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Nirvana ranks 80th in terms of records sold. I think you are grossly overstating their influence.
Ok, please show me one current Atlanta rap artist in the top 100?
Either way, that’s a terrible metric. Seattle native Kenny G has sold more records than Nirvana but no one is claiming he has had any significant cultural impact. Neil Diamond and Foreigner are both in the top 40 in terms of records sold.
With Grunge it was about the cultural impact of a musical movement. The cultural impact at the time it hit and overall cultural legacy associated with a place. When Grunge hit it was a worldwide phenomenon that had massive impact on pop culture. It changed the course of music and basically was the credo of Gen X. And alll of this was heavily associated with Seattle. If you’re somehow trying to imply that Grunge’s influence was limited to the Pacific Northwest, that’s beyond absurd. It took the country and the world by storm at a time when there was still a monoculture.
As for Smells Like Teen Spirit, it’s referenced a lot because that was the moment the zeitgeist hit. It’s when 99% of people first heard about grunge. When everyone watched MTV and that song was played over and over again. But it was just the entry point to Grunge. Nirvana has tons of other hits, and there were several other massive grunge bands including Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, etc as well as a robust collection of other bands.
“Lil Wayne’s preoccupation with Nirvana runs deep. He’s long cited Nevermind as a big influence on his decision to pursue music. Last fall as the album was celebrating its 20th anniversary, he sat with MTV to chat about its significance (his interviewer, Sway, even sagely mentioned the song “I Smell Teen Spirit”). Earlier that year, brilliantly ridiculous Canadian pundit Narduwar gifted Wayne a Nirvana poster book at their interview.”
Last edited by Vincent_Adultman; 01-08-2020 at 10:45 AM..
Grunge and the “Seattle Sound” took the country by storm in the early 90s in a way that Atlanta rap never could these days.
I had never been to the Pacific Northwest at that time - it didn’t matter where you were. Grunge completely upended everything, killed Hair Metal, and introduced an entirely new culture and mentality to the world. Type in “cultural trends of the 1990s” and grunge is one of the first things that comes up. Even Jay-Z famously said Grunge “stopped” hip-hop.
“So, where were you mentally and physically when grunge music hit?” Pharrell asks Jay-Z. “Like where were you when you first heard, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit?'”
Coincidentally, Hova was in Pharrell’s home state of Virgina when he heard the generation-defining song for the first time. But he’s more interested in discussing why the song hit so hard than where he was when it got going. “First we got to go back to before grunge and why grunge happened,” reasons Jay. “‘Hair bands’ dominated the airwaves and rock became more about looks than about actual substance and what it stood for—the rebellious spirit of youth….That’s why ‘Teen Spirit’ rang so loud because it was right on point with how everyone felt, you know what I’m saying?”
Jay-Z then goes on to say that grunge actually stalled the rise of hip-hop in popular culture. “It was weird because hip-hop was becoming this force, then grunge music stopped it for one second, ya know?” he says. “Those ‘hair bands’ were too easy for us to take out; when Kurt Cobain came with that statement it was like, ‘We got to wait awhile.'”
Next, Pharrell mentions that he used to see Jay-Z in his old Virginia stomping ground of Newport News, but Jay-Z is still focused on the Kurt tip. “I have always been a person who was curious about the music and when those forces come on the scene, they are inescapable,” Jay says. “Can’t take your eyes off them, can’t stop listening to them. [Cobain] was one of those figures. I knew we had to wait for a second before we became that dominant force in music.”
You are just trying to plug your favorite genre at this point, this isn’t just discussing the music overall, we are looking at a specific thing.. in short, the pervasiveness of branding within music, like one poster said Atlanta is everywhere because the nature of hip hop is “reppin” your “hood.” This is not as intrinsic to any wave of rock music as it is to hip hop (this is comparative, i understand rock does actually brand cities, but just not AS MUCH. Please don’t overlook this for the umpteenth time)
To add even further, Atlanta’s music scene is simultaneous with the rise of social media, the way culture is spread more is WAY more quickly now and covers a lot more ground than 30 years ago. People from the hills of west va know as much hip hop as a kid in an urban center.
That said, I’m not knocking the overall influence of your genre (and its impact on Jay-Z), it just doesn’t function like hip-hop in a techno-age. If you aren’t even to pretend to be charitable to grant that, I have to question your motivations here( something I rarely do on boards).
Just as an example, my favorite style of rap isn’t Atlanta-based. I like Jada, Nas, Cassidy, etc all very lyrical northerners, and this was in 20 years ago when Eminem made a whole movie about battle rapping, but this is highly irrelevant to most music fans at this point. Atlanta trap and mumble rap are front and center in our mainstream culture.
You are just trying to plug your favorite genre at this point, this isn’t just discussing the music overall, we are looking at a specific thing.. in short, the pervasiveness of branding within music, like one poster said Atlanta is everywhere because the nature of hip hop is “reppin” your “hood.” This is not as intrinsic to any wave of rock music as it is to hip hop (this is comparative, i understand rock does actually brand cities, but just not AS MUCH. Please don’t overlook this for the umpteenth time)
To add even further, Atlanta’s music scene is simultaneous with the rise of social media, the way culture is spread more is WAY more quickly now and covers a lot more ground than 30 years ago. People from the hills of west va know as much hip hop as a kid in an urban center.
