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Quote:
Originally Posted by kexodusc
I think either you dislike the genre, or you haven't heard enough. Images & Words, and Scenes From a Memory (a story from beginning to end) are full of the qualities you suggest you like. I can't say that you are wrong in not liking them, but, they definitely don't write for the sake of showing off. Trust me...watch these guys live...they show off there. They're almost purposely reserved on their albums. Thank god. If they did "wank"(as it's known), they'd be another Yngwie Malmsteen and Rising Force).
Here's one way you can look at it...one thing you can give to Cobain is that he knew how to speak to the kids who at the time were 'lost souls' (how lost can your soul be at 17?). It took no special skills to be able to attach to Nirvana's lyrics/music so most of the angst-filled MTV watching teens at the time had something they could finally call their own.
Now take those same kids and give them a Dream Theater CD. They wouldn't know what to do with it. However those same kids 10-15 years down the road are now grown up and more educated and matured and can appreciate the finer aspects of good music.
So the moral is..a Dream Theater/Spock's Beard/Yes/Rush/Fates Warning/Flower Kings vs. Nirvana arguement is pointless as the music is aimed at different crowds. Nirvana speaks to the kids, which I guess is why I never liked it and now my Nirvana CD's are in with my Limp Bizkit/Nickelback/Offspring CD's in the trash dump somewhere. I just outgrew all that stuff.
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Well, I don't listen to Nirvana even a fraction as much as I use to...but there was a period in my life when I was wearing dirty jeans, playing a Fender, sporting faded flannel...
Nirvana was catchy pop stuff...but it's easy to get bored of it really quick.
I will say this though...there's not many Dream Theater songs you can listen to in 15 minutes...you can sample quite a bit of Nirvana in that time...shorter attention spans.
Different target markets. But yeah, tons of the guys I grew up with listening to Nirvana don't wear the T-Shirts, hang the posters, and play the albums much any more.
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>I could name a few that were almost as influential as Metallica, but none more so. Certainly not Nirvana
We look at things very differently.
> It's no accident that Metallica's albums have sold double Nirvanas.
Perhaps not, but it's more than double, and you shouldn't discount the fact that while Metallica has released something like 9 albums in 20 years, Nirvana released 3 in 4 years. But it doesn't matter. Nirvana was the prime exception to the rule that heavy metal will always sell more and be more popular than punk rock. You're using sales to measure influence. By that argument, the New York Dolls never influenced anybody. Except for all of those 80s hair metal bands that were trying to look like Hanoi Rocks.
>Your complete ignorance for the correct historical sequence of events and their significance ruins your credibility to comment on these issues
Thank you.
>Bottom line is the commercial friendly "Black" album by Metallica had sold more albums in the one year before Nevermind was released than any hardrock/alternative rock/heavy metal album had in decades.
So what? I remember hearing Teen Spirit wherever I went in 1992. Radio, car stereos, television commercials, bar jukeboxes. Metallica never had that sort of impact even if they sold 10 times as many records. I maintain that radio, which drives everything, changed on the basis of the popularity of that one song & the stuff that followed after it, not Metallica as the driving force.
The Grateful Dead sold a lot of records, too, but their subculture remained just that for the life of their career, for the most part. Numbers are great, but they only tell part of the story. People who didn't listen to rock'n'roll never heard Grateful Dead or Metallica songs. For a period in early 1992, they couldn't help but be bombarded by Teen Spirit. And that's when everything started to change.
>1994/95 were Nevermind's BEST YEARS, sales wise, this is available on google, and use to be available on RIAA
Okay, fine, maybe you're right about that. But while the RIAA numbers are not completely in line with Soundscan, they're not all that far off. There's a lot less emphasis placed on what went on with independent record stores, especially prior to Nevermind. They're not counted in Soundscan & never were. And the RIAA numbers don't indicate what happens when labels send people out to buy large quantities of releases from Soundscan-affiliated retailers in order to create as large a buzz as possible upon a title's release. I can't say that anybody ever did that with a Metallica record that Elektra was desperate to break. But it sure wasn't what happened with Nevermind, which Geffen certainly didn't expect to explode. In short, I think there are serious flaws with both Soundscan & the RIAA certification process, and I would only count on them for so much info. After all, the Eagles' Greatest Hits has become the biggest-selling album of all time. Is that supposed to make them good? At the same time, the Beatles are the top-selling group, and I think they ARE good. But it's not because they've sold a lot of records, that's for sure.
