it dude you're a badass who thinks Alice in Chains are heavy metal. Why can I not help but think if Pearl Jam were opening for GnR your opinion would flip. 

Pearl Jam is playing in my home state next month and No I am not going  after being offered a free ticket - I wouldnt go see them if somebody payed me to go - as far as them opening for GNR - I would still say they suck and always will - I could have someting worse than Justin Beiber like u2 or some other wanker band- This board is about GNR not wanker bands like Nirvana and Pearl jam 

[Apollo]

3 hours ago, Bono said:

Sorry brother you feel the need to try so hard to be cool. I mean comments like the "grunge era is the modern day Justin Bieber" really drive home the point of your badassery. Your street cred just went up 10 points by referencing Justin Bieber in a negative light. All the "cool" rock n roll guys do that. I mean how else would we know you're a rock n roll guy. Also A for effort by trashing the two biggest and most successful bands of the "grunge genre" How very cool different of you.  We get it dude you're a badass who thinks Alice in Chains are heavy metal. Why can I not help but think if Pearl Jam were opening for GnR your opinion would flip. 

I could immediately tell what a badass the dude was. Anybody who can shred bands like Nirvana like he did, and putting down music that other people like....this is one badass edgy motherf*cker.

Bono, he called two bands that you like "wankers"......I know that probably cut to the bone. Are you OK? Are your feelings hurt? I hope you are OK. 

[Len Cnut]

Quote

It makes me laugh when people say that being a great guitarist is "not what he's about," as if it was a creative choice on his end. He was limited by his inability, so made the best of what he had. Nothing wrong with that, and not everyone has to be some kind of virtuoso to be a good songwriter (quite often its the exact opposite), but I just personally find what he did manage to come up with on the guitar to be mostly derivitive.

I don't consider being able to written amazing catchy pop songs with a guitar being limited by inability.  Perhaps, and this might blow a few minds, different people seek to do different things with the guitar.  I think he was a great guitarist, by sole virtue of the fact that he was in one of the best bands of all time (personal opinion) or at any rate a highly respected one that made music that, for better or worse has left it's dent in it's particular sphere, how is that not a great guitarist?  Perhaps virtuosos that can play Segovia but can't write a simple pop songs are the shit ones.  OR, perhaps, neither are shit and are in fact brilliant at their own job.  

Quite apart from that Kurt Cobain did a lot with the guitar, whether certain people may like it or not or whether it fits their idea of what it is to be great with a guitar a lot of the stuff he did with feedback and distortion and noise manipulation doffs a cap towards people like Glenn Branca or guitarists like Thurston Moore that seek to do something different with a guitar other than just great riffs and bluesy solos.  

So yeah, in a sense it was a creative choice.  I mean do you really think that everyone that plays the guitar that isn't a virtuoso is that way due to inability?  Perhaps they weren't interested in that, perhaps that was not what they were after?  I mean is John Lennon a shit guitarist?  Cuz he certainly wasn't a virtuoso.  He could write the fuck out of a song though and play great rhythm guitar...I mean it's not like these are lesser roles that you submit to when you realise you ain't gonna be able to play with your teeth or outdo Eric Clapton in a jam.  What good would all the virtuosos in the world be if there weren't people that used their guitars to write the songs?  Speaking specifically about popular music here.  

Quote

but he clearly thought Nirvana were an act for uber-cool, serious muso types, calling out Guns for their mass-commercial appeal, all the while diluting their sound for Nevermind in a concerted effort to sell more records, which he then goes on to whine about when he got exactly what he wanted.  Kurt Cobain was the biggest phoney of them all. 

Perhaps the fact that you only know this stuff because he said it makes him kinda the opposite of phoney?  I mean thats pretty honest, don't you think, speaking of your respect and admiration for a 'higher' principle whilst at the same time admitting to your fallibility (if thats even the right word here) and kinda folding for the mighty dollar.  And y'know, a lot is made about the diluting of their sound for Nevermind but really, it's kinda a bit much, I mean when that is referred to its a comment thats to do with the finer points of production and double tracking vocals, pretty subtle stuff really, listen to Nevermind and tell me what diluted pop rock album of 1991 it sounded like.  None of em.  It has more in common with Mudhoney and The Pixies and those kinda alternative band and, in terms of it's sound, sits really prettily next to those, I mean this wasn't Use Your Illusion here, they didn't make a fuckin' Hermans Hermits album, it's just that the ideals that they come from were so stringent that even the slightest of studio trickery, like double tracking vocals or even the most basic of effects on a guitar were considered anathema, none of what went on in Nevermind even approaches them 'diluting' their sound. 

