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- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
tejastech08 wrote:johndivney wrote:kurt defo has cooler influences tho - i mean he's uber hip growing up with Black Flag/Bad Brains/SY/Pixies whereas Axl is kinda lumbered with 70's pretentious classic rock & 80's hair metal like Elton John/ELO/RATT..
"Hip" does not mean better. Zeppelin kicks the shit out of the Pixies and any of the other "hip" groups you care to name, including Nirvana.
the Pixies still ROCK though....not Zep but good in their own way.
I don't disagree. I'm saying that just because something is "hip" or "underground" doesn't mean they're better than even some of the biggest mainstream acts ever. After all, a band like GN'R was just as "underground" as Nirvana at one point. GN'R got their reputation and their record contract by being the absolute best and loudest rock band on the Sunset Strip. The only difference between the two is Cobain's holier than thou attitude about the music industry and his role in it.
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
agree.....it pissed me off too but the truth came out in the end. Gnr has held up just as good or better than Nirvana. I try to separate myself from the personalties at this point. If the song rocks and is interesting lyrically, I am in.....don't need the drama. However, I enjoy mixing it up once in awhile.
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
Speakin of holding up
holding up part 2......you can see why Tommy fits in with Axl and Izzy...his band had the same type of humor.
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
It still blows my mind how many people completely and totally MISSED the meaning behind One In A Million. Although in their defense, Axl didn't help his cause by trying to justify why he could say nigger, and be white. That's ALWAYS an uphill battle. I always thought the point of OIAM was that it was doing two things at one, pointing the finger at the igorance of a small-town white boy in the U.S., but at the same time condemning judgment of them, because they themselves were lost.
I always thought that was absolutely brilliant. The song seems to still confuse today, regardless.
By the end of 1991, I chose Kurt Cobain over Axl Rose because I wanted someone who did know the difference between right and wrong.
Right. Because doing ridiculous amounts of heroin and eventually blowing your head off is right.
I erupted into Joker-like hysterics after reading that comment. 
Here's a comment from one of the commentors on the AVClub page...
As a 12 year old at the time that Appetite for Destruction came out, I had an immediate and visceral hatred of G’n’R . I hated their ridiculous cigarettes & motorcycles image, I hated their squealy , overwrought guitar solos, I hated Axl’s whiny voice and that bit that goes ‘neep neep’ in Welcome to the Jungle; and I hated hated hated seeing a picture of a woman with her underwear around her ankles, after being raped by some kind of floating bagpipe monster, every time my brother put on their record. G’n’R were the most alienating of a whole brand of ridiculous rock which had no place for women except as strippers, groupies, whores. This was not a theoretical objection for me; this was a type of music which had no interest in me, no space for me, and which meant absolutely nothing to me as a result. The fact that Nevermind destroyed this sub Spinal Tap mode as the default setting for rock bands is something for which I will always be personally grateful.
Funny, that was everything I loved about them. 
The thing is, Nevermind didn't destroy anything. GN'R were still riding high by '93, and could've went further had they stayed together. Slash is arguably just as busy as Dave Grohl, and there's plenty of GN'R members, Axl-included that have still maintained popularity and are actually doing something, unlike Nirvana. Guns N' Roses classic catalog still gets more plays than anything Nirvana ever did, even Nirvana's biggest hit "Smells Like Selling Out" doesn't even come close to continued legendary status of "the big three" on Appetite.
Nirvana changed absolutely NOTHING about music, other than leaving music fans having to clean up all the cum left on the couch by music critics and wanna be "suicide commiters" who didn't have to the balls to find a needle or a gun, but instead just threw on a cartigan sweater, a Nirvana smile shirt, and whined about how much life sucked, all while standing at the Belt Buckle section at Hot Topic.
Grunge was fuckin' dead by '94, and in actuality didn't have near the run of the 'cock rock' scene. I'm sure more people have still heard Whitesnake than Nirvana. By then industrial was starting to push through, and NIN & White Zombie took rise.