>it did open the door for Nevermind to make Radio Play in the first place
I sincerely doubt that Geffen's promo minions pointed to Metallica as a major reason why radio programmers should've moved Nirvana onto their playlists. The song itself had just a bit more to do with it, I'd say. Not to mention the fact that the public was sick of hair metal, but even more than that, there were no real good pop alternatives: a lot of rock fans could live with a good Madonna record, perhaps, but this was the era of Right Said Fred. Metallica's record sales just didn't mean all that much in this area at that point.
>To this day, "The Black Album" has outsold anything by Nirvana.
Yeah...so? It has the band that created it available to tour & promote it, remember? The statement by itself doesn't always mean quite as much as it seems. It also shares with Nirvana the benefit of being on the playlists of stations that have formats that were created following the popularity of Teen Spirit. The success of the Black Album might have been a significant factor in the creation of more modern rock playlists down the road, but Teen Spirit was the #1 factor, bar none.
>it was getting tons of radio play and MTV air time
Not on my radio or television. Outside of 'One,' I never saw Metallica, though I presume they were played on 'Headbanger's Ball.' I didn't see them on 120 Minutes, though. And there were no formats here in NYC that I know of on the commercial side of the band that were playing any Metallica records. Not one.
>Kurt Cobain almighty himself has given a few interviews with his bandmates stating they owed it all to the trailblazing Metallica did
Gee, that's funny, the interviews I saw praised bands like the Ramones & the Sex Pistols. We must have seen different interviews.
>Metallica did more to open the industry's eyes to the possibility of acts like Nirvana than anything Nirvana put out. This is a fact whether you choose to accept it or not.
I'm sorry, that's just not true. Tell me, what clothing trends did Metallica help to inspire? You know, all that Pacific Northwest lumberjack flannel stuff? Hey, funny thing, Nirvana didn't really dress like that. Ah, but very few people were paying any attention to what became known as 'grunge' prior to Teen Spirit. I mean, I had to listen to college radio to hear a Soundgarden record in 1989.
We can continue on this merry-go-round if you like, but you are deluding yrself if you believe that what Metallica did paved the way for Nirvana any more than what Husker Du did, or the Replacements, or the Meat Puppets, or even bands that didn't sign to majors but did the DIY thing, like Black Flag, Minor Threat, and the Minutemen. Majors were signing underground punk bands by the mid-80s in the wake of the success of the Clash. Nirvana was the first one to have any significant success, and Metallica has a place in this discussion with regard to their position in the marketplace, but nowhere near as big as you're saying. And the numbers you're waving are hollow; they don't tell the whole story, or even half of it. Major labels were taking chances with bands they should've known would never sell, like Redd Kross & King Missile & the Butthole Surfers--all signed prior to the release of the Black Album.
If anyone helped Nirvana get signed to Geffen, it was Sonic Youth, not Metallica.
>you get facts twisted and distort the order of events. Alice In Chains and Soundgarden were already big before "Nevermind" was released.
Disagree. In spite of Soundgarden's Grammy nomination, I remember them playing small rooms in these parts prior to 1992. And Alice In Chains was barely a blip on the radar at the time, a name that few knew unless they studiously scanned publications that covered underground music.
>Pearl Jam was outselling Nirvana before Nevermind was realeased
Who's twisting facts? Pearl Jam's first album was released ONE MONTH (8/27/91) prior to Nevermind (9/24/91). And while AMG may not be perfect, they nailed it with this sentence on their Pearl Jam page:
"Ten didn't begin selling in significant numbers until early 1992, after Nirvana made mainstream rock radio receptive to alternative rock acts."
