But what I'm saying is that's not something unique to this decade. Think about some of the more famous rock bands from the 90s for example: Nirvana? Pearl Jam? Green Day? These bands were very much imitating the styles of bands that came before them. Same as with bands today.

Nirvana? Which bands were they emulating? *unsure*

Not sure if you're joking or not, but just in case you aren't: They were very up front about their hero worship of a lot of 80s indie/postpunk bands and talked quite a bit about the people they emulated. Kurt Cobain even described Nevermind as Nirvana's attempt at making an album like the Pixies' Doolittle and also described his band's music as a Scratch Acid/Gang of Four ripoff. And then of course there's the famous situation of the "Come As You Are" riff coming directly from a song by one of their influences, Killing Joke.

K, thanks for the info. Can't say I see much of the Pixies/Gang of four in them but I've always had a bit of trouble in seeing the connection between bands. I will look into the other two mentioned bands...(:

Edit: Scratch that, Tame seems very much like Nirvana...

I think it's pretty hard not to hear the Pixies influence honestly.

Husker Du would be another one to give a listen to if you're in the mood for checking out Nirvana's big influences.

Didn't Nirvana say they tried to copy a lot of King Crimson's style?

Yeah, I edited the post. The bass and the screaming are there, but Nirvana seems to lack the surf-pop...

So does a lot of the Pixies music. I'm not saying Nirvana sound exactly like the Pixies, I'm just saying they were very heavily influenced by them and Kurt Cobain said as much himself.

I've heard as much before, but to be honest, I'm not that familiar with the Pixies' discography and the only songs that pop out are the poppy-dancey stuff, like Debaser and Here comes your man, which seem pretty far from the brooding darkness of Nirvana. But again, I is the suckage at comparing shit.

yeah, they tried covering 21st Century Schizoid Man but for some reason it still came out sounding like Killing Joke's Eighties.