Rypro 525

I am listening to Nevermind right now and this cd is absolutly amazing! I know I have dissed Nirvana but to tell you the truth, I have never listened to the entire album! It sounds nothing like anything on the radio at the time or even now. So I would call them musical geniouses BUT it does not deserve to be like #2 album of all time like its consitered.

Deftones

I think a little of both. Them along with Pearl Jam came into the scene at the right time. 80's hair metal was over and there needed to be something new. I do think that Nevermind certainly deserves to be at least in the top 5 of all greatest lists. It certainly defined the genre and paved the way for tons of bands that came after them.

Captain Harlock

I remember the first time I heard Nirvana back in the fall of 1991. I said "Whoa!! What's that?!?!". At the time I think the music industry was ready for a change. You had bands that were carbon copys of each other. It was getting pretty boring.

So yeah I do think the time was right, but at the same time they were also exceptionally talented.

Goat3001

Nirvana is a great band. They made good songs. But they are way over hyped IMO.

Gdrlv

I was a huge hair metal fan when Nirvana hit big. They opened me up to music. I don't listen to them much anymore, but if it wasn't for them (and Pavement...who I do still listen to), I might still think of Def Leppard's Hysteria as the apex of music.

I think Nirvana (along with, to a lesser extent, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, etc.) spurred a change in popular culture greater than any music scene has done in recent times. Nirvana might as well be the Beatles for people who came of age in the early to mid 90s. They're gods if only for the incredible influence they had on popular culture for a good 10 years...

Scorpio

Hated them when they first came onto the scene. I was a hard rock guy (Guns N' Roses, etc...) After a while I started to like them and now consider them a really good punk band at times. I do think Kurt was a bit overhyped. I mean, comparisons to John Lennon? I think not.

Hiro11

I don't mean to sound like I'm one of those annoying indie kids, but in 1987, like a lot of college-town kids, I was listening to the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr (from my hometown!), Sonic Youth, Live Skull, Jesus and Mary Chain, Big Black, Einsturzende Neubauten etc.

So when Nirvana came out with "Bleach" on subpop, we all just sort-of integrated then into our collections. I already had some early L7, Soundgarden and Mudhoney, and Nirvana was just a poppier version of that sound.

I bought "Nevermind" when it first came out, and absolutely loved it. I got "Ten" soon after. People forget that both of these album were slow burns, they didn't really get popular until they had been out for about six months.

By that point, I'd already moved on to the English dreampop scene of My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless", Spaceman 3's "Playing With Fire" and Swervedriver's "Raise". I had fully absorbed the pop-rock of the Vaselines and Teenage Fanclub's "Bandwagonesque" (a similar and superior album to "Nevermind"), the La's S/T and The Wedding Present's "Bizarro". Even the Smashing Pumpkin's "Gish", an album I consider to be far more advanced than "Nevermind", was out by that point

So, by that time, "Nevermind" was sounding pretty retrograde. But yeah, they were a great band with a terrific drummer and great songwriter. They just brought a sound that the rest of us had been listening to for years to the charts.

atlantamoi

Hiro11, I clicked on this thread to say almost the exact same thing you said. I was 26 in '91 and had already spent MANY years listening to this kind of music. When "Nevermind" came out and became so big I was a bit confused because it really wasn't THAT groudbreaking (to me at least). Don't get me wrong, I love that album... I think it was one of the best recordings that year and compared to "Ten" it's a masterpiece. If you can recall, earlier that summer there was the first Lollapalooza that was very popular (NIN, Rollins, Janes Addiction, etc.). It's not like that kind of music was completely under the radar.

But it did take Nirvana to get "normaltown" to notice what was going on. I'm thankful for Nirvana opening up the scene to other bands. Looking back, I'm sort of sad that Pearl Jam seems to be the band that had more influence on what we hear on the radio today. I was NOT a fan of the more mainstream sounding grunge bands that were around back then. I was watching a documentary on MTV recently about Nirvana. The Vj's being interviewed were talking about Nirvana's unplugged show and how Cobain announced he had some special guests coming out. The Vj's said they were excited because they thought maybe Eddie Veder was going to walk out () Instead, out comes the Meat Puppets and people were disappointed. This makes me laugh. I like that Nirvana realized the "scene" had roots that went back many many years.

I often wonder what the music scene would have been like today if Nirvana had existed, but Soundgarden and Pearl Jam hadn't been around. I'm not trolling, but I just wasn't into it. I was still in a phase where I despised classic rock (don't feel that way today) and these bands were more akin to that style than Nirvana. I went to the Lolla where Pearl Jam and Soundgarden performed. I watched each band perform two songs and then made a hasty retreat to go get a beer. Had Nirvana been on stage I would have sat there thinking about how far "alternative" music had come.... fondly.

I'd love to see another band come along like they did and wash clean some of the dreck. I thought maybe the THE bands were gonna do it, but it doesn't appear to be so.

Johnny Zhivago

Exactly. Nirvana were nothing close to groundbreaking... But I will say this, David Geffen did a hell of a job of promoting that album and shoving it all over the airwaves... Great band, good songs, but that's about it. #2 album of all time? Where did you read that nonsense? Rolling Stone?

Rypro 525

http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/100_gre...62773&start=81
vh1.

wendersfan

Nirvana were a great band, and Nevermind was a great album. IMO they were head and shoulders above everybody else in that scene. Cobains songs were original (nobody really hed used those chord progressions before, and he wrote pop songs with them) and Dave Grohl is one of the best hard rock drummers to come along in the last 20 years.

That said, I would say they might scrape into my "top 25 bands of all time". Maybe. While Nevermind is truly a classic, there's just not enough material to put them up there at the top.

wendersfan

Man, it's creepy. These are all bands and albums I was listening to at the time as well. Were you listening to Ride and Eugenius (a fave band of Cobain's, btw), too?

Capo2002

I wouldn't go as far as to call Nirvana "rock gods" but they were definitely a great band and they deserved the success they got. Kurt wrote music from the heart, and when Nirvana played they played with passion and drive, and that really came through in the music. I wouldn't say Nevermind is the #2 rock album of all time but it should certainly be up there. I wish half the bands of today played with as much passion and honesty as Nirvana..

edytwinky

Nirvana did a lot of rock, in general, but I wouldn't call them "rock gods", I leave that title for Aerosmith. Cause unlike Nirvana, Aerosmith is immortal

Hiro11

Definitely. I bought "Nowhere" by Ride when it came out. That's a terrific album that not many people have heard. I actually like the follow-up, "Going Blank Again" even better.

Eugenius is the guy from the Vaselines. "Oomalama" still sounds terrific.

There are a bunch of great albums from this era. Another that stands out is Curve's "Doppleganger" which sounds like a slightly more psychedelic version of Garbage.

I remember going to see these bands at 8 dollar club shows in Northampton MA, near where I grew up. Heady days.

Spiderbite

'Tis a shame those "immortals" did not hang it up 20 years ago (or more).