>we'd be talking about Metallica right now.
I wouldn't. Their music does nothing for me. The same AMG that I just quoted from says they were 'easily the best' heavy metal band of the 80s. Sorry, give me Motorhead any day over them. The only thing they ever did that I liked was a Misfits cover.
>I challenge you to do some chronological research, charts, sales, radio play on Metallica's Black Album and the impact it had long before Nirvana came out
You go do it. I lived through that period with several friends who were extremely rabid Metallica fans. They couldn't hear that music played on the radio, they didn't see much of it on MTV, it wasn't blaring out of too many car stereos, it wasn't used as bumpers for television promos, and nobody was downloading their music on Napster, either. If you stumbled into a bar that wasn't a heavy metal bar & stuff like that was on the jukebox, the louder & noisier it was, the more likely it would be to drive the girls out of the bar. Teen Spirit was the first song that I noticed that didn' t do this. Bar owners rarely kept stuff like Metallica on their jukeboxes unless it was a place with live bands. Regular bars didn't want their customers leaving because the music was too loud or aggressive. Teen Spirit smashed that barrier.
Yes, Metallica's audience slowly grew & grew, and if Nirvana hadn't happened, they might've been the act that broke through the way Nirvana did. But it didn't happen that way. Nirvana was the catalyst. And you know what? Their flame burned quickly in this regard because they really weren't warm & cuddly, and their anti-establishment attitude was genuine. Which turned a lot of people off once the initial infatuation wore off; the casual fans who bought Nevermind weren't really interested in hearing about the music that inspired Nirvana, though of course since it was so obscure, Cobain talked it up quit a bit. And people started to lose interest (which was slightly rekindled by In Utero, and of course exploded after the suicide, which gave a big boost to the Unplugged record, which was heavily promoted by MTV). That's where AIC, Soundgarden, & especially Pearl Jam become important parts of the equation in terms of sustaining the popularity of the stuff once people were burned out on Teen Spirit & started to grumble that they were tired of hearing music that did nothing but complain. Metallica was an important part of this also--it's why their impact grew beyond what the numbers on the Black Album did alone. It's why they play 'Enter Sandman' at Yankee Stadium all the time, because Metallica's been on the playlists of the formats heavily inspired by Nirvana, not because they sold a lot of copies of the Black Album when it was first released. It took time for that song to cross over into the general consciousness.
>What about Metallica's balads
What about them? When was the last time you were sitting in a doctor's office with Lite music being played on the radio & heard a Metallica ballad? HAHAHAHAHA I've heard the Green Day song dozens of times on those radio stations over the past few years. When Metallica crosses over to that market, you let me know.
>power ballads weren't new...so neither Nirvana nor Metallica should get too much credit for this.
The Green Day song isn't a power ballad, which is the point. A critical listen to Nevermind would yield that this guy was capable of writing a ballad without it being a power ballad, something that was apparently outside the repertoire of the bands that were writing power ballads. And from there it doesn't take much to figure that somewhere in the next generation of bands that would be influenced by this record, that there'll be someone who IS capable of writing a crossover ballad, one without the double entendre puzzles that Cobain was so fond of. Do you see the distinction I'm drawing here?
>Nirvana was the #2 Grunge band on Earth
Maybe according to those who thought of them as a grunge band. I'm not one of them. They influenced grunge, but created music that I consider to be outside that category.
>By October 1994 Nevermind had sold 5 million albums
Yeah, okay, fine, whatever. I was wrong. But I'm curious as to yr source on that. Soundscan? RIAA?
>The influence was greater after Cobain's death.
Wait a second. That may be true, but earlier you said
>Fact is Nirvana's legacy didn't begin until after Cobain died.
FACT? This is just not true.
>Nevermind has sold more albums since 1994 than prior to it
Again, I am highly suspicious that this does not take indie store activity into account.
>I think either you dislike the genre, or you haven't heard enough
Correct; wrong, I've heard TOO MUCH. I wouldn't play DT to torture prisoners. Something about 'cruel and inhumane treatment.'