That said, I’m not knocking the overall influence of your genre (and its impact on Jay-Z), it just doesn’t function like hip-hop in a techno-age. If you aren’t even to pretend to be charitable to grant that, I have to question your motivations here( something I rarely do on boards).
Just as an example, my favorite style of rap isn’t Atlanta-based. I like Jada, Nas, Cassidy, etc all very lyrical northerners, and this was in 20 years ago when Eminem made a whole movie about battle rapping, but this is highly irrelevant to most music fans at this point. Atlanta trap and mumble rap are front and center in our mainstream culture.
Again, we’re talking big picture cultural impact here, not the soon to be forgotten fads of the moment.
And as I clarified earlier, Grunge music was just as much about a place as any music scene has ever been. It became Seattle’s brand. It was the “Seattle Sound” - it put Seattle on the map when previously it had been thought of as a podunk backwater with little to offer besides the Sonics. Grunge suddenly made it the coolest place to be among young White people in the country.
It took the culture, attitude and fashion of the region and exported it throughout the world. It completely changed the image of Seattle in a way that I don’t think a music scene even could these days. Things were different pre-internet. It was more of a monoculture and Seattle earned this moniker as THE cool rock place, again to the point where even sitcoms like Seinfeld were making jokes about it. Things are so fractured now in terms of musical tases and media sources, that it doesn’t matter how many times rappers reference Atlanta it’s not going to have the same cache and impact that Seattle had as the epicenter and source of the Grunge movement in the 90s. The monoculture is gone.
dude is obsessed with grunge or maybe just a reason to believe in Seattle
I'm not obsessed with Grunge - it's not even close to my favorite genre of music. It's just crazy to me that people are somehow trying to deny the massive cultural impact it had in the 1990s.
In terms of reasons to believe in Seattle, I have no idea what you're talking about. It's a city that's clearly on the ascent for many other reasons, so this is hardly the thing I'd be mentioning if I was looking for reasons to "believe" in it.
We were having a conversation about musical cultural impact and there are some folks here who clearly need a history lesson. Seattle/Grunge's musical impact was huge - it completely changed the course of popular music and continues to be relevant today. It's why even in 2019 major music publications are still releasing lists like "The 50 Greatest Grunge Albums of All Time": https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...k-1994-798879/
Obviously, we don't know the answer to this for sure, but in 25 years will the impact of Atlanta's current rap scene still resonate? What are some iconic artists from that scene that everyone recognizes?
Last edited by Vincent_Adultman; 01-08-2020 at 01:12 PM..
Ok, please show me one current Atlanta rap artist in the top 100?
Either way, that’s a terrible metric. Seattle native Kenny G has sold more records than Nirvana but no one is claiming he has had any significant cultural impact. Neil Diamond and Foreigner are both in the top 40 in terms of records sold.
With Grunge it was about the cultural impact of a musical movement. The cultural impact at the time it hit and overall cultural legacy associated with a place. When Grunge hit it was a worldwide phenomenon that had massive impact on pop culture. It changed the course of music and basically was the credo of Gen X. And alll of this was heavily associated with Seattle. If you’re somehow trying to imply that Grunge’s influence was limited to the Pacific Northwest, that’s beyond absurd. It took the country and the world by storm at a time when there was still a monoculture.
As for Smells Like Teen Spirit, it’s referenced a lot because that was the moment the zeitgeist hit. It’s when 99% of people first heard about grunge. When everyone watched MTV and that song was played over and over again. But it was just the entry point to Grunge. Nirvana has tons of other hits, and there were several other massive grunge bands including Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, etc as well as a robust collection of other bands.
“Lil Wayne’s preoccupation with Nirvana runs deep. He’s long cited Nevermind as a big influence on his decision to pursue music. Last fall as the album was celebrating its 20th anniversary, he sat with MTV to chat about its significance (his interviewer, Sway, even sagely mentioned the song “I Smell Teen Spirit”). Earlier that year, brilliantly ridiculous Canadian pundit Narduwar gifted Wayne a Nirvana poster book at their interview.”
dude is obsessed with grunge or maybe just a reason to believe in Seattle
mans shouting "GRUUNGE!" into the wind forreal.. smh
If you gotta "remind" everyone how influential grunge was/is in 1992 maybe- just maybe- its not that influential in 2020 and Seattle has the more important contributions and you could work those angles?..no?
It depends on your metrics. I agree with yours but you can construct others where Seattle does better.
Part of it is that Boston is the northern end of the giant Northeast Corridor with 20% of national GDP. Manhattan, Philly, and DC are an Acela ride away. Seattle is in the middle of nowhere. Ocean and mountains limit the sprawl. It has no synergy with other cities and Trump made Vancouver synergy impossible in the medium term. It has three giants in Boeing, Gates, and Bezos but location and local geography are limiting. Boston and New York are always #2 and #2A for venture capital investment which drives 21st century economy growth. Everyone else is far behind.
The problem with being married to two giant tech companies is that most tech companies don’t have great longevity. Microsoft is no longer important the way it was 20 years ago and it’s easy to imagine an open source universe where they become a footnote. I don’t run Office. I run open source productivity tools and it doesn’t get in my way. I’d ditch Win10 if it started costing me money since I can replace it with Linux. IBM owned it for years. Digital Equipment Corp was a monster for 20 years. It’s pretty easy to imagine Microsoft and Amazon being displaced by disruptive technologies.
Certainly it has some synergy with Portland which is a mere 2hr45min away, no?
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