Music Banter - View Single Post - Why do people blame Nirvana for killing Hair Metal?

kriswright · 10-20-2014, 10:27 PM

I'm sorta late to the party, but I'll have a go at the original question:

We're in an odd era right now where the teens and young twentysomethings seem to be the children of people who played Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" at their wedding reception. So I can sorta understand where you're coming from when you talk about Nirvana being blamed for killing off hair metal, rather than celebrated. These days I meet more younger types who'd admit to liking Def Leppard than you'd have seen when I was a teenager in the 90s.

But, yeah, I do think Nirvana "killed hair metal", if we're being a little tongue in cheek when we say it. Of course no one band killed the genre off. REM had a hit album a few months before Nirvana, if we're being technical. But back then, when I was 13 or so and just developing my love for rock, the radio was offering me a clear choice: On one side, "Let's Get Rocked" by Def Lep, "I Hate Everything About You" by Ugly Kid Joe, and "Unskinny Bop" by whoever did Unskinny Bop. On the other, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam and "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. There was no question to my group of friends which side looked cooler - the grunge/alternative guys. My age bracket turned away from the hair bands in droves and it buried all those old bands. Yesterday's news. For all the subversion and rebellion we like to talk about in rock history, it's actually pretty rare for there to be such a clear outright rejection of what was popular just a few years before. It's usually more gradual. (The kids today aren't talking about how terrible the White Stripes and Radiohead were.)

But the fans of those bands didn't just die. They're still out there and they still haven't gotten over it. You know what was funny, actually? Being a guitar player in the mid 90s and reading guitar magazines that refused to believe that hair bands were passe. You couldn't get an article on Nirvana or really even Pearl Jam until the movement was pretty much over. Those mags were too busy talking about Nuno from Extreme's next big album or whatever.

Those are the guys who still can't stand grunge to this day because, to them, it buried the thing they liked about rock music in the first place: Guitar heroics. And I have a certain degree of sympathy, in retrospect. Grunge has some downsides and a lack of musical adventure is one of them. But anyone who thinks rock is about "scoring chicks with your badass licks" was going to be unhappy that all these mopey grunge puppies had kicked them off the charts.

Why did grunge die off so fast? I'd say it's because of a shotgun blast to Kurt Cobain's head. Sure, it managed to make an important music figure into a legend, but it also served as the "sell by" date for grunge. It signposted that this was a dead end. Literally.

That's my general take, anyway.

10-20-2014, 10:27 PM	#7 (permalink)
kriswright Groupie Join Date: Oct 2014 Posts: 33	I'm sorta late to the party, but I'll have a go at the original question: We're in an odd era right now where the teens and young twentysomethings seem to be the children of people who played Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" at their wedding reception. So I can sorta understand where you're coming from when you talk about Nirvana being blamed for killing off hair metal, rather than celebrated. These days I meet more younger types who'd admit to liking Def Leppard than you'd have seen when I was a teenager in the 90s. But, yeah, I do think Nirvana "killed hair metal", if we're being a little tongue in cheek when we say it. Of course no one band killed the genre off. REM had a hit album a few months before Nirvana, if we're being technical. But back then, when I was 13 or so and just developing my love for rock, the radio was offering me a clear choice: On one side, "Let's Get Rocked" by Def Lep, "I Hate Everything About You" by Ugly Kid Joe, and "Unskinny Bop" by whoever did Unskinny Bop. On the other, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam and "Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. There was no question to my group of friends which side looked cooler - the grunge/alternative guys. My age bracket turned away from the hair bands in droves and it buried all those old bands. Yesterday's news. For all the subversion and rebellion we like to talk about in rock history, it's actually pretty rare for there to be such a clear outright rejection of what was popular just a few years before. It's usually more gradual. (The kids today aren't talking about how terrible the White Stripes and Radiohead were.) But the fans of those bands didn't just die. They're still out there and they still haven't gotten over it. You know what was funny, actually? Being a guitar player in the mid 90s and reading guitar magazines that refused to believe that hair bands were passe. You couldn't get an article on Nirvana or really even Pearl Jam until the movement was pretty much over. Those mags were too busy talking about Nuno from Extreme's next big album or whatever. Those are the guys who still can't stand grunge to this day because, to them, it buried the thing they liked about rock music in the first place: Guitar heroics. And I have a certain degree of sympathy, in retrospect. Grunge has some downsides and a lack of musical adventure is one of them. But anyone who thinks rock is about "scoring chicks with your badass licks" was going to be unhappy that all these mopey grunge puppies had kicked them off the charts. Why did grunge die off so fast? I'd say it's because of a shotgun blast to Kurt Cobain's head. Sure, it managed to make an important music figure into a legend, but it also served as the "sell by" date for grunge. It signposted that this was a dead end. Literally. That's my general take, anyway.