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>It took no special skills to be able to attach to Nirvana's lyrics/music
Then how come nobody did stuff like that previously?
>Now take those same kids and give them a Dream Theater CD. They wouldn't know what to do with it.
I sure would.
>However those same kids 10-15 years down the road are now grown up and more educated and matured and can appreciate the finer aspects of good music.
Nirvana speaks to the kids
Oh, sure! I get it now. Hey, I'm glad you cleared that up for me. Now I can get rid of all that kids' stuff I have in my collection & replace it with more mature stuff now that I can appreciate the finer aspects of good music. How ever can I thank you?
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I think you're misreading my point...or maybe we'll just have to agree to be civil and end this.
Nirvana definitely crossed FURTHER into the mainstream than Metallica did...I don't deny this. I do maintain from the start that Metallica was the first non hair-metal band of that time draw huge commercial sales, unlike anyting that evolved from the 70's or further back.
This definitely prompted record companies to pursue numerous signings of the underground metal/punk/ etc scenes.
Janes Addiction was selling big before Nirvana too, in addition to the groups above. I'm sorry if Pearl Jam took off after Neverminds release date, I've been looking mostly at old Rolling Stone mags I have for my info.... Nirvana got hot fast with "Teen Spirit", but Pearl Jam rose on their own merit, not because "Teen Spirit" was hot and they were from Seattle...Mother Love Bone was starting to get pretty big before Nevermind, too.
Metallica did cross over earlier, and opened the door for heavier, louder music that wasn't Skid Row or Poison.
NIrvana drew influences from the Sex Pistols et all, but the road to commercial airtime was paved at least partially by Metallica.
The record sales figures came from Rolling Stone, and the RIAA, I get conflicting results too, though. You can't tell me that Metallica's indie sales wouldn't have at least been competitive with Nirvana's.
But sales is not the issue here...according to RIAA, Creed has almost sold as much as Nirvana (we can thank Nirvana for that)...I wouldn't call Creed terribly influential.
I don't know where you were during that time, but back then I was so anti-Metallica it drove me nuts when I heard Enter Sandman, Sad But True, One or anything on MTV or the radio...and that was alot...I remember the kids all begging the 50 year old lady bus driver to crank up Metallica on the way home from school...different geographic area?
I think where we've really gotten off track was the point that Metallica was MORE influential.
Let's not just focus on 3 years at the beginning of the 90's...by 96, the Nirvana scene was starting to cool down pretty fast. Grunge was dead and Marilyn Manson and Korn were all the rage. (by the way, is Marilyn Manson or Korn more influential than Nirvana because of all the dorky goth clothing, or Adidas outfits people where now?)
Metallica's been around for 20 years trail blazing (though I think they should have hung'em up by 91).
I can't say Nirvana wouldn't have had some more innovations up their sleeve, though I just can't see it.
To me, they were a a brilliant flash that had some influence, but ultimately died the way of disco.
Oddly enough, you don't really hear many groups that sound like total Nirvana rip-offs. Can't think of any other than Seether maybe, but I'll accept that's just influence coming out in the music.
You'd expect there'd be alot more if Nirvana was so influential.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
>It took no special skills to be able to attach to Nirvana's lyrics/music
Then how come nobody did stuff like that previously?
My God man. Do you live in a time capsule or something where nothing before 1992 exists? Ever heard of Neil Young?
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>Ever heard of Neil Young?
Yeah, once or twice. Wasn't he the guy from the Beatles? I particularly admire the records he did that sound just like 'I'm A Negative Creep' and 'Scentless Apprentice.' Hey, I wonder why Cobain never brought Robin Lane in to sing on one of their records? And maybe you could tell me if Nirvana, looking back on his catalog in a quest for inspiration, derived much from the first record he did with Crosby, Stills, & Nash?
>maybe we'll just have to agree to be civil and end this.