Even in the early 90s making an album using just the studio techniques that were used on Nevermind, fuck, even in the early 70s it's stone age stuff.  There is nothing on that album, like literally nothing that can be considered anything like diluting their sound, in fact i challenge anybody to cite a technique or an effect used on that album in the studio substantial enough to be considered diluting a bands sound.  Unless you mean the fact that its basically a bunch of pop songs, well thats what Kurts stuff always was.

The fact is had Kurt Cobain himself not made such a big hoo ha about compromise we wouldn't be sitting here in 2016 and i wouldn't be listening to a bunch of GnR fans going on about 'compromise' because no one would've noticed.  He's talking about compromise because he came from like...Scratch Acid and Butthole Surfers etc who were just SO extreme and so discordant and so out there that even the most vaguest notion of traditionalism are considered compromise.  We're talking about like the Beat Happening scene here.  I mean to Kurt Cobain compromise was like, double tracking vocals.  Doing an overdub.  Sitting here with a bunch of GnR fans and hearing that that shit is like, musical compromise is just side-splittingly hilairious.

And also, it's worth noting that stuff like Teen Spirit, it's only this like...by-word for alternative gone pop because Nirvana made that so, prior to that you name me one pop song in the charts that sounded like Teen Spirit?  Or In Bloom?  Or Territorial Pissings?  Or Lounge Act?  You can't cuz there weren't none.  None of what those songs were doing was traditional pop and if it were just as easy as 'oh we're gonna make these pop songs and put these albums out and hey presto, it's gonna be big bucks' then the fuckin' Pixies would've made it a long time before there was a Nirvana...but they didn't, did they?  And they are arguably the primary influence on what the dynamics of Nevermind were about and what Nevermind most closely resembled.  The fact is that song wasn't Nirvana going pop to satisfy the audience, Nirvana GOING pop marked a shift in the audience...or at very least the acknowledgement of a hitherto ignored market by record companies who had been watching this alternative grow from the ashes of hardcore for nearly a decade.  What happened there in the early 90s wasn't due to some sort of artistic capitulation on the part of Kurt Cobain, he just came of age in an era when that kind of music was primed to blow, alls it needed was a great band with strong songs that neatly encapsulated the existing state of affairs...and so you have Nirvana.

[wasted]

All we are is entertainment. 

The future has been here forever. 

 

[wasted]

At the point Nirvana went pop it was an interesting idea. We're talking about Beatles type melodies couple with the Sabbath riffs and punk energy. It wasn't hard for the producer to rustle up a great record. Kurt already showed he had the component parts. The band was ready to go. 

But plenty of bands had a debut that didn't fly. The Nymphs I thought would be huge. 

[RussTCB]

@Apollo and @Strange Broue; keep your personal argument out of this. If you guys want to argue, take it to PMs.

[squaleca]

all appologies

 

[sonofnazareth]

On 3/20/2016 at 11:37 AM, dalsh327 said:

I don't buy someone killing El Duce to "silence" him, but just living in Riverside and being a racist could have gotten him killed. 

As far as GNR and Nirvana being the "last rock band" or the end of an era in rock, that's really hard to say.  

 

The last great rock bands of the 90's were Smashing Pumpkins and Foo Fighters. The last great rock band to me was Audioslave..they broke up in 2006. 

Edited March 22, 2016 by sonofnazareth

[dalsh327]

1 hour ago, sonofnazareth said:

The last great rock bands of the 90's were Smashing Pumpkins and Foo Fighters. The last great rock band to me was Audioslave..they broke up in 2006. 

There were a lot of great bands in the 90s and a lot of great albums into the 2000s but as far as household name bands, that kind of died out. It didn't help when MTV was programming shows because they made a profit. TRL was fine because a band could stop by, promote and perform (even if they were focused on pop and hip-hop) but that even went away. They should do away with VMAs but I guess a lot of people tune in. 

[Nicklord]

6 hours ago, sonofnazareth said:

The last great rock bands of the 90's were Smashing Pumpkins and Foo Fighters. The last great rock band to me was Audioslave..they broke up in 2006. 

Muse, QOTSA

Edited March 22, 2016 by Nicklord

[BadApples87]

Axl vs Kurt.....Axl vs Vince Neil.......Axl vs Slash...........all press is good press I guess.  Get in the Ring!

