CaptainHowdy

they annoy... obviously...

Ah.. and I said that certain attitudes of Nirvana fans annoy me a bit; if you don't think a certain way, you are either ignorant or acting in bad faith. This happens with other bands too, but especially with them and with Dream Theater...

You see, if we keep going back to memories, we’ll end up in 2009 ;-), I never said that Tori, Trent, Peter (just to name three I've mentioned) never went through MTV (though they have certainly been there less, much less than Nirvana, I hope you agree..) or that they are niche artists, and I didn’t mean to critique Nirvana for their commercial success; in fact, if you read my early comments (122-127), I literally say "ergo Commercial Success (which I clarify I don’t consider a flaw at all)" and "apparently, I repeat, I don’t see anything wrong with thinking that even poor Kurt took a glance at his wallet every now and then; I’m not that much of a slave to a certain romantic alternativeism, but definitely random... and I’m not saying that you are.. clear, right?" And to respond to Alessio, I don’t think Cobain was a false artist or person (did I say that? or insinuate it?) in fact, it’s not like that, I said that when it comes to music, FOR ME AND ONLY FOR ME, grunge cannot be considered a true music movement, it has produced little of significant importance (and there we get to tastes), and I think Nirvana has been much overrated. I hope it's clearer now, or at least I hope so... :-D

Ah.. the talk about the AIC, of course they imploded and the namesake confirms it in a way, about Mudhoney, Don, you understood perfectly what I’m referring to, that is the fact that as pioneers they suddenly found themselves pushed aside for some reason related to the media... that's enough... see you again!

@Alessio: read my posts again (it's a piece of advice, not a criticism ;-) ). @Ocean: I will definitely follow your advice, in fact, I'm already listening to it. @Ole: for me, much less (we'll talk about it in the future, don't worry ;-) ) but it's a matter of taste. @Don: what can I say, what I described to you is my personal view, no absolute truth, I repeat, and then I’ll leave for good, we’ll pick this up another time, my vision is that Grunge was a musically derivative movement, absolutely not cohesive and of little importance (in a musical sense) (though it did produce great albums as the good Ole says or it made a lot of people happy as dear Alessio noted, there’s no denying that, but many of these were thrown into the mix only for geographical or historical reasons) and that it received disproportionate media support for its actual merits (which perhaps should have been attributed to bands like the Pixies and other contemporaries) and to respond once more to Ocean (great example of a Nirvana fan, Alessio you should think before offending metal fans by accusing them at the very least of rudeness since your "peers" don’t behave any better as you can see, and this is also a friendly piece of advice and not a criticism, you know I care about you) more than Tori, who surely got more airtime on MTV than Germano, but definitely not more than Nirvana, and it doesn’t seem to me that she’s exactly mainstream... but maybe we have different views on this too. Bye! (P.S. yes, I’ve heard "Bleach" and I still believe that Soundgarden draws more inspiration from BS than from this album)

Certo! Inviami il testo che desideri tradurre e provvederò a farlo.

Ole, you hit perfectly what I wanted to say. Musically, Grunge didn't really bring much, but rather it made a significant impact in terms of lifestyle (which you call cultural, and that works for me). That's where my eyes jump when we talk about "Nevermind" and Nirvana, comparing them to other phenomena that were truly musical from those years. To give you one example, I could mention Post-Rock, or if you want to cross the Atlantic, I could say Trip-Hop (even though these weren't free from media contamination, quite the opposite, but in a less "compromising" way). In reality, the influence they had, and consequently Grunge, has mainly been in non-musical areas (for better or worse). That said, it's clear that to become a phenomenon of this magnitude, it certainly wasn't enough to have the chorus of "Smells Like...," but also someone who made you hear it obsessively. From this, I assume that if there hadn't been this alchemy of factors, we would be talking about Nirvana differently now, as a good American alternative band (but not outstanding because there was better). Regarding Mudhoney, I meant that poor things, when the media explosion happened, they were already worn out and couldn't enjoy it too much. Anyway, every one of your interjections is more than appreciated.

