^ no, i absolutely agree with the fact that mass appeal does not mean artistic worth!
i suppose what i'm arguing here is a bit confused - but i think that nirvana's massive popularity has meant that people discount them as a great band.
my favourite artists of the last 10+ years have been from my immensely isolated australian hometown...so i don't pretend to have any kind of grasp of what's going on with the rest of the world or some kind of global musical perspective. on the whole though, i hate what i hear so i ignore it. not all music, but generally what passes for "rock" circa early 21st century.
what i was referring to, and probably didn't articulate very well, is that we don't see BIG rock bands any more.
what i mean is real rock'n'roll bands that create a huge stir. like, you know - the beatles, the rolling stones, jimi hendrix, the sex pistols - bands that excited the young, worried or shocked the older generations and wrote songs that defined eras. music that made everything you were listening to a month before you heard it seem redundant.
yes, i am sort of talking about popularity here, but not really.
the sex pistols were hated by more people than they had fans, for example. they weren't 1977's equivalent of justin beiber (or whatever the thing is now?) - they were offensive to most, without (arguably) setting out to do this at all. they just expressed themselves, their culture, their generation - and what came out was pretty horrifying to most people at the time.
what i'm getting at more than this is that we as a (western) culture are not shocked by rock'n'roll any more. it has lost its teeth over the decades, and the devil's music is now something retirees grew up with.
as far as this goes, i would still argue that nirvana may well have been the last of the great rock'n'roll bands. i realise how obnoxious that statement might be, but i'm not talking about all the great bands i still get excited about, the bands i get crushed to go and see up close or the bands i play shows with and adore. or the bands i am a part of that spend money we can ill afford recording albums of songs we love to play.
i'm not strictly talking about record sales, popularity or household-name status either - but i suppose i am talking about notoriety.
it's pretty impossible to achieve the kind of revolutionary status that used to exist in rock'n'roll - it is no longer a 'foreign' music feared by white society as 'debauched' or overtly sexual. it is no longer new, it is no longer dangerous.
the kind of exposure that existed in the halcyon days of the recording industry has been diluted so much by a) the collapse of record companies/sales and b) the mass of information now available at the click of a mouse. the combination of these two things means that the only music that makes it into the public arena is that which is incredibly safe and pandering to a corporate vision of musical entertainment. all the auto-tuned pap that floods the airwaves is testament to this; the latest generic offering from the latest smooth-sleazebag celebrity.
the upside for people like me who like their music weird is that artists of all kinds are accessible to whatever fringe dwellers may wish to seek them out. no longer are kids ignorant of bands like the velvet underground or the buzzcocks - great swathes of rock'n'roll music history has opened up to all of us through the internet. albums that used to be only available through mail order - or out of print for years - can suddenly be streamed (or downloaded) by anyone who wants it.
but what this means is that the power of music to reach a generation of kids who feel the same way (as the artist and their fans) has been diluted. the commerce of small-time labels and limited-appeal bands is easily supported by the online arena and word-of-mouth promotion. radio stations have no need to play anything outside of their desired playlists because very little music made by/for 'outsiders' (as nirvana's music truly was, pre-nevermind) because it never makes it onto the charts.
i don't doubt that there are amazing, groundbreaking, memorable songwriters revolutionising rock music as we speak - but unless our ears are close to the ground at the right moment, we may very well miss out on hearing about it. this is the curse - and the joy - of the digital age.
kurt cobain died in 1994, a couple of years before the internet went 'mainstream'. those were different times. i certainly don't believe he was the last great rock'n'roll songwriter, but i certainly think he and his band were the last great rock'n'roll phenomenon (as we know it).
i apologise for coming off as a cantankerous bastard, but i don't think we should dismiss artists because they have become a symbol for disaffected youth or heartthrobs of the depressed set. it's cool if people don't care for nirvana's music - as i said, i don't listen to it any more - but as a social phenomenon, i can't think of any examples of rock'n'roll hysteria since then. unless it is manufactured hype, of course...
i suppose what i'm arguing here is a bit confused - but i think that nirvana's massive popularity has meant that people discount them as a great band.
