Nirvana: vastly overhyped and overrated:

[Preston Howley III]

Two guys in that band stand out for me. (sorry if I mess the names)

Kim Thayall &

Chris Cornell

Chris went on to other stuff. Never heard what happened to Kim.

d

I saw Soundgarden open up for, get this-

Neil Young and Booker T. and the MG's.

What a great show.

I like the stuff Chris is doing with Audioslave. They make some decent rock music (and there's not too many bands doing that these days).

[Boozer76]

I saw Soundgarden open up for, get this-

Neil Young and Booker T. and the MG's.

What a great show.

I like the stuff Chris is doing with Audioslave. They make some decent rock music (and there's not too many bands doing that these days).

Chris Cornell and Jerry Cantrell were absolutely the 2 brightest and best musicians to come from that era. Cornell can write a complex acoustical ballad and follow that up with screaming guitars seamlessly. Jerry was by far the best guitarist, and also penned some great tunes himself. the 3rd best musician of that era unfortunately sat behind drums for the biggest joke of a musician for far too long.

[Preston Howley III]

Hey

Whats that song by Chris Cornell off his solo album he did a few years ago

Waiting for the end of the world

or something like that. I want to download it.

[Alk]

Chris Cornell and Jerry Cantrell were absolutely the 2 brightest and best musicians to come from that era. Cornell can write a complex acoustical ballad and follow that up with screaming guitars seamlessly. Jerry was by far the best guitarist, and also penned some great tunes himself. the 3rd best musician of that era unfortunately sat behind drums for the biggest joke of a musician for far too long.

I swear to god boozer, if you rag on Nirvana five or six more times I'm going to have to take action. Consider yourself warned. :Cuss:

[Boozer76]

Hey

Whats that song by Chris Cornell off his solo album he did a few years ago

Waiting for the end of the world

or something like that. I want to download it.

Not sure which one you mean. He did seasons which was on the singles soundtrack, sunshower, just like suicide, and a couple others.

[Preston Howley III]

Chris Cornell and Jerry Cantrell were absolutely the 2 brightest and best musicians to come from that era. Cornell can write a complex acoustical ballad and follow that up with screaming guitars seamlessly. Jerry was by far the best guitarist, and also penned some great tunes himself. the 3rd best musician of that era unfortunately sat behind drums for the biggest joke of a musician for far too long.

The nicest thing I can say about Cobain is he had 3 times the talent of Sid Vicious.

And that's not saying much.

I think Teen Spirit is a great song. Great lyrics. Other than that, nothing too impress.The guy was a junkie hung up on his rock star image who tried to act disinterested. It didn't work. He knocked up a dog and blew his brains out.

He's a loser. Worse than that, he's a POS for abandoning his child. I'd pump gas before I blew my brains out and left my kid to fend for herself.

[Boozer76]

I swear to god boozer, if you rag on Nirvana five or six more times I'm going to have to take action. Consider yourself warned. :Cuss:

Hey, Dave Grohl is cool. A shame he was stuck behind the other 2 clowns, but he made up for it marvelously by creating his own band that blows anything Nirvana ever did out of the water. So I guess you could say Nirvana did spawn something worthwhile.

[Alk]

Hey, Dave Grohl is cool. A shame he was stuck behind the other 2 clowns, but he made up for it marvelously by creating his own band that blows anything Nirvana ever did out of the water. So I guess you could say Nirvana did spawn something worthwhile.

That's 1!! :Cuss:

Just kidding, everyone is entitled to their own opinion even if it's wrong. I personally love all of the bands that have been mentioned and would still listen to them today over anything that is currently being produced. It's all a matter of opinion and I just always liked Nirvana a little bit more. I'm not saying they were the best band, I'm not qualified to make that judgement. I just know what I liked listening to.

[Preston Howley III]

I don't think you're giving Nirvana enough credit. Yes, they get far too much credit for being so "revolutionary". They're not the Beatles (who stole all their sh*t from Elvis and Buddy Holly), .

Actually Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly.

But keep in mind, by 1967 they were doing things like Tomorrow never knows and Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

Big jump.

Not too many bands you can say the same thing about.

[Bugg]

"Pretentously dramatic:

Smashing Pumpkins"

Have to say-saw SP at the Garden in 1996 or 1997, and while I never was a big fan, I liked theire stuff when it came on the radio. Simply, they blew me away. A great band live.

Rush or the Cars were pretentious, not necessarily bad, but full of themselves.

