What makes Nirvana 'the band of the 90s'?

This is something my friend and I started discussing a few days ago. We decided that the true 'band of the 90s' is Radiohead, but most people seem to think that it's Nirvana (including those stupid VH1 shows). Perhaps it's just me, but I can't see why. The only thing that would place Nirvana in that position is their popularity. They were not the most innovative band, the best band, or the most influential (one could argue that the Pixies and others had more influence). What, then, makes Nirvana better than bnads like Radiohead or, to stay with musicians who garnered wide recognition, the Smashing Pumpkins in the eyes of so many? Are they truly the 'band of the 90s'?

 

Did someone say band of the 90's?

[image=http://www.webradio.ca/images/wallpaper/U2.jpg]

Achtung, y'all!

In all seriousness, Nirvana's considered the band of the 90's because their video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" pretty much defined the music scene for five or six years. It killed the hair bands of the 80's, and paved the way for Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, and even Radiohead -- whose first album and breakthrough single, "Creep," were considered little more than attempts to copy Nirvana. Their first album was so mediocre that, even now, many Radiohead fanatics won't try to claim that's it great.

Radiohead's albums may have gotten much better, and they may have since become the darlings of rock critics everywhere, but -- at least in the U.S. -- they have yet to have anything resembling the impact Nirvana had.

Radiohead may have been the band of the late 90's, but music has pretty much sucked since the Spice Girls showed up.

And I would argue that, even though they were too out-of-step with everyone else, U2 was the band of the 90's. Achtung Baby was -- and is -- too strong an album, their tours were grand spectacles, and they're one of the few bands to have actually made it through the entire decade.

 

Who cares about what the bloody critics think? Nirvana are most definitly not the band of the 90's, Kurt Cobain would agree with me here. (Come on, he didn't even think Nirvana was worthy of playing with the Vasolines!) Nirvana are a good Rock band, they're good at what they do, but they aren't anything spectacular. They were merely the right band at the right time. Their sound was nothing new or original (Green River, Melvins and later Mudhoney defined Grunge as Nirvana played it, not Nirvana. Touch Me, I'm Sick?)

You want a band that actually started a major scene in the 90's? Try KYUSS.

Nirvana, I love them really, but they are so overrated by Rock critics it's not funny. (Which sadly, in turn, leads to a lot of undeserved hatred by so called "Rock fans".)

 

yeah, i would rank radiohead above nirvana as band of the 90's.

and i don't mind their first album too bad, Bubba, but you're definately right about it not being their best.

 

many Radiohead fanatics won't try to claim that's it great.

Don't worry; I won't try that either (although I still prefer "Creep" to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" regardless of which one may be considered a copy). I was just using Radiohead as an example of one mainstream band that I feel deserves more recognition than Nirvana (not that Nirvana's terrible). Maybe you're right about them being the band of only the late 90s, though; my viewpoint is a little skewed because Nevermind came out when I was four and OK Computer came out when I was ten.

Still, I think that Radiohead will have a greater musical impact than Nirvana, even if Nirvana had a greater popular impact. Also, I wouldn't say music has sucked since the Spice Girls - just popular music.

This brings up a new point: Nirvana had a huge cultural impact, but is that enough to make them a great band or the band of the decade?

GAP - I'd say people are annoyed that they're so overrated; few actually hate Nirvana

 

I would argue that "The Stone Roses" were the band of the 90s.

 

Nirvana is the "band of the 90's?"

No wonder that decade sucked so much.

I'd say people are annoyed that they're so overrated; few actually hate Nirvana

Count me as one of the few who will openly admit my hatred of Nirvana, and the unfiltered crap they turned the music scene into.

 

Surely U2 were the band of the 80s?

As were The Stone Roses - their debut album and their only real claim to fame was released in 1989.

