'Nevermind' Is The Most Important Rock Album of All Time

[justdrew]

On edit: Yeah just Drew, Celebrated Summer from Husker Du does kick some serious ass.

oh hell yeah, it's amazing...

and jammin' econo...

[Six Hits of Sunshine]

Furthermore, I'm IN the same generation -- or does being two years older than Cobain make me one of the hated baby boomers?

Well I am 11-12 years Cobain’s junior. It seems like you were 29 when he died – plenty of time for you to have gone out, had some experiences – see the world so to speak. Not so for me. I hadn’t heard of Black Flag or the Velvet Underground or William Burroughs. I got a real education and I have that band to thank for the syllabus.

well there's a reason for the title...turning you on to the Underground

Indeed!

[kelley]

if i could just say re: the 'mats, 'let it be' could arguably called the last great rock album. i saw them, husker du, and big black all within a year or two of one another, and one could make a case for 'zen arcade' and 'atomizer' as well. big black is actually an astonishing band, so they may get my vote after all. tough call. 'psychocandy' from the jesus and mary chain was marred by advance NME-style hype in the US, but it's also a contender, if more of a self-conscious pastiche than the others. the pixies 'surfer rosa' mops up after all of them.

nirvana is lame, derivative, and hopelessly retrograde. by the time 'nevermind' appeared, hip-hop had completely annihilated the guitar-drums-bass model that drove innovative pop music. never mind the nascent electronica genres percolating in the real underground that were born of the efforts from kraftwerk, can, and neu; the suits at MTV couldn't wait to get their mitts on another 'rock' album to staunch the bleeding. kurdt was a 'punk' (see burroughs) and an 'idiot ' (see iggy) and an 'idol' of the great unwashed mass (see all white boys with guitars following in the wake of dylan, especially the completely insufferable and affected 'artist' thurston moore), and he really should have known better if actually as talented as his advocates claim.

albini had his hand in alot of this shit, obviously. immensely talented and a sick, sick visionary who is kind of like bowie's autistic little brother-- lots of twists in the career, but all saying the same thing over and over and over again, a damaged genius of the highest order.

[Twyla LaSarc]

I saw them at their first and only show at UW somewhere in late '89 with Tad and The Gits. I left before it ended becuse drunk frat boys were tearing the HUB up and I didn't want to be around. Besides, I didn't find them as appealing live as some of the other groups I was seeing at the time like Mother Love Bone and The Gits. I've talked to few other old timers and none of us remember Nirvana as being a very good live band in those years.

When I returned to the midwest in '90, I took along a bunch of music from Seattle but no one was really interested in grunge before they heard that first song on commercial radio- 'Teen Spirit'. I remember my first time hearing it, I was in a video store and they had on a typical commercial rock station, BonJovi, Aerosmith, and all that. When they played 'Teen Spirit" I froze and listened to the whole thing. I KNEW it was a Seattle group, although I was unsure of which one. A day or so later, all my friends who had been uninterested in Seattle music were asking me if I'd heard of Nirvana while I was out west...

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was Nirvana alone that changed everything, but radio music pre- and post- grunge certainly were two different animals, especially in the flyover zone.

I like a few of their songs, but am not a huge fan. I'm more of a Mudhoney girl, myself.

[Twyla LaSarc]

... Bands like the Replacements, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr., The Meat Puppets and the Minutemen were the precursors of Nirvana and in some ways they were better. Nirvana was just in the right place at the right time

What I enjoyed most about the music I was hearing in Seattle in those years was the shameless amalgamation of underground punk sensibilities and hard anthem rock. The brain-shattering harmonies were cool too. Grunge certainly didn't evolve in a vacuum and the bands you listed were the favorites of many of my friends and co-workers. I saw the Meat Puppets at a packed show the Moore in late '88. It was also my first exposure to Mother Love Bone which eventually became Pearl Jam.

Nirvana was definitely in the right place at the right time, and it probably didn't hurt that a few of the bands competing for the label attention either tragically lost members or simply imploded at about the same time.

[freemason9]

Lat me ask this question, since I've never really heard this album:
Is "Nevermind" the LAST ALBUM to make an impact on culture and society?

Since, IMO, music has lost any chance of being the wide spread phenomenon it used to have.
Without a doubt, I can believe it being 'important', since it was the 'last one' in what was, at one time, a really exciting form of entertainment: MUSIC!

I think Sublime came out one or two years afterwards, and that truly was a work of art. The only music I've been that excited about since then is either Latin or African, or both.

The Velvet Rope came out in 1997 or 1998, and that was better than anything Nirvana ever did.

[Twyla LaSarc]

^^

Ya know, I've got be adversarial here now, just a little bit. Nirvana was an integral part of the SA survivor movement. Cobain was outspoken about child sexual abuse and put a voice to the suffering of millions of people, including myself. I know from talking to survivors that he created a lasting legacy, and he deserves credit for that. I don't know of any other hard rock band that has had the same impact in that arena.

