Quote:
Originally Posted by Trollheart
It's your choice: we can start calling you Nick or Nathan from now on. Which would you prefer?
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I was a metalhead as a teenager. From 1988 until 1994. My favorite bands were W.A.S.P. Cinderella, Poison,Guns N Roses, Warrant, Winger,Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Slaughter, Skid Row, Motley Crue and Aerosmith. My son threatened to jump out of the car the other day if I played one more Motley Crue tune. I have brainwashed him into loving "Hair" Metal and he even knows the words to most of the songs. From time to time, he gets on my case about listening to my CD's all the time but I just ignore him. My wife makes fun of me but she listens to my "Hair" metal music. I honestly think Kurt Cobain was a pretentious, overrated ******* with some real drug issues, and that Nirvana and the grunge scene as a whole buried a lot of talented, 90’s metal act that were keeping the genre alive at a time when it's popularity was fading. I was alive and rocking during all of this. It was grunge fans that thought it was cool to hate metal bands because hair metal bands, not nirvana were the mainstream. They called it cock rock. Fans of alternative music (which encompassed a whole lot of types of music that never gets credit) tended to become elitist snobs and turn their noses up at all metal because of this. "Hair metal" bands were despised by heavier metal fans and grunge fans. Your typical Slayer fan was not particularly fond of Poison and up and coming grunge bands weren't either. When grunge came along, music labels dumped all interest in metal bands and grunge became mainstream. If you weren't grunge, labels wouldn't look at you. If anything is worthy of being hated on, it is the mind-numbing decade of post-grunge like creed and sickening pop-punk,like Green Day and blink 182 that needs to take a dirt nap. Grunge was very pesimistic, I don't need anybody to remember me how hard life is! Grunge turned the 90s into a musical wasteland. Nirvana? Cool. Soundgarden? Old-fashioned head-banging music. Pearl Jam? Proved that you could be the most popular and the most uninteresting at the same time. Grunge fans' faith in their heroes' purity is touching - I'm sure Cobain was never concerned about "getting chicks," lol.
And you're right, Cobain's image was based on sort of anti-fashion stance, but he ended up being somewhat fashionable and glam in spite of himself. In the 90s, you didn't hire Anton Corbijn to direct your video without having some concern for putting across an image. I thought Soundgarden sounded like a million other bands, and I just never got the infatuation with Pearl Jam. They actually sounded to me like a bunch of wannabe folkies, or maybe a bunch of folkies who had jumped on the grunge bandwagon. I can't even be bothered verifying whether that is historically accurate, except that I know a couple of them came from Green River. There's an anecdote about Def Leppard doing an unplugged performance at a radio station in the post-grunge era in which they played several unplugged numbers with three-part harmonies. When the DJ commented, “That was incredible,” Joe Elliot replied, “You must be a product of the nineties. There is nothing incredible about three guys singing in tune.” I remember grunge was identified as a movement and game-changer almost as soon as it hit, whereas hair metal wasn't even a term used for that music until many years later. Most of the bands in that genre probably saw themselves in the same harmless fun, hard rocking/pop tradition started by Van Halen. When I think of 1992, I remember "Let's Get Rocked"-era Def Leppard and Slaughter alongside Nirvana on MTV. It's not like September 1991 hit and Bret Michaels suddenly had to go get a job at IHOP. What really makes this time special I think is it's the last time young people were all bonded together by a common music culture. This was pre-internet, and everyone still watched the same videos on MTV, whether it was Dr. Dre, Def Leppard or Metallica.