Yes, well, it's obvious that these are opinions, mine included. I’m not trying to downplay Nirvana; it just seems to me that the hype around their importance as a band is a bit exaggerated (but that’s just my personal opinion). I think that within their genre, Reznor was far more revolutionary, or Steele in his, or even Amos in hers (to mention names that have already been brought up), but fortunately, surrounding these characters, there's not been all the media frenzy that there was around Nirvana, a frenzy that unfortunately goes beyond music. Then you say it yourself: "forcing their way into the imagination of even those little interested in music." That was the problem; those you talk about (and they were and still are the majority) offered very little good to Nirvana or to music in general. As I already mentioned, if MTV had woken up a few years earlier, they might have followed en masse, I don’t know, the Wipers perhaps... My thought is that it was a revolution in a manner of speaking, in the sense that it was one but very little musical (like punk twenty years earlier, for that matter). It’s true that it didn’t wipe away anything (look around, even here on DeB, and you'll understand what I mean), and it ended up imploding on itself. Nirvana no longer exists, which is obvious, but their memory is constantly being desecrated, and what remains is a Grohl who does something else with mixed success, thanks to the benevolence of dear old MTV. The Pearl Jam were already questionable to be placed in that genre, but now it seems they’re exploring something completely different that existed long before (I don’t think I need to mention their greatest inspiration since you’ve probably written at least ten reviews about them). It was even comical to categorize Soundgarden in grunge since it’s clear they resembled groups like Black Sabbath much more than those American indie bands of the late '80s who were supposed to inspire the genre. What remains? The imploded Chains and the practically unborn Mudhoney. You could mention bands like Dinosaur Jr. or Primus, but you know better than me that it’s a stretch to compare them to grunge, and let’s not even talk about the Pumpkins, who are despised by those who generally support the movement, while all the outdated genres they were supposed to wipe away are alive and kicking (criticized as much as you want, perhaps even by the so-called cultured critics, but alive and kicking). If it was meant to be a musical revolution, it failed; if it was supposed to be a cultural one, then it succeeded in some way. It brought an alternative approach (if that can be said) to how people engage with music, which, in my view, has done more harm than good, making people judge an artist’s presentation before their actual musical value, and that’s not right (almost simultaneously in the UK, something similar was happening with the so-called Britpop, which from this perspective was equally detrimental)... but these are very personal views, and I may be wrong. I didn’t mean to attack anyone, least of all you. Bye!

Instead, I don't trust you Fidia ;-) because this is a really great album.

My idea is that Reznor did it a little more on his own than Cobain and that he is artistically much, much more interesting; that’s all. It’s my highly debatable opinion, of course, but the whole discussion you give me about Cobain’s alleged alienation from the media is also very debatable, I would say far too romantic. And then I was indeed talking about a cultural phenomenon at the beginning, not the genesis of the artist. I’m convinced that initially Cobain was a creature detached from certain mechanisms, but if you compare the media attention that Nirvana received from "Nevermind" onwards to that given to N.I.N., I think you’re mistaken; it was a completely different thing. Then you can philosophize about this world all you want, but I repeat that somehow the kids (and not just them, but also older people) interested more in issues of image than in music ended up in greater numbers among Nirvana fans than N.I.N. fans. I’m not generalizing; I know very well that there are many Nirvana supporters with a keen sensitivity to musical art (including you), but my impression is that you are the minority. The majority was and is more interested in other issues, specifically cultural ones. No one will convince me that if "Smells Like..." hadn’t been obsessively played on MTV and by other media, we would be talking about something else now, or maybe about Nirvana in different terms because maybe you would still be a Nirvana fan, but many others, I don’t know. And I say this because I’m thinking in musical terms. "Nevermind" didn’t bring anything new compared to, let’s say, any Pixies album from the late '80s, so it can’t even be considered groundbreaking (or let's define it that way but for extramusical reasons). This is a historical fact. Then, if we’re talking about personal tastes, for me it’s a 4 out of 10 album, therefore very good but certainly not a masterpiece...
P.S. Don, if you’re citing "TDS," you’re talking about an album from '94, which, FOR ME, is in a period when grunge was already dead and buried. I was talking about the media explosion regarding the "Nevermind" period, so at most you can compare it to "Pretty Hate Machine" (which is still earlier), and I suspect that Nirvana’s was slightly more followed by the media... or not?