I had no idea. Thanks for the info!

[Twyla LaSarc]

^ An awesome Seattle compilation album.

And the significance of Andrew Wood's contribution should not go unmentioned. He was huge to the Seattle music movement during that time, and who influenced Cobain greatly.

RIP Andy. He was the friend of a friend and I met him a few times. Nice guy. I saw MLB every chance I got. I'm still trying to locate board tapes, their Polydor release was not at all representative of their music.

If MLB had hit big instead of Nirvana, I think the music world would have been a far different place.

There's a couple of other compilations worth finding if you can: 'Another Pyhrric Victory' and 'Deep Six'.

[Six Hits of Sunshine]

Speaking of Albini -- listen to this. One of his many recording gems.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

I like 'hot space' by Queen, not all tracks are great and i don't like the David Bowie duet, but overall it's a very solid and underrated album. I saw Brian May live in Groningen probably in 1993, promoting his 'back to the light' album and it sucked.

nirvana is lame, derivative, and hopelessly retrograde. by the time 'nevermind' appeared, hip-hop had completely annihilated the guitar-drums-bass model that drove innovative pop music.

There's a scene in that Gus van Sant movie where Kurt watches a Boys II Men clip shortly before killing himself which i took to be a visualisation of Kurt coming to the same realisation.

RIP Andy

[Twyla LaSarc]

RIP Andy

I would say AIC is probably as influential as Nirvana if not quite as hyped. Of course, my view is probably tainted as AIC is the only band that I cannot count how many times I saw them, they were simply ubiquitous in the downtown clubs in those early years.

One thing I find interesting, working around other people who must simply listen to their music all day is that AIC is one of those nearly universal bands, along with Led Zep and Sublime that just about everyone can agree on and enjoy.

[Six Hits of Sunshine]

If MLB had hit instead of Nirvana, I think the music world would have been a far different place.

No offense to Andrew Wood, because I've heard tons of really incredible things about him, but I think you're right -- it would have different but it would have been for the worse.

I always thought that MLB, and Pearl Jam after it, was nothing more than a younger version of the polished, hair bands of the 80s. I certainly don't think they would have been changed much about the way people thought about music and culture at large -- they would have been talking about basketball and Jimi Hendrix and all the other shit you would expect from mundane musicians.

See this article I just read today about Pearl Jam's earliest incarnation. The narrative is by Jeff Ament, former MLB member:

"When we were recording our first record, we had a per diem of about $10. So when we got lunch at the store across the street, we'd always buy a pack of basketball cards. When we turned in our tape, we didn't have a name for the band yet so we put a Mookie Blaylock card in the case. We were about to go on a tour and still didn't have a name and needed one quickly. We were told it didn't need to be the name that we were going to use forever, just something for the tour. Someone saw the Mookie Blaylock card and said, ‘How about Mookie Blaylock?' We decided to go with it and did a 10-show tour with Alice in Chains as Mookie Blaylock. Mookie was cool about it, too—he didn't sue us. I actually got to meet him later on and shoot around a little bit. We also made a Pearl Jam T-shirt with a picture of him on it. I guess we owe Mookie a lot."

http://deadspin.com/5841829/the-endurin ... -pearl-jam

[marycarnival]

^^^
I saw 'Mookie Blaylock'....they were billed as 'Formerly known as Mother Love Bone'. No shit. They opened for either Soundgarden or Alice in Chains (can't remember) at the Melody Ballroom in PDX. I was 15, I think. Good times, but honestly, I liked Screaming Trees better....

[Twyla LaSarc]

If MLB had hit instead of Nirvana, I think the music world would have been a far different place.

No offense to Andrew Wood, because I've heard tons of really incredible things about him, but I think you're right -- it would have different but it would have been for the worse.

I always thought that MLB, and Pearl Jam after it, was nothing more than a younger version of the polished, hair bands of the 80s. I certainly don't think they would have been changed much about the way people thought about music and culture at large -- they would have been talking about basketball and Jimi Hendrix and all the other shit you would expect from mundane musicians.