Heard in fact that the Cars are now touring without Ric Ocasek nor Benjamin Orr, who's long dead. But with Todd Rundgren as the lead singer and only the original drummer . How does that work? At what point do you cease to be the band? How many members have to be involved or not involved before you can be the band?

Pretension, thy name is Axel. With GNR, Axel made Slash and Duff sign over the name or he wouldn't play live gigs. So he could spend 13 years on his masterpiece. This is a joke, but there's still a serious chunk of truth.

http://www.spin.com/reviews/magazine/2006/04/060323_gunsnroses/

Guns N' Roses

Chinese Democracy

(Interscope)

By: Chuck Klosterman

April 1, 2006

The endless wait is over.

It's been a long time since Guns N' Roses have released an album of new material. Everybody knows this, but it's a fact that bears repeating. If you purchased a kitten on the day that Use Your Illusion I & II arrived in stores, it's probably dead by now. As a consequence, there has been a great deal of pressure on Axl Rose to deliver a record that would validate a 15-year, $13 million wait. There is really only one way for Chinese Democracy to avoid utter and absolute failure: It needs to be the greatest rock album ever made.

Chinese Democracy is not the greatest rock album ever made.

Oh, it's certainly awesome, but I don't think it's "15 years awesome." Had Axl released his album after a silence of, say, 11 years and two months (at a cost of, say, $11.5 million), Chinese Democracy would be an undeniable masterpiece, but considering the circumstances, some of this work seems shoddy. I get the impression most of the 13 songs were written between 1993 and 1999, and Rose merely spent six or seven years touching them up in the studio. One is forced to wonder if a track like "Madagascar" was only recorded 75 or 80 times, which calls Axl's alleged "maniacal perfectionism" directly into question.

Does Chinese Democracy offer glimpses of the paranoid, misogynistic genius we once heard on the soundtrack of Interview With the Vampire? Absotively. "The Blues" might be Rose's crowning career achievement: It's an epic combination of mid-period Stevie Wonder, early Elton John, and side two of In Through the Out Door. This is the kind of gutter-glam boogie ballad that makes "November Rain" seem like a bucket of burro vomit warming in the afternoon sun. Chinese Democracy is simultaneously propulsive and ponderous, and there are some electrifying guitar arpeggios on both "Silk Worm" and "Thursday Morning Strip Club" (performed, I assume, by either Buckethead, Robin Finck, Zakk Wylde, Johnny Marr, or Brian May -- all five are listed in the liner notes). But this transcendence is sporadic at best: All too often, Rose's sonic neurosis plunges into self-reflexive self-indulgence, most notably on the outdated 14-minute rap-rock anthem "Pound You (Good)" and an embarrassing "roots rock" duet with new buddy Dave Pirner titled "You're Still Too Sweet Not to Be My Baby Anymore." Several songs make thinly veiled references to the architect who designed Rose's backyard topiary garden, a move that may confuse casual listeners.

Obviously, the sexy albatross hanging around Rose's wiry jugular is simple modernity: Could he create an album that would sound contemporary -- and competitive -- in today's ever-evolving marketplace? As such, it is hard to understand why he elected to have Chinese Democracy coproduced by Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Kiss) and Phil Ramone (Billy Joel, Barbra Streisand). Songs like "Catcher in the Rye" exhibit the sculpted sheen of Billy Joel's Glass Houses, and the LP includes several tracks on which GNR bassist Tommy Stinson appears to be playing a note-for-note replication of the bass line from "Another Brick in the Wall." Skeptics might also bristle at the anger that still resides in Axl's heart; his hairstyle and facial features have changed, but his inner intensity remains grizzly-esque. On the caustic rocker "Slash and Burned," Rose lashes out at his former bandmates now in Velvet Revolver with staggering specificity: "Your singer has cocaine eyes and a skeletonized trance / We'll see if RCA recoups their advance." Rose has also retained his pathological distaste for the media, lyrically attacking the editors of Vanity Fair, MTV personality Sway, numerous teenage bloggers, and the city hall reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer (who, curiously, has never written about pop music).

Still, Rose always possesses the potential to surprise us, as he does on a slightly reggaetón cover of Thin Lizzy's "Cowboy Song" and a faithful (albeit befuddling) version of "Think About You," a tune actually written and recorded by Guns N' Roses in 1987. But a deeper quandary remains: Does Chinese Democracy accomplish its goal? After all this time and all that money, will this album truly bring democracy to China?

I don't know. I just don't know.

FAST FACTS

1. The album's working title for much of 1994 and '95 was Chinese Theocracy.

2. To capture a specific drum sound, Rose coated the walls of his home studio with four inches of wet adobe from the Sonoran Desert.