Perhaps that's best. I don't disagree with most of what you say in this post, which reads a bit differently to me than the earlier posts in the thread. A quibble here or there--Metallica had nothing to do with major labels like Sire & their own Elektra signing bands like the Replacements & Public Image Ltd., and I never said that Metallica's own sales in indy record stores didn't mean anything, either. I spent enough time in 'em to see more than a few T-shirts & Metallica LP purchases.
Also mostly left out of this discussion to this point was Guns N' Roses. Who I'd say had more to do with a band like Nirvana getting a record on the radio than Metallica. And who were also influenced plenty by the NY Dolls. And please don't try to tell me that Metallica had something to do with them getting on the radio.
Metallica may be more influential in a particular sense at this point because of so many bands that are obviously inspired by them. Bands that took bits & pieces of their style & integrated it into their own. There's less in the way of bits & pieces with Nirvana, because they were more stripped-down. There were some acts that were somewhat copycat-like, but you're right, not many. But all these bands that Metallica influenced musically more than Nirvana did are heard, once again, on radio stations that have formatted their playlists to reflect a modern rock aesthetic that Nirvana's hit was the #1 factor in creating.
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I'm with Jay on this one (once again).
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Originally Posted by kexodusc
Metallica, who like them or not, are the single-most influential band in the last 25 years(but should have quit 12 years ago), and who literally opened the door for groups like Nirvana to be accepted by the mainstream.
Can't say I really agree with this assertion.
Metallica was influential, yes. They were one of the first underground bands to break big into the mainstream, though the means they employed were somewhat despicable (watering down their style, making ballads, etc.). However, stylistically the <b>Black Album</b> wasn't all that groundbreaking. A little darker than the likes of Skid Row or Twisted Sister, but very much an orthodox hard rock record. Right down to their choice of producer (Bob Rock, who had a history of working with hair bands).
Nirvana, however, was really different from anything else in the mainstream circa '92 (Mudhoney and Soundgarden predated Nirvana, but they were quite underground at the time). Kurt had both the angry, disaffected punk attitude and "ragged-is-right" aesthetic, two things that really weren't prevalent in the realm of commercial radio before.
I can still recall to this day how shocking "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was when I was 8 years old. Kurt's howl, the pounding quiet/loud dynamic, the video with the cheerleaders and the "A" for Anarchy--everything. I didn't know jack about music at that age, but it didn't take a genius to recognize how different and powerful "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was. These days it seems so boring now due to radio saturation and a horde of watered-down copycats, but back then it was really something. "Enter Sandman," on the other hand, was a clear pandering to the mainstream compared to Metallica's earlier works.
Oh, and by the way, I don't consider Nirvana to be "grunge." They were much closer to that scene sonically than Alice In Chains or Pearl Jam, but "grunge" is early Soundgarden, Melvins, Mudhoney, Green River etc. Nirvana had a very distinct pop sensibility compared to those bands.
As far as record sales and all that other sh<a>ite, I'll let you and Jay debate to your hearts' content.
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Originally Posted by N. Abstentia
Were you referring to Cobain as 'the most talented mofo to ever come down the pike'? I assume you never saw that 'mofo' live. He can't sing or play a note in tune when playing live. The MTV unplugged show was the best performace the guy ever gave because he didn't have to scream and had plenty of backing musicians. I guess I just never bought into the whole grunge/MTV hype.
What exactly was Cobain talented at? Guitar playing? Satriani. Vai. Bonnamassa. Tabor. Lifeson. Mustaine. Howe. Rabin. McCready. Matheos. Adrian Smith. DeGarmo. Gilmour. Petrucci. You should check them out too.
Song writing? He's better than me, that's for sure. But I urge you to check out Neal Morse, Neil Peart, Jim Matheos, Steve Harris, DeGarmo/Tate, Chris Cornell, Portnoy/Petrucci, Becker/Fa<a>gan. These are the song writers I've always looked up to.
Personally, I have no problems with the words "Nirvana" and "talent" in the same sentence. Cobain was no guitar virtuoso, but what he lacked in guitar ability he made up for in songwriting. On a song-by-song basis he was up there with John Lennon, and that's with only 4 studio albums to his credit.