The biggest game changer in the grunge scene was Alice In Chains. Their presence left the biggest impact musically, despite not getting near the deserved props as Nirvana, seeing how AIC could destroy Nirvana on every level as a band. Cantrell's riffs and Staley's unique voice have been ripped off with half-the-talent for years in the genre post-grunge, which has become the popularized format of rock for several years now, at least since the late 90's. If anyone left an impact to be felt forever - it was Alice.
With that said, I do consider Nirvana's In Utero to be an absolutely classic, and their true masterpiece. But Dirt, Ten, Badmotorfinger - ALL - are vastly better albums than anything Nirvana ever did.
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
Nirvana changed absolutely NOTHING about music, other than leaving music fans having to clean up all the cum left on the couch by music critics and wanna be "suicide commiters"
The biggest game changer in the grunge scene was Alice In Chains. Their presence left the biggest impact musically, despite not getting near the deserved props as Nirvana, seeing how AIC could destroy Nirvana on every level as a band. But Dirt, Ten, Badmotorfinger - ALL - are vastly better albums than anything Nirvana ever did.
so much wrong in here.
i do agree with being continually bemused by the reaction to OIAM. even 25 years on people still latch onto it as a means of attacking the band/axl, failing to recognise the merits of the song & lyrics.
but nirvana were a game changer. maybe not so much with the whole post-grunge scene, but kurts constant hype of underground artists brought a hell of a lot of bands to the attn of millions of others & that inpact, of alt/indie rock, has just mushroomed since the moment SLTS detonated on MTV. for better & for worse (nickleback) Nirvana changed a whole fucking lot about music.
AIC were a terrific band, who's material varied across the rock spectrum. but so did nirvana & kurt - bleach is simply one of the great grunge/metal albums of the 80s, hands fucking down: love buzz, school, BLEW, NEGATIVE CREEP, floyd the barber & of course About a Girl are all fucking classics & that's before you get to the pop-rock MASTERPIECE that is NVRMND & the all-encompassing genius of In Utero & the deathly blues acoustic Unplugged/ no way could AIC destroy Nirvana on any level - Grohl's work on NVRMND/In Utero is Bonham-esque in it's undeniable glory. Kurt's vocals are utterly sublime & as a tunesmith, particularly the direction he was heading with Dumb (which was a really old song) & Pennyroyal Tea & All Apologies (in particular, i keep going back to this song as a shining example & it really is my fave early 90s non-Estranged song), it's clear that he had long left Cantrell with his handful of regurgatated ideas well behind. Listen to the difference between the last few songs of Nirvana's Unplugged & their first two songs off Bleach & tell me how AIC even came close to covering as much ground & maintaining flawless quality - even listen to Baclk Gives Way to Blue & it's still the same old Cantrell numbers/themes.
there is simply no chance Ten/Superunknown or even Badmotorfinger (the only real album from the other big three seattle bands that could justifiably rival the quality of Nirvana) come close to the brilliance & IMPACT of nirvana's releases.
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
What ground did they cover? Noise rock? Wow, i'm so impressed that they know how to play a song really fucking badly. Hell, I can shoot junk and play it lousy, anyone can. In Utero was the TIP of the iceberg. I think they had at least another great album in them right in that period, but Kurt bailed. They were hitting their prime. But trust me, Kurt or not, had Nirvana been around today, they'd be hitting the same notes to fill arenas to, cutting albums that recycled the sound from older songs. It's happened to ALL OF THEM. Nirvana would've been no different.
Grohl is Bonham-esque. Not in his wildest wet dream. Nirvana in their entire existence couldn't dream of writing a Zeppelin song.
Nirvana may have had a sound, but it was lifted from other places. So let's not play that AIC is regurgitated, but Nirvana is original garbage. It's all been done before in rock, ALL OF IT. Including Nirvana. Hell The Replacements and The Melvins were doing that music way before Nirvana. So no ground was broke there.
On to impact, i'm not arguing that Nirvana didn't have a HUGE impact. I'm just saying they DID NOT DESTROY jock rock. It didn't happen. Nirvana's presence was not felt as deeply in the rock scene, I truely believe that. Nirvana's biggest influence was felt, which was Kurt's actual fear - in the pop-punk scene. It was a commercialized, producer-created sound that bubble-gum slicked up the whole thing, and used Nirvana as a template to do it. Had Kurt been alive for blink182, he'd of probably committed multiple homicides.