3. Two weeks before his death in 2002, ex-Clash frontman Joe Strummer contributed guitar for a song tentatively titled "Janky Holocaust." However, Rose eventually dropped the track, citing "dehydration."

4. The liner notes include Rose's complete voting record, dating to 1992.

5. This version of Chinese Democracy only exists in an alternative reality ruled by the fools of April.

[Preston Howley III]

Bugg, I gotta be honest with you-

I stopped reading that article by the 2nd paragraph.

Talk about an over-indulged, pampered rock "star". Axl Rod. What an *sswipe. Maybe he should have blown his brains out instead of Cobain. Another junkie POS.

The backward baseball hat on top of the bandanna.

Yeah, that lasted a week.

And believe me, I liked Guns and Roses when they first came out.

It's times like this that I really come to appreciate Aerosmith. Think about it-

Rocks, Toys in the Attic, Draw the Line...

And they were doing more dope and blow than the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, The Stones combined.

Axl is a great big pussy.

Slash and Izzy are cool.

[RSJ]

I agree Bugg. I saw the Smashing Pumpkins live twice as well around the same time. They are incedible.

[Preston Howley III]

I agree Bugg. I saw the Smashing Pumpkins live twice as well around the same time. They are incedible.

But they are from Chicago.

[Alk]

I agree Bugg. I saw the Smashing Pumpkins live twice as well around the same time. They are incedible.

I saw them once. I wasn't all that impressed but then again I was never a big fan. Billy Corgan's attitude just pissed me off. He had the balls to stop in mid song and scream at the front rows telling them if they weren't going to get into the show to move to the back. I was like "mother ****er" start putting on a show and maybe I'll start getting into it. That being said, they've grown on me a little bit now and I do enjoy some of their songs.

[vanDoug]

"Heard in fact that the Cars are now touring without Ric Ocasek nor Benjamin Orr, who's long dead. But with Todd Rundgren as the lead singer and only the original drummer . How does that work? At what point do you cease to be the band? How many members have to be involved or not involved before you can be the band?

Yeah, saw that elsewhere.

I think there's 2 guys from the Cars, 2 guys from Todd Rundgren's Utopia and Prairie Prince drummer form the Tubes that make up this rendition of the Cars.

KInda weird combo to me, but who knows?

d

[Preston Howley III]

Yeah, saw that elsewhere.

I think there's 2 guys from the Cars, 2 guys from Todd Rundgren's Utopia and Prairie Prince drummer form the Tubes that make up this rendition of the Cars.

KInda weird combo to me, but who knows?

d

No, the weirdest thing was Vince Welnick (from the Tubes) in the Grateful Dead.

[RSJ]

I saw them once. I wasn't all that impressed but then again I was never a big fan. Billy Corgan's attitude just pissed me off. He had the balls to stop in mid song and scream at the front rows telling them if they weren't going to get into the show to move to the back. I was like "mother ****er" start putting on a show and maybe I'll start getting into it. That being said, they've grown on me a little bit now and I do enjoy some of their songs.

Yeah they weren't like that at all either time I saw them. Sometimes bands have bad nights though. I saw Pearl Jam one time and Eddie Vedder was so drunk he could barely stand by the 5th song. Then (on purpose I think) he said in the middle of singing Alive "**** it why doesn't everyone just come on up here". Well I was 5 rows from the stage and almost got killed as did my brother and our friends. It was a total free for all after that. Needless to say that was the concert stopped like one song later. They were good that night just not great. But then the rest of the times I saw them they rocked. So idk.....

[haggis]

I can't be bothered to read the retorts but I whole-heartily agree. I saw Nirvana live twice, both in 92. I saw them in March of that year at the Queen Margaret Union in front of about 800 people and then in August in front of 100,000 at the Reading Festival. Night and day.

Good band, but catapulted beyond levels of accolade they didn't deserve. That said, 'Bleach' is a f-ing awesome album and 'Nevermind' has its moments.

[stormshadow19]

The nicest thing I can say about Cobain is he had 3 times the talent of Sid Vicious.

Three times zero is still zero

[Boozer76]

"Pretentously dramatic:

Smashing Pumpkins"

Have to say-saw SP at the Garden in 1996 or 1997, and while I never was a big fan, I liked theire stuff when it came on the radio. Simply, they blew me away. A great band live.

Rush or the Cars were pretentious, not necessarily bad, but full of themselves.