Hey, I love punk, and rock 'n' roll, and folk, and all those other forms where simplicity, catchy hooks etc. are an asset. I also dig prog and metal, where musicianship and pushing the envelope of what can be done with your instrument are seen as superlative. Good songwriting is good songwriting--simple music is not "low art," and complex music is not necessarily "high art" (contrary to what all the Yes and Rush fans might say). I don't have much taste for pointless wanking, even in prog, and I find most of the guitar shredders you mention above to be monotonous and overly showly (though I do like Mustaine, Smith, Gilmour, Tabor, and even the occassional dose of Petrucci). There's something to be said for 2 minutes of 3-chord, simple yet catchy songwriting and lyrics that express a lot versus 10 minutes of flashy, expertly played jamming that, while impressive from a technical standpoint, ultimately says nothing. Them's my 2 cents.
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I'm sorry, but just so I'm clear on your point of view, are you saying if Nirvana's Teen Spirit didn't hit the airwaves, none of the increased accessibility that's transpired since then would have happened?
I don't think I could accept that. It was already happening simultaneously with Nirvana's breakthrough.
I don't recall Cobain being the poster-boy for it until he became a martyr.
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No, that's not what I said or what I meant. I believe I said somewhere else that if it hadn't been that, it would've been something else by somebody else. Of course, it would've developed slightly differently, or even somewhat differently. It happened to be Nirvana; it happened to be that song. To deflect & say it was something else is just plain wrong. Sure there were other factors; the song & its impact didn't exist in a vacuum; and there was already a burgeoning Seattle scene & bands from Metallica on up, PJ, AIC, Soundgarden, you name it. Faith No More. Stone Temple Pilots. They were all around. I know this. But I remember the impact that one song had. What I'm trying to say is that each one of these bands benefited in one way or another because people who either flat-out didn't like anything resembling this music, or had never heard anything about it that they liked, all of a sudden heard something in a piece of music very much like this other stuff where they heard something that they liked. It opened a door in a way that Metallica never did. Remember, Metallica's notoriety spread briskly through people trading mix cassette tapes. The large volume of records that they sold prior to the creation of the radio formats inspired by Teen Spirit is evidence that they had a sizable fan base; but since they had little in the way of exposure beyond what was then a very small slice of a fringe market, it was preaching to the converted in a sense. Nirvana didn't have millions of fans like Metallica did; most of the people who bought their record had never heard of them until they heard that song or saw the video.
But, again, if it hadn't been them, it would've been someone else, possibly Metallica, more likely PJ or Soundgarden. But it was them, and while the numbers don't even bear it out any more, the impact of that one song was immeasurable. That's why I called it a catalyst, as it was more dynamic than most of the output of any of these other bands. The marketplace was so starved for a makeover of the industry that it was going to happen one way or another. That's the form it took, that was the immediate reason, that was the catalyst.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mad rhetorik
Personally, I have no problems with the words "Nirvana" and "talent" in the same sentence. Cobain was no guitar virtuoso, but what he lacked in guitar ability he made up for in songwriting. On a song-by-song basis he was up there with John Lennon, and that's with only 4 studio albums to his credit.
Hey, I love punk, and rock 'n' roll, and folk, and all those other forms where simplicity, catchy hooks etc. are an asset. I also dig prog and metal, where musicianship and pushing the envelope of what can be done with your instrument are seen as superlative. Good songwriting is good songwriting--simple music is not "low art," and complex music is not necessarily "high art" (contrary to what all the Yes and Rush fans might say). I don't have much taste for pointless wanking, even in prog, and I find most of the guitar shredders you mention above to be monotonous and overly showly (though I do like Mustaine, Smith, Gilmour, Tabor, and even the occassional dose of Petrucci). There's something to be said for 2 minutes of 3-chord, simple yet catchy songwriting and lyrics that express a lot versus 10 minutes of flashy, expertly played jamming that, while impressive from a technical standpoint, ultimately says nothing. Them's my 2 cents.