See this article I just read today about Pearl Jam's earliest incarnation. The narrative is by Jeff Ament, former MLB member:

"When we were recording our first record, we had a per diem of about $10. So when we got lunch at the store across the street, we'd always buy a pack of basketball cards. When we turned in our tape, we didn't have a name for the band yet so we put a Mookie Blaylock card in the case. We were about to go on a tour and still didn't have a name and needed one quickly. We were told it didn't need to be the name that we were going to use forever, just something for the tour. Someone saw the Mookie Blaylock card and said, ‘How about Mookie Blaylock?' We decided to go with it and did a 10-show tour with Alice in Chains as Mookie Blaylock. Mookie was cool about it, too—he didn't sue us. I actually got to meet him later on and shoot around a little bit. We also made a Pearl Jam T-shirt with a picture of him on it. I guess we owe Mookie a lot."

http://deadspin.com/5841829/the-endurin ... -pearl-jam

OMG! I've been trying to hear the whole 'Mookie' story from someone for years. My ex, who had been invited to work for an upcoming MLB tour had called me from Seattle drunk and crying to tell me about Andy. He said something about them playing under the 'Mookie' name but I didn't really catch it all. Next I heard they'd taken on a singer and had become Pearl Jam, which I didn't like nearly as much as Love Bone. I loved the campiness and funky T-Rex glam of MLB. PJ was a bit, well a lot, less funny.

Nirvana was certainly more influential than Love Bone ever would have been and I think grunge styles would have filtered thru anyway- bands like Sonic Youth were also breaking through at the same time. Both groups made good music and I do wish more people had seen Andy perform. I was stunned when I met him. I'm about 5'6" in boots and he was only about my height. He was something bigger than life onstage, thus the confusion...

There were a lot of great bands out here at the time; Skin Yard, Screaming Trees, Hungry Crocodiles, Mudhoney, and more. I have to admit I wonder how different music would be if any of these other bands had broken out as well.

Now the one who really won the lottery: fucking Courtney Love. She got the bonanza, money and celebrity and her only fame must have been being with Kurt, because I had never heard of her or Hole until she was mass marketed. They might have been around, but they were certainly off the radar AFAIK.

[Six Hits of Sunshine]

If MLB had hit instead of Nirvana, I think the music world would have been a far different place.

No offense to Andrew Wood, because I've heard tons of really incredible things about him, but I think you're right -- it would have different but it would have been for the worse.

I always thought that MLB, and Pearl Jam after it, was nothing more than a younger version of the polished, hair bands of the 80s. I certainly don't think they would have been changed much about the way people thought about music and culture at large -- they would have been talking about basketball and Jimi Hendrix and all the other shit you would expect from mundane musicians.

See this article I just read today about Pearl Jam's earliest incarnation. The narrative is by Jeff Ament, former MLB member:

"When we were recording our first record, we had a per diem of about $10. So when we got lunch at the store across the street, we'd always buy a pack of basketball cards. When we turned in our tape, we didn't have a name for the band yet so we put a Mookie Blaylock card in the case. We were about to go on a tour and still didn't have a name and needed one quickly. We were told it didn't need to be the name that we were going to use forever, just something for the tour. Someone saw the Mookie Blaylock card and said, ‘How about Mookie Blaylock?' We decided to go with it and did a 10-show tour with Alice in Chains as Mookie Blaylock. Mookie was cool about it, too—he didn't sue us. I actually got to meet him later on and shoot around a little bit. We also made a Pearl Jam T-shirt with a picture of him on it. I guess we owe Mookie a lot."

http://deadspin.com/5841829/the-endurin ... -pearl-jam

OMG! I've been trying to hear the whole 'Mookie' story from someone for years. My ex, who had been invited to work for an upcoming MLB tour had called me from Seattle drunk and crying to tell me about Andy. He said something about them playing under the 'Mookie' name but I didn't really catch it all. Next I heard they'd taken on a singer and had become Pearl Jam, which I didn't like nearly as much as Love Bone. I loved the campiness and funky T-Rex glam of MLB. PJ was a bit, well a lot, less funny.

Nirvana was certainly more influential than Love Bone ever would have been and I think grunge styles would have filtered thru anyway- Sonic Youth was also breaking through at the same time. Both groups made good music and I do wish more people had seen Andy perform. I was stunned when I met him. I'm about 5'6" in boots and he was only about my height. He was something bigger than life onstage, thus the confusion...

There were a lot of great bands out here at the time; Skin Yard, Screaming Trees, Hungry Crocodiles, Mudhoney, and more. I have to admit I wonder how different music would be if any of these other bands had broken out as well.

Now the one who really won the lottery: fucking Courtney Love. She got the bonanza, money and celebrity and her only fame must have been being with Kurt, because I had never heard of her or Hole until she was mass marketed. They might have been around, but they were certainly off the radar AFAIK.

I went through an absolute obsessive Mudhoney phase. I thoroughly worshipped that band. Then many years after that obsession had subsided but mere interest had not, I went and saw Mudhoney at a local club. We lined up to go in to the room where the bands would play, and Mark Arm, Danny Peters and Matt Lukin were getting drunk at a table just near the door where we were all lined up. They pointed at my friend and me and said something and started laughing. I think I really grew up at that point. I wanted very much to give it all up and be a stockbroker or something. Kill yr idols.