Nirvana...overrated or what? (country, famous, greatest, radio)
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Well, if it matters to you, I can tell a difference. I can also tell when something is going to derail a valid topic and when I don't really feel like going on that tangent.
You're not going to traumatize me. You're incapable of that.
Anyway, onward with something that's back on topic, since I may have succeeded in steering you back towards it, or maybe I'm taking credit for something I really had no hand in...
This, once again, was something foisted upon Cobain by the Rolling Stone/"M"TV media circus (I put the "M" in quotation marks as "M" stands for "music" and "M"TV has been less and less about music from roughtly the apex of Nirvana's popularity to the present day). I don't think Cobain was ever really speaking for anyone but himself. I don't think at any point he sought to be viewed as some voice of "Generation X" as it were.
Really, the best way I can describe the hype was that Nirvana was something diametrically opposed to the then-overplayed hair metal that had come to be a parody of itself by the time Nirvana went national/global (though some of that "parody" was entertaining in and of itself - Ugly Kid Joe comes to mind). The music media just couldn't resist but to overexpose it. It was supposed to be the Next Big Thing as the Motley Crues and the Poisons of the world had long since run their course. You made a similar point about the Beatles and their heyday in the other "overrated artists" topic, and that point has also been covered in this one already.
Blah blah blah. Look, I don't care what you listen to, you don't care if I care, and vice versa on all counts I'm sure. So let's leave it at that and go our own ways, OK?
What really puzzles me is the apparent belief that Kurt Cobain was the great poet and spokesman of our generation, like a 1990s John Lennon or something. To me he never had anything particularly profound or interesting to say, and judging by his own amazement at the following he garnered, it seems like he didn't really think so either.
This is a really interesting comparison. Lennon/Cobain. Why do we even talk about them in the same sentence? I guess it's because of their mythic status and that they both died violently and all of that. Both get called "great poets" for some reason. I suppose that you could argue that Lennon is a "better poet" than Cobain for sure, but I don't know why anybody would bother. It's all just rock n' roll lyrics. I think Cobain was usually just writing words that he could fit easily into his music - he was making 3-minute pop songs, not writing poetry. Lennon was pretty much the same. Maybe he had "more to say" than Cobain - I don't really know how to judge that.
Anyway, the comparison is interesting to me because I really like both men as musicians in the same way - not because of the words they wrote but because they both wrote great melodies and screamed a lot in their songs. Excellent emotional expression on both of their parts - and each had knowledge of how to write good-sounding tunes. As for their "poetry" - I would like them both just as much if they had only sung about silly stuff like "purple haze all in my brain"...
This is a really interesting comparison. Lennon/Cobain. Why do we even talk about them in the same sentence? I guess it's because of their mythic status and that they both died violently and all of that. Both get called "great poets" for some reason. I suppose that you could argue that Lennon is a "better poet" than Cobain for sure, but I don't know why anybody would bother. It's all just rock n' roll lyrics. I think Cobain was usually just writing words that he could fit easily into his music - he was making 3-minute pop songs, not writing poetry. Lennon was pretty much the same. Maybe he had "more to say" than Cobain - I don't really know how to judge that.
Anyway, the comparison is interesting to me because I really like both men as musicians in the same way - not because of the words they wrote but because they both wrote great melodies and screamed a lot in their songs. Excellent emotional expression on both of their parts - and each had knowledge of how to write good-sounding tunes. As for their "poetry" - I would like them both just as much if they had only sung about silly stuff like "purple haze all in my brain"...
Interesting take. I like it. I am a big fan of great lyrics and when they come together with the music in a soulful way the experience can transcend purely instrumental art. Goes both ways I suppose.
I've been spending a chunk of the afternoon watching Youtube covers of Nirvana. Such bands as Weezer, Placebo, The Offspring, Seether, Pennywise, Tori Amos, Three Days Grace, Sonic Youth, Evanescance, Puddle of Mudd, Fear Factory, Flyleaf, Local H, The Flaming Lips, Machine Head, Papa Roach, Velvet Revolver, Limp Bizkit, Type O Negative, DOA, Otep, Ill Nino, Aaron Lewis of Staind, and Breaking Benjamin. That's quite a bit of different music genre bands still paying respect to Nirvana's music. Imagine there's a ton more that aren't on Youtube.
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