I couldn't agree with you more on most of what you said. I don't even deny Metallica intentionally made their music more accessible with the Black Album. But, when I read, and see the Nirvana boys thank Metallica for really openning the "underground" up, and think about it, I tend to agree with them. Cobain was a helluva song writer. No doubt. To this day Nirvana remains one of my favorite bands.
As for prog and musicianship, too many Prog fans are Prog-for-the-sake-of-Prog in my books.
I love Satrianni and Vai, but in the end these guys are guitar hero's not music icons...there's a difference.
I don't make the snobby disticntion between prog rock and 3-chord post-grunge alternative stuff as matter of upper class art or lower class art...To me it's more about moods...quite often I'm in the mood for some grand, theatrical stuff, or some large compositions.
Just as often I throw in some Pearl Jam or Rage Against the Machine, Pantera, Cheryl Crow, Allman Brothers, etc...it's all about moods, etc.
But you have to admit, a 12 minute Gov't Mule or Dream Theater song isn't going to be adopted by the 3 minute attention-span Radio or MTV anymore (was it ever?).
Somewhere along the line, the art got commercialized, and the listener got ripped off.
I just defend Dream Theater as a band who isn't about wanking. They have a style, sure but they are definitely about the song first, not 35 minutes of lame ass Yngwie Malmsteen guitar solos (though they could do that if they wanted too). They show off a bit, and if you don't like them fine, but listen to these guy's solo projects, where they do wank, and you'll see what I'm talking about.
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Ahhh...
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Originally Posted by MindGoneHaywire
No, that's not what I said or what I meant. I believe I said somewhere else that if it hadn't been that, it would've been something else by somebody else. Of course, it would've developed slightly differently, or even somewhat differently. It happened to be Nirvana; it happened to be that song. To deflect & say it was something else is just plain wrong. Sure there were other factors; the song & its impact didn't exist in a vacuum; and there was already a burgeoning Seattle scene & bands from Metallica on up, PJ, AIC, Soundgarden, you name it. Faith No More. Stone Temple Pilots. They were all around. I know this. But I remember the impact that one song had. What I'm trying to say is that each one of these bands benefited in one way or another because people who either flat-out didn't like anything resembling this music, or had never heard anything about it that they liked, all of a sudden heard something in a piece of music very much like this other stuff where they heard something that they liked. It opened a door in a way that Metallica never did. Remember, Metallica's notoriety spread briskly through people trading mix cassette tapes. The large volume of records that they sold prior to the creation of the radio formats inspired by Teen Spirit is evidence that they had a sizable fan base; but since they had little in the way of exposure beyond what was then a very small slice of a fringe market, it was preaching to the converted in a sense. Nirvana didn't have millions of fans like Metallica did; most of the people who bought their record had never heard of them until they heard that song or saw the video.
But, again, if it hadn't been them, it would've been someone else, possibly Metallica, more likely PJ or Soundgarden. But it was them, and while the numbers don't even bear it out any more, the impact of that one song was immeasurable. That's why I called it a catalyst, as it was more dynamic than most of the output of any of these other bands. The marketplace was so starved for a makeover of the industry that it was going to happen one way or another. That's the form it took, that was the immediate reason, that was the catalyst.
Now this post I can agree 100% with...thanks for making your point of view clear. I don't think Metallica ever influenced a 2 or 3 year period of the music scene, pop-culture, fashion, etc as much as Nirvana..not as intense, as fast....but a different kind of influence.
I think they were the first radically different, "loud sound" that wasn't hair metal (which evolved from Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith etc sound of the 70's gradually, so it wasn't a shock) to achieve huge commercial success, and finally openned people's eyes that the mainstream would accept other sounds. But they didn't do it all by themselves either.
It's sad though, modern-rock music has become exactly what Cobain and crew predicted, and didn't want...a great big parody of itself.
We're still waiting for the next big thing...not sure what it's going to be, but I hope it comes soon.
Metallica owes alot to other groups too, however. We could probably trace this all back to Zeppelin and even urban blues if we want.
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Thanks for the great discussion, guys. Fun reading, and an example of why this site keeps me coming back.
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