my favourite artists of the last 10+ years have been from my immensely isolated australian hometown...so i don't pretend to have any kind of grasp of what's going on with the rest of the world or some kind of global musical perspective. on the whole though, i hate what i hear so i ignore it. not all music, but generally what passes for "rock" circa early 21st century.
what i was referring to, and probably didn't articulate very well, is that we don't see BIG rock bands any more.
what i mean is real rock'n'roll bands that create a huge stir. like, you know - the beatles, the rolling stones, jimi hendrix, the sex pistols - bands that excited the young, worried or shocked the older generations and wrote songs that defined eras. music that made everything you were listening to a month before you heard it seem redundant.
yes, i am sort of talking about popularity here, but not really.
the sex pistols were hated by more people than they had fans, for example. they weren't 1977's equivalent of justin beiber (or whatever the thing is now?) - they were offensive to most, without (arguably) setting out to do this at all. they just expressed themselves, their culture, their generation - and what came out was pretty horrifying to most people at the time.
what i'm getting at more than this is that we as a (western) culture are not shocked by rock'n'roll any more. it has lost its teeth over the decades, and the devil's music is now something retirees grew up with.
as far as this goes, i would still argue that nirvana may well have been the last of the great rock'n'roll bands. i realise how obnoxious that statement might be, but i'm not talking about all the great bands i still get excited about, the bands i get crushed to go and see up close or the bands i play shows with and adore. or the bands i am a part of that spend money we can ill afford recording albums of songs we love to play.
i'm not strictly talking about record sales, popularity or household-name status either - but i suppose i am talking about notoriety.
it's pretty impossible to achieve the kind of revolutionary status that used to exist in rock'n'roll - it is no longer a 'foreign' music feared by white society as 'debauched' or overtly sexual. it is no longer new, it is no longer dangerous.
the kind of exposure that existed in the halcyon days of the recording industry has been diluted so much by a) the collapse of record companies/sales and b) the mass of information now available at the click of a mouse. the combination of these two things means that the only music that makes it into the public arena is that which is incredibly safe and pandering to a corporate vision of musical entertainment. all the auto-tuned pap that floods the airwaves is testament to this; the latest generic offering from the latest smooth-sleazebag celebrity.
the upside for people like me who like their music weird is that artists of all kinds are accessible to whatever fringe dwellers may wish to seek them out. no longer are kids ignorant of bands like the velvet underground or the buzzcocks - great swathes of rock'n'roll music history has opened up to all of us through the internet. albums that used to be only available through mail order - or out of print for years - can suddenly be streamed (or downloaded) by anyone who wants it.
but what this means is that the power of music to reach a generation of kids who feel the same way (as the artist and their fans) has been diluted. the commerce of small-time labels and limited-appeal bands is easily supported by the online arena and word-of-mouth promotion. radio stations have no need to play anything outside of their desired playlists because very little music made by/for 'outsiders' (as nirvana's music truly was, pre-nevermind) because it never makes it onto the charts.
i don't doubt that there are amazing, groundbreaking, memorable songwriters revolutionising rock music as we speak - but unless our ears are close to the ground at the right moment, we may very well miss out on hearing about it. this is the curse - and the joy - of the digital age.
kurt cobain died in 1994, a couple of years before the internet went 'mainstream'. those were different times. i certainly don't believe he was the last great rock'n'roll songwriter, but i certainly think he and his band were the last great rock'n'roll phenomenon (as we know it).
i apologise for coming off as a cantankerous bastard, but i don't think we should dismiss artists because they have become a symbol for disaffected youth or heartthrobs of the depressed set. it's cool if people don't care for nirvana's music - as i said, i don't listen to it any more - but as a social phenomenon, i can't think of any examples of rock'n'roll hysteria since then. unless it is manufactured hype, of course...
) I also had the good fortune to see them live supporting the Violent Femmes later that Summer. We hired a houseboat and managed to anchor right next to the stage as they played at Fisherman's Wharf. To be fair I was in no fine state to comment but they were a shemozzle and I didn't really have any heart felt thoughts of greatness.