One can appreciate the depressing but sincere tunes of Nirvana and still enjoy the Sunset Strip.  Two different takes on Rock, there is room for both.

[LetMeHearItNow...]

1 hour ago, BadApples87 said:

Axl vs Kurt.....Axl vs Vince Neil.......Axl vs Slash...........all press is good press I guess.  Get in the Ring!

One can appreciate the depressing but sincere tunes of Nirvana and still enjoy the Sunset Strip.  Two different takes on Rock, there is room for both.

 

I got a lot of shit about my post and maybe I didn't articulate my thoughts correctly, but the angst and annoyance in my post/still is towards Mr. Cobain being kind of a fake fraud in the way he tried to portray himself as troubled, riddled, mopey dopey, everything in the world sucks and is commercial and horrible, blah blah blah.

 

I find it interesting when you say one can appreciate the depressing, but sincere tunes of Nirvana. 

 

I for one can't respect it at all especially when Mr. Cobain says (I'm paraphrasing for the most part) "people want to read into our music when the lyrics I wrote were just, garbled, just garbage that spewed out of me at the last second because I'm lazy then I find myself trying to come up with an explanation."

I'm not taking anything away from the music the others in the band created.  I think it's genuinely good.  I'm taking away from the front man who seems to be fake at times then rags on GN'R saying they're fake and manufactured.

Edited March 22, 2016 by LetMeHearItNow...

[Mr. Dude]

1 hour ago, BadApples87 said:

Axl vs Kurt.....Axl vs Vince Neil.......Axl vs Slash...........all press is good press I guess.  Get in the Ring!

One can appreciate the depressing but sincere tunes of Nirvana and still enjoy the Sunset Strip.  Two different takes on Rock, there is room for both.

I don't really think they're "depressing" tunes. There is a lot of dark humor there.

[sonofnazareth]

4 hours ago, Nicklord said:

Muse, QOTSA

Muse are good..never liked QOTSA..Kyuss was much better. 

[Sprite]

2 hours ago, Mr. Dude said:

I don't really think they're "depressing" tunes. There is a lot of dark humor there.

"Everyone is gay". 

[Silverburst80]

1 hour ago, sonofnazareth said:

Muse are good..never liked QOTSA..Kyuss was much better. 

Kyuss are legendary.

[EvanG]

4 hours ago, LetMeHearItNow... said:

 

I got a lot of shit about my post and maybe I didn't articulate my thoughts correctly, but the angst and annoyance in my post/still is towards Mr. Cobain being kind of a fake fraud in the way he tried to portray himself as troubled, riddled, mopey dopey, everything in the world sucks and is commercial and horrible, blah blah blah.

 

I find it interesting when you say one can appreciate the depressing, but sincere tunes of Nirvana. 

 

I for one can't respect it at all especially when Mr. Cobain says (I'm paraphrasing for the most part) "people want to read into our music when the lyrics I wrote were just, garbled, just garbage that spewed out of me at the last second because I'm lazy then I find myself trying to come up with an explanation."

I'm not taking anything away from the music the others in the band created.  I think it's genuinely good.  I'm taking away from the front man who seems to be fake at times then rags on GN'R saying they're fake and manufactured.

A lot of musicians (like David Bowie for example) didn't always write lines with meaning but more from a phonetic perspective, doesn't immediately make them ''fake'' or ''phony'' as artists. Even if he told a lot of lies in interviews and liked to jerk people around with his bullshit, there was a lot of sincerity in his music. A lot of his lyrics were cryptic and you had to read between the lines, like how he sang about his mother dying every night in On A Plain, or how he swore that he didn't have a gun in Come As You Are, while we all knew he had lots of guns. I don't agree that he was as fake as you try to make it seem.

Edited March 22, 2016 by EvanG

[Philipm787]

I was banned off this forum a week ago for insulting some guy who said Nirvana>Guns. I have spent the week listening to Nirvana, and my head has been turned.

Oh the irony.

[Len Cnut]

'it's so phoney how he tried to put off this image of a troubled person'

Uh...he must've been mildly troubled to have blown his head off with a shotgun surely?

[wasted]

i think with Kurt or Nirvana those answers are really to questions that are very excited and kind of weird to them. The success was a big shock. The commercialism of Nevermind was more to do with the producer and the band's inexperience probably. Yes if they could have a hit record they might not starve or have to work cleaning toilets. But to sell 20 million and have Beatle mania type stuff happen. 