Heard in fact that the Cars are now touring without Ric Ocasek nor Benjamin Orr, who's long dead. But with Todd Rundgren as the lead singer and only the original drummer . How does that work? At what point do you cease to be the band? How many members have to be involved or not involved before you can be the band?

Pretension, thy name is Axel. With GNR, Axel made Slash and Duff sign over the name or he wouldn't play live gigs. So he could spend 13 years on his masterpiece. This is a joke, but there's still a serious chunk of truth.

I actually think you hit the nail on the head. It' seems every era of music had a pretentious band or 2, and you pobably named all of the ones that led up to the grunge era. SP might not be quite as pretentious as Rush, but they definately were the most pretentious band of their era. Rush, the Cars, Axl are all great examples as well.

[Panzer Division Marduk]

Hey, Dave Grohl is cool. A shame he was stuck behind the other 2 clowns, but he made up for it marvelously by creating his own band that blows anything Nirvana ever did out of the water. So I guess you could say Nirvana did spawn something worthwhile.

I find the Foo Fighters almost offensively bland. Mind you Grohl did do Probot, which is an excellent thing (apart from his unfounded Nazi slurs on Johnny Hedlund)

And the best Seattle bands?

Sanctuary

Nevermore

Metal Church

Queensryche

AIC

[vinnys025]

The unplugged album? What, so 3 power chord songs are suddenly talented when they're played on an acoustic guitar? Please. AIC's unplugged humiliates Nirvana. Cobain couldn't play a guitar to save his life. He was just plain aweful. It's like his fingers were molded to stay in one particular shape so he could play a power chord anywhere on a guitar. What, that little riff at the beginning of "The Man Who Sold The World" is supposed to get my panties wet? At least Cantrell can add some tasteful guitar to what he does, along with he and Layne Staley's harmonies and you get probably the most compelluing acoustic grunge album of all time. The "Grunge" era is like this:

Heavy:

AIC

Soundgarden

Screaming Trees

Rock:

Pearl Jam

STP

Pretentously dramatic:

Smashing Pumpkins

Overhyped MTV product:

Nirvana

Bro, I agree with you on AIC, they are awsome and so was there unplugged, but STP....they plain suck, I never liked them at all.

[Boozer76]

Bro, I agree with you on AIC, they are awsome and so was there unplugged, but STP....they plain suck, I never liked them at all.

STP had their moments. Sour Girl and Interstate Love Song were pretty weak, but they had some decent songs too. Mainly though, unlike Nirvana, they came out as whe they were and finished in the same vein. They didn't change from what they were to some pop rock band like Nirvana.

[Preston Howley III]

STP had their moments. Sour Girl and Interstate Love Song were pretty weak, but they had some decent songs too. Mainly though, unlike Nirvana, they came out as whe they were and finished in the same vein. They didn't change from what they were to some pop rock band like Nirvana.

STP shot down a chance to tour with Aerosmith, to tour with...

The Butthole Surfers. That's when I started to respect them.

[vinnys025]

STP had their moments. Sour Girl and Interstate Love Song were pretty weak, but they had some decent songs too. Mainly though, unlike Nirvana, they came out as whe they were and finished in the same vein. They didn't change from what they were to some pop rock band like Nirvana.

Well, I guess we cant agree on everything. I will always like Nirvana's style cause it was different and they did it first like no other. My opinion, and I respect yours as well.

[dickkotite]

while many of the bands mentioned are good, none of them will last the test of time. nirvana probably will. nirvana had more feel and genuine emotion and distress than the others.

"yea weve come to snuff the rooster"- good song but it will fade away forever

faith no more is a good band but not much more than that.

soundgarden is a great name and they are a good band, but again, its all very superficial and it too will fade away

if you want to know my favs of seattle, they are queensryche and temple of the dog

[dickkotite]

and now a word about dave grohl

I have to admit, the guy writes some of the most catchiest "hard rock pop" tunes ive ever heard. That new song kills. I tip my hat to him.

but even then, nirvana was something special, a benchmark in music history. To say that nirvana sucked is crazy. to say that cobain was lame or a poor writer is absolutely nuts. he was a very good simple song writer with uber emotion. he has the sould of lennon just with less technical talent.

but to each his own

so whats this **** thing and dave grohl?

[Boozer76]

while many of the bands mentioned are good, none of them will last the test of time. nirvana probably will.

