Nirvana: All that and a bag of mediocrity?

[janradder]

I know it's been nearly fifteen years since the band actually existed but I recently finished reading Babylon's Burning by Clinton Heylin which attempts to trace punk to grunge (it was a bit heavy on the English bands). Reading about Nirvana got me to thinking about them and I really haven't done that in years.

When Kurt Cobain killed himself, it seemed like every rock journalist and critic eulogized him as another Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix -- someone who broke through mainstream music to create something, if not new, then at least inspirational or lasting or both. In the years since his death, though, have you really heard Nirvana played on the radio anymore? I haven't (and the Twin Cities has not one, but two indie radio stations). I also haven't played them in my house at all since maybe 1995. That's not really saying much for a band that was supposed to have changed the face of rock.

So, to try and remember what it was that so many people thought was great about Nirvana, I pulled out my old cassettes of their Bleach and In Utero and gave them a listen.

I have to say, I was left with the same impression I had when I first heard them: they were just an okay band -- good certainly, but most definitely not great. Their songs were all pretty simplistic, but not in a good way like the Ramones or the Velvet Underground or the Stooges or countless other punk and proto-punk bands. It was simplistic as in simple. Boring, even. Each song seemed to go on for way too long, plodding through sonic sludge much like a self-indulgent Led Zeppelin LP.

Much has been made about what effect the Nirvana-phenomenon had on music. If it weren't for Nevermind, among other things, Pearl Jam would have been another Aerosmith or Boston clone, Soundgarden would have gone straight from SST Records into cock-rock metal, Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots would have been the Hair Bands they also wanted to be, countless other wanna-be grunge rockers would have started boy bands or found something else to make money at, and perhaps we all could have escaped the blight that is Tori Amos without her piano cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to catapult her into the limelight. I still wonder what it was that so many people heard in Nirvana because, in retrospect, I don't think it's there. Nirvana was just trio of con artists wrapping mediocre, recycled punk rock in a grungey new flannel-wrapped package.

Comments

[tim-pratt.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm with Haddayr. And I still listen to their stuff. Bleach is raw (and not always in a good way) and In Utero always had a dash of collapsing decadent empire about it to my ears, but Nevermind blew my teenaged mind, and a lot of the cuts off the other albums (including the unplugged album, live album, Incesticide, etc.) still hold up. I mean, if you listen to the entire discography of The Doors there's a lot of less-than-memorable tracks, too, but they're remembered for their best work.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

You're right -- the Doors produced a ton of horrible dreck. But on the other hand, when you listen to them in the context of their contemporaries, they sound completely unlike anything else that was being done in pop music. And, they influenced a lot of later bands (like the Stooges, the Patti Smith Group and Television, among others). In that light, you really can't say the same about Nirvana. Though they sounded unlike what was around on MTV, they sounded pretty mainstream compared to the bands who were their peers. And the bands they influenced seemed to be bands who only did the "grunge" thing because they could make money doing it, adopting Nirvana's sound as one would put on a new style of clothes.

Still, I respect that Nirvana spoke to you as a teenager. I just don't think their legacy has ever lived up to the hype surrounding the band when Kurt Cobain was alive and in the time shortly after he killed himself.