As '91 and '92 happened, the metal bands were losing members and generally falling apart, generally through their own excess (Motley Crue, Warrant, Cinderella, Poison). Bon Jovi put out "Keep the Faith" and while it didn't sell at the level of its predecessors, it was a hit and I wonder if other similar bands could've survived just by staying active through the era. I think grunge gets entirely too much credit for this. Most hair metal fans weren't interested in a "cool" image--in fact a lot of them were casual listeners, if I remember correctly. I knew plenty of people into Poison et al, but none of them were music freaks. There's no way hair metal could last much longer since it started around '82/'83... it's just the way it goes, musical trends change, Nirvana gets way too much credit. Nirvana kinda destroyed rock n roll swagger once and for all, and today we all suffer the consequences, living in a world without rock stars, leather, spandex and excess.In my opinion, nirvana ruined rock music . They pretty much created all of the crappy bands that most of us hate today. They influenced a bunch of kids who knew some power chords to form punk bands, which leaves us with blink-182, sum 41, new found glory, etc. they also made all of this "sad, depressed, suicidal" crap popular, which leaves us with papa roach, korn, boxcar racer, etc. Nirvana did somewhat ruin rock music because of what it would influence later on. i.e post-grunge, nu metal, rap rock, and I'll even go as far as saying that they influenced mainstream emo/screamo which along with "crunk music" would lead to the worst abomination of all, Brokencyde. Simply put, grunge influenced post-grunge which influenced nu metal and rap rock since most of those bands share the "Oh my whole life is horrible, **** everything" attitude. Bands from all three of those genres pretty much fed off of the cash of angsty teens and stupid douchebags who don't know **** about music. Not to mention all of the scene kids who worship Kurt Cobain just because he died. Grunge did more damage to rock music then any other style after it faded away liking rock music just became uncool especially with all the rap taking center Stage in the 90s. 98-99 when nu metal started to grow and become main stream like korn and limp bizkit, the only rock that was left after Cobaine died was what Hoottie and the blowfish and other acts similar to them. All other heavy metal acts that were still around sort off when underground for the majority of the 90's. Remember back then it was all about RAP MUSIC you had entire generation of kids talking and acting BLACK and that led to people making fun of rock music & heavy metal all i heard back then was "ohh you listen to that white boy ****". The grunge bands killed the bling effect of rock and the music industry sat on their hands too long on how to deal with internet sales/protection... they screwed themselves. Old time rock n roll might not have been as arty as grunge, but it sure was a heck of a lot more fun. I could not stand a second of Nirvana...probably the most overrated band in the history of music...IMO of course. GnR were huge then...at least far more established than Nirvana at the time when both bands were a going concern. GnR even asked Nirvana to open shows on the UYI tour, but Kurt Cobain outright refused and instead fostered a beef with Axl Rose.
Since Kurt Cobain's death, Nirvana has attained a legendary sort of status that they definitely didn't have when KC was alive, and it has also eclipsed how big GnR were at their peak. Guns'n'roses were the bigger band. they had bigger concerts and the hype around Use Your Illusion albums was HUGE. At the time, GnR was treated as a superstar band. I was a teen in 1992 (the year both UYI1&2 and Nevermind had been out for a while) and in my class G'N R (as well as Def Leppard) was massive with a bunch of hits while Nirvana was a cool side-thing with one big hit that most people liked but not obsessed over. That's how I remember the moment of the releases. A couple of years later G N' Rwas no longer cool and Nirvana was the ultimate cool. GnR were playing stadiums while Nirvana played arenas and large theatres. They fronted every magazine , every time you put MTV on it was G n R. Guns' songs, musicianship, diversity and raw talent were superior to Nirvana, plus they appealed to a wider audience. They were rooted in Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, so many older generation classic rocks fans also loved them, not just the kids. Back in 1992, GNR was the biggest band in the world, period. Nirvana was just the quintesential hipster band and after Kurt comitted suicide they obtained immortal status. After '94 GNR stopped being relevant, while Nirvana was still talked about a lot. But GNR sold more records and tickets and were more "mainstream" . Teen Spirit hit in the fall of 1991. It wasn't an overnight thing, but 1992 saw a quick rise in the grunge bands. I remember noticing how depressing music became around that time. Around 1994, I remember Korn, Wu Tang Clan, Dr Dre, Tool, and Nine Inch Nails on heavy rotation on MTV. That's when I quit listening to modern music for several years. However, I miss those Hair Metal days. I say this...It was a fun time to be a fan. Going to see a band was an event. And the girlss! Let just say they seemed to enjoy the "culture".
If you didn't see it and all you know is the current hipster revisionist history, I can understand why it seemed silly. It was silly, even then. But we didn't care. The songs sounded great.
Took my son to see Arcade Fire a year ago. A good band. The audience seemed to enjoy themselves. But they had know idea what it was like when Motley Crue or Bon Jovi hit the stage.
I feel sorry for kids today.
MB Bowie Classics: "Young Americans"
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