 

Looking back to the '90s, I don't think there truly was any band of the 90s. Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and others laid claim to having great popularity for a time. Weezer had the Blue Album, and then Pinkerton, then died until 2001 practically. U2 had Achtung Baby, and then Zooropa & Pop, but their popularity was really hurt by Pop. Radiohead was genius, but I still see them more or less popular in the past four years, not in the 90s outside of "Creep"


The one band, I think that I can say was truly a band that had lasting power throughout the '90s was Green Day. They had a visible presence from 94 until the end of the decade, and made a lot of decent songs. Although nowhere near as monumental as Nirvana was for the rock scene, they had the staying power in my book.

 

Overrated.

 

GWAR is the band of the 90's

 

Didn't Kurt Cobain used to be a roadie for the Melvins?

Nirvana was simply in the right place at the right time, just like any other "influential" band I can think of. They didn't invent a new sound or anything revolutionary like that, as GAP has already pointed out, but by making the leap from college radio in Seattle to MTV they made it possible for those bands to get some exposure without selling their souls (and everything they owned) to Coca-Cola for a sponsorship or something.

For a good four years that style of music was chic and spawned more knock-offs than I can count. Remember Silverchair? Biggest Nirvana knock-off there ever was, and I still cringe whenever I hear their first couple of singles on the radio. Of course some of them turned out to be pretty good, but at the time they were looked down upon as bandwagon jumpers. Yet strangely enough, most of the so-called bandwagon jumpers have probably been around longer than the "authentic" grunge bands.....but that's life.

One most also look at the date of Nevermind's debut - 1991. Get ahold of the Top 40 for the years 1990 and 1992 sometime if you want to see what the pop landscape was like before and after. It should look very familiar.

 

Dream Theater is the best band of the "90's" in my opinion.

discover them.

 

It killed the hair bands of the 80's, and paved the way for Pearl Jam..


That is an interesting statement considering Pearl Jam was doing the very same thing at the same time as Nirvana. Nirvana was lucky enough to breakthrough into the mainstream before Pearl Jam, thus why they are always considered before them. A sad mistake indeed...

 

Surely U2 were the band of the 80s?

The earnest, heart-on-the-sleeve, band infatuated with American blues was, indeed, the band of the 80's.

The ironic, industrial, rhythm-heavy band that turned arenas into post-modern television studios and supermarkets was the band of the 90's.


Of course, Pearl Jam was doing the same thing at the same time, but the fact that Nirvana broke did make it easier for Pearl Jam to break later...

...just as the Beatles paved the way for the Stones, and U2 for R.E.M.

 

Nirvana was definitely the right band in the right place at the right time for me. When Bleach came out I was just entering my "rebellious teen" phase, and for a lot of us kids in the Northwest this was our music, our punk. With that said, I've always been shocked by how overblown their success became. It's funny, when the world premiere of Smells Like Teen Spirit played on MTV's 120 Minutes I actually taped it, thinking it would never be played again.

 

I dunno, maybe I was just so into music in the 90's that I'm biased, but Nirvana really was a great band.

Maybe some of you are too young to remember the 90's but I was a freshman going on to being a sophmore in high school in the early 90's and if you remember the state of music during those times, it really sucked until Nirvana and the entire indie scene which the media labeled 'grunge' came forth.

Nirvana was great because they weren't the happy-go-lucky hair band spectacles that plagued the airwaves and MTV. I mean Poison, Cinderella, Whitesnake, Warrent, and all these suck-arse groups were jumping around in tights all trying to be the New York Dolls or David Lee Roth or something. It had become overwashed and needed to be wiped clean, sort of the way pop did during the very late ninties.

Nirvana did just that.

It was funny because those early ninties saw some great hip-hop music, Tribe Called Quest, Black Moon, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Kool G Rap, and the introduction of Snoop Doggy Dogg (before Death Row) and Dr. Dre who had stepped away from the eighties gangster gurus N.W.A. Then Death Row exploded, and the same thing in hip-hop kind of happened, but on a much more negative spectrum.