But when it explodes and journalists are praising you like gods that know everything, i guess they chose to joke about it or not be too serious. They are friends with all these other bands that didn't get signed or have hits. The fact they aren't saying like yes I wrote all these deep meaning hits because I'm amazing isn't that unbelieveable. 

I guess success and fame didn't make him turn into happy person. They were outcasts on the way to loserville suddenly they are the cool party guys. Rikki Rachtman wants to party with you? It's weird and probably a bit sad. 

Maybe they did just want to make enough money to do jack shit. But he's not going to say that in an interview. 

I'm not really convinced by this post but it took so long to type I might as well just send

[Homefuck]

My view of Kurt Cobain (and Nirvana)'s image is that it was basically something that media (and fans) made up. Sure, they hade some songs that were kind of depressing, but that's a fact for every rock band (even Poison had a song about death). If you watch any footage from behind the scenes they were pretty easy-going and liked to joke around. Heroin is a mean drug if you get hooked and it's depressing in itself. 
I agree that Kurt Cobain often contradicted himself, but why hold it against him? I, for one, do it all the time. It's a process of thought, what went through my mind yesterday might seem arbitrary from what I know today. It's about having an open mind and seeing things from different perspectives and I think that Kurt didn't take interviews that seriously anyways, he just let his mouth run off and didn't think about what people would hold against him.

And about comparing Nirvana with GNR: Apples and oranges.

[EvanG]

52 minutes ago, wasted said:

i think with Kurt or Nirvana those answers are really to questions that are very excited and kind of weird to them. The success was a big shock. The commercialism of Nevermind was more to do with the producer and the band's inexperience probably. Yes if they could have a hit record they might not starve or have to work cleaning toilets. But to sell 20 million and have Beatle mania type stuff happen. 

But when it explodes and journalists are praising you like gods that know everything, i guess they chose to joke about it or not be too serious. They are friends with all these other bands that didn't get signed or have hits. The fact they aren't saying like yes I wrote all these deep meaning hits because I'm amazing isn't that unbelieveable. 

I guess success and fame didn't make him turn into happy person. They were outcasts on the way to loserville suddenly they are the cool party guys. Rikki Rachtman wants to party with you? It's weird and probably a bit sad. 

Maybe they did just want to make enough money to do jack shit. But he's not going to say that in an interview. 

I'm not really convinced by this post but it took so long to type I might as well just send

They always said in a lot of interviews that all they wanted was to have enough succes to being able to live off their music and play clubs but that they didn't care about top ten records or any of that. There's nothing ''fake'' about that, success definitely was hard for them to take, especially Kurt who was such a private guy anyway. Kurt always said that his favourite time in the band was right before Nevermind started selling because there was a buzz of excitement in the air but things weren't ''crazy'' yet because of all the fame and succes. When Nirvana became the most popular band on the planet for a short while in early 1992 and everyone wanted something from them (even U2, Metallica and GnR asked them to tour) he decided to cut touring and crawled away in a cheap apartment to do nothing but paint and do drugs, instead of living a famous rockstar life at the height of his fame. What a phony!

Of course he must have enjoyed that millions of kids around the world liked his music, who wouldn't? We're talking about someone who grew up in a shithole where succes was unheard of and who was always considered a loser by everyone. I've said this before in here, his best friend once said that Kurt wanted to play a rockshow for 100,000 kids and at the same time he felt the punk guilt for wanting that in the first place. He was very contradictive. 

 

Edited March 23, 2016 by EvanG

[EvanG]

20 minutes ago, Homefuck said:

My view of Kurt Cobain (and Nirvana)'s image is that it was basically something that media (and fans) made up. Sure, they hade some songs that were kind of depressing, but that's a fact for every rock band (even Poison had a song about death). If you watch any footage from behind the scenes they were pretty easy-going and liked to joke around. Heroin is a mean drug if you get hooked and it's depressing in itself. 
I agree that Kurt Cobain often contradicted himself, but why hold it against him? I, for one, do it all the time. It's a process of thought, what went through my mind yesterday might seem arbitrary from what I know today. It's about having an open mind and seeing things from different perspectives and I think that Kurt didn't take interviews that seriously anyways, he just let his mouth run off and didn't think about what people would hold against him.
 

I agree, they even wrote their own press release before Nevermind and completely made up a story about how they met in art school and then started the band... while in reality they didn't even graduate high school. They were just always messing around. I do think Kurt was a troubled person, though, who suffered depression since his early teens and who was hard to be around sometimes because of the moodswings.