I don't dispute that at all. I just dispute your reasoning. Nirvana was pimped out the moment it was apparant that a new wave of music was dawning. Man in the Box was a big hit, yet it really didn't fit into and particular category at the time. It wasn't glam metal, it wasn't heavy metal like Metallica, and it wasn't blues rock metal like GNR. They had to come up with a category and a name for this, and they needed their own band to debut it to the masseds. Seattle was beginning to boom locally with bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Alice in Chains, etc.. Nirvana was NOTHING like those bands. Listen to Bleach. It was their first album and it far more closely resembled hard punk rock than it did "grunge". That is until Geffen got a hold of them and pimped them out.

MTV/Geffen was not going to get a hold of the afformentioned bands because they were already established. They could not control them. They needed a smaller band with less footing to mold into what they wanted it to be. Enter Nirvana. Geffen studios radically changed their sound, and MTV came out with the new music genre titled "grunge". They debuted Nirvana as the first "grunge" band and force fed it to the youth of that era. They repeated it so often that it just became accepted fact, even though it was as far from the truth as possible. The only reason Nirvana will last is because they are now accepted as the first "grunge" band to make it on the scene, which if you know your history you'd know that it is an out and out lie fabricated by MTV and Geffen records.

[Alk]

faith no more is a good band but not much more than that.

Whoa, where did that come from? One of my all time favorite bands. Mike Patton is one of the best frontmen of our time.

[Boozer76]

Nirvana is to grunge what The Offspring is to punk.

[dickkotite]

I don't dispute that at all. I just dispute your reasoning. Nirvana was pimped out the moment it was apparant that a new wave of music was dawning. Man in the Box was a big hit, yet it really didn't fit into and particular category at the time. It wasn't glam metal, it wasn't heavy metal like Metallica, and it wasn't blues rock metal like GNR. They had to come up with a category and a name for this, and they needed their own band to debut it to the masseds. Seattle was beginning to boom locally with bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Alice in Chains, etc.. Nirvana was NOTHING like those bands. Listen to Bleach. It was their first album and it far more closely resembled hard punk rock than it did "grunge". That is until Geffen got a hold of them and pimped them out.

MTV/Geffen was not going to get a hold of the afformentioned bands because they were already established. They could not control them. They needed a smaller band with less footing to mold into what they wanted it to be. Enter Nirvana. Geffen studios radically changed their sound, and MTV came out with the new music genre titled "grunge". They debuted Nirvana as the first "grunge" band and force fed it to the youth of that era. They repeated it so often that it just became accepted fact, even though it was as far from the truth as possible. The only reason Nirvana will last is because they are now accepted as the first "grunge" band to make it on the scene, which if you know your history you'd know that it is an out and out lie fabricated by MTV and Geffen records.

re-read your claim and back up all the assumptions you have made.

Im no seattle expert, but I believe that nirvanna was around and more established than all the other bands you have mentioned. You say Geffen took them and created them, thats a real stretch and I dont know where you come up with these things.

Bleach was raw, and good. Thats the way a lot of great bands start. An interesting debut and then in a year or two a different beast. when voivod put out rrroooaar, it was the rawest and crappiest thing to some. two albums later they put out killing technology, the best metal album ever. a metamorphisis that was natural. Bad brains were also super raw, and then they got some good production via a bigger budget.

I dont know who was "first" in the grunge scene or what was really going on but why is nirvanas music still superior to all the rest? the only argument you could make is maybe pearl jam..

But then again look at your heros pearl jam, they debut with a KILLER cd, the lowest budget they ever had and after that? they suck. they cant match that cd for crap. talk about dissapointments.

you guys comparing the screaming trees to nirvana are too funny

boozer, you simply have an axe to grind with this band. I dont know why

[dickkotite]

Nirvana is to grunge what The Offspring is to punk.

i almost understand that. i hate the offspring and i hate the fact that these new bands are called "punk". why cant they just have their own term? why stop there? call it funk instead....

so then i take it that u are a grunge guru and you hate nirvana because they clash with something that you know and other dont?

[dickkotite]

Whoa, where did that come from? One of my all time favorite bands. Mike Patton is one of the best frontmen of our time.

Im sorry i didnt realiz that they were one of YOUR favorites. If i was armed with this tidbit of info, i would never have called them a decent band.

mike patton is GAY, btw. the old singer was 10x better

[dickkotite]

sorry boozer but i have to crush your theory.

i just did a google on the 4 top seattle bands and for the most part, 3/4 were doing stuff by around 85-86. nirvana came just a **** hair later putting out demos in 1987-8.

this is hardly the scene you are describing about grunge being firmly established and nirvana being the johhny come latelys who got lucky. If nirvana debuted in say 92, id appreciate your point more. now, we are just splitting hairs.

[Thor99]

What, no love for Gruntruck?