Nirvana was great because they just didn't care. They just wanted to play music. Albiet they did get into the rock star ethos no matter how hard they said they hated being rock stars, they always kept true to each other, Dave, Krist, and Kurt. People loved to see that because they were the underdog. And then the rest of the underdogs, many of whom Nirvana admired in their early indie days, like Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, etc. were brought to the forefront due to Nirvana's success. Need I mention Pearl Jam, although a good band, Vedder did not have the same raw energy that Cobain had. To this day Vedder thanks Cobain's contribution to their success.

Heroin ultimately destroyed Kurt Cobain. I know there were many factors involved in the demise of his mental, a bad marriage, band problems, horrible press, media following you everywhere, but it wasn't much different than what many celebs everywhere go through. It's just when you through a vicious drug like heroin into the mix, well, that's when you can do things like slip a shotgun into your mouth.

All that aside, when you look at the life of the band, there was really no other quite like it. Nirvana always reinvented itself and the music was always great, no matter how bad it sounded, you could hear what they were trying to do, and I mean, if you go to CBGB's live shows or what not, you can appreciate that sort of thing.

There's nothing like a raw, live rock & roll energy show, and that's exactly what Nirvana was. They were the enema of mainstream radio and MTV's crap music line-up. It could defintely use one of those right now.

 

GWAR is the band of the 90's

Gwar was not the band of the 90's.

They are the best band from any time period! Don't believe me? Just ask 'em!

 

Quite simply put, no one captured teen angst as well as Nirvana. Sure, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and all them did as well, but Nirvana was always the leader in the ways of the grunge. Kurt Cobain killing himself turned him into the poster child for teen angst. And, as everyone knows, one sure fire way to make your band extremely popular is to have a dead guy.

I remember the 90's as DarthVegas described it. Nirvana was raw and angsty. More raw and more angsty than anyone else. They paved the way for the other grunge bands. They are the band of the 90's, not because of their talent or innovation, but because of their intensity and emotion.

...and, of course, the dead guy.

 

Nirvana did just that

They were part of it. They definitely get the credit for it. They were the band that had that one kick-azz video at just the right time. Other bands deserve part of the credit too. Don't get me wrong, I love Nirvana but I love alot of other bands from that era as well. They were all part of it. Any one of them could have been the one.

Heroin ultimately destroyed Kurt Cobain

I always called her Courtney Love

 

I always called her Courtney Love

HERE HERE!!!

 

I couldn't agree more with the last comment. I hope Love dies a horrible death for ruining my favorite musician.

Personally. Although I was really young when it happened (like 8) I loved Neverming. In fact Nevermind, Incesticide, and In Utero were the first three CD's I ever bought. I loved them for their pure and raw enrgy that they brought even in CD form. Many bands fail at doing that, I feel.

But on to the real argument here. I feel that Nirvana is definetely the Band of the 90's. I am not saying that there were not other great bands during the 90's. THere were lots of them, but Nirvana was the best of the best at the time.

They combined Rock, Metal and Punk into one unique style never truly attempted before. Nevermind is still to this day one of the best albums my ears have ever heard. But even with the really obscure In Utero their sound still stayed True, if not more true, to itself. WHich is another thing that bands rarely do. Usually bands get more radio friendly. But not with Nirvana. Going from songs about the angst of kids, to songs about a Rapist being raped in Prison. Quite a bit less radio friendly.

BUt of course all of this is my opinion, and your free to disagree with it so right on!

Peace

 

I don't think Nirvana's 1990's crown has much to do with their musician's ship as it does the fact that people can point to a single event (Smells Like Teen Spirit) that changed music so profoundly (for good and bad). It's on par, to some extent, with the Beatles playing the Ed Sullivan Show and Woodstock. So while they may not be the best band to break out in the 90s, they had the most impact, and that's probably why they'll hang on to that title for years to come.

 

As were The Stone Roses - their debut album and their only real claim to fame was released in 1989.

- only one single from The Stone Roses was released before 1990. Also, they had the impact on the sound of the 90s in the UK.

 

In my opinion U2 kickstarted the 90's with Achtung Baby a lot more than people say Nirvana did with "Nevermind".