AIC's influence was felt on the actual rock scene though. Just about every guitarist has been doing a mixture of Jerry Cantrell & Kirk Hammett's stuff for years, and almost all rock vocalists since the late 90's are virtual lifts of Layne Staley.
I honestly believe that when you flip on a 'rock hits' station, you hear more AIC-influence in that music, than any other band from 20 years ago.
AIC did break out and try to do something different with Tripod in '95. They knew the writing was on the wall with grunge and that change was necessary, and to this day Tripod is quite different from their other works, as well as their grunge brothers. It's also darker than anything any of the rest of them did during that era, which was ballsy after Jar of Flies.
Nirvana's Unplugged is legendary - AIC's is better.
Badmotorfinger doesn't just come close to even In Utero, their best work, but it surpasses it. What blows my mind is how you just breeze over Dirt. That was the best of them all, a fucking big deal, and had a far bigger direct impact on rock music than Nirvana did in the long run. Actual music, the kind of stuff that gets recorded and put on discs and played on the radio.
Nirvana had an impact, yes, but this Beatle-mania obessession these Gen X music journalists think it had - no it didn't. Not on the actual ROCK genre. Now pop-punk, yeah Nirvana really was used a template.
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
whoa, hey Dirt's maybe in my top 10 of all time (it certainly was the last time i drafted such a list - #8 or so i think - tho In Utero was prob top 5), maybe so is badmotorfinger on a good day.
but neither of them touch even the worst song kurt wrote. not one iota of one song on either record is imbued with the magic that kurt had.
i see what u mean about their influences relating to genres & you're probably correct in that AIC were more influential on the rock genre, but nirvana dipped their toes into so many more genres & had impact in many more places & in the industry & SOCIETY that it's not even fair to compare them. Nirvana did help hearlded a generational shift in the way the beatles & the stones did - if it weren't for Nirvana & Kurt being so fucking trendy the 'grunge' scene would never have taken flight & impacted the way it did.
there's no two ways about it Kurt & Nirvana were the leading lights of the bands in terms of their cultural impact, but also in terms of the quality of their material.
even if kurt was still around playing the same game as the recently reformed AiC or even behaving like Axl, Kurt woulda have a stockpile of scintilating songs - not that they were ever original or envelope pushing, that wasn't the point of nirvana or my post. the point was that kurt wrote simple & simply amazing songs & there's no evidence to suggest he wouldn't have gone on to collect a catalogue of songs that stand alongside the very very best american songwriters - that's what i'm getting at here & that's the difference between a really great rock band like AiC/Soundgarden & one of the greatest geniuses that rock music has ever produced, the songwriting ability of kurt (plus the performances to deliver those songs) is where his brilliance & importance lies.
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
Nirvana had an immediate impact, but not for better. I can make a big argument on how Nirvana helped create the current climate of suck ass rock bands: Simple POP/Punk song structure is still the norm.
GNR's music was very complex and not easily replicated. Matter of fact, I don't see a single band that sounds like GNR. They're a mesh of a bunch of different music.
Axl was way ahead of the curb with SG, Nirvana, NIN, NWA, like was pointed out before... And when I think about it, Axl was always singing the praises of bands that hadn't made it yet, but when I think about it now, all I ever heard from Kurt was how much everyone else sucked and he didn't like anything on radio... That included the SG, AIC and RHCP. And imo, Nevermind shouldn't even be spoken in the same sentence as Blood, Sugar, Sex Magick. Best album of the 90's, imo.
And Kurt was a fraud. He did use GNR to help create his own image. He lied about his background. He never lived under a bridge. And I do think he had a weird obsession with Axl (He knew everything about him) and definitely, imo, was using GNR and Axl to strengthen his own popularity.
Re: Great Axl & Kurt article
By the end of 1991, I chose Kurt Cobain over Axl Rose because I wanted someone who did know the difference between right and wrong.
Right. Because doing ridiculous amounts of heroin and eventually blowing your head off is right.
Exactly. Right to some people wrong to some other people, there's no real difference.
This is just morality bullshit. The reality of the two men was a lot more interesting.
