Why do people blame Nirvana for killing Hair Metal?

Black Francis · 10-07-2014, 08:42 PM

Going back to the Nirvana topic, i think the hair metal movement was gonna get replaced with the grunge movement even without Nirvana.

Every decade we go through this change in music and while some bands play a big part in that movement the musical movement itself is bigger than them.

The Batlord · 10-07-2014, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necromancer

I personally think individual opinions are better received when sticking to the critique, instead of constantly critisizing the music by a particular band or artist.

I don't know what this means.

**Janszoon** · 10-07-2014, 09:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I don't know what this means.

Why aren't you sticking to the critique? What the fuck, man!?

Neapolitan · 10-07-2014, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Necromancer

I personally think individual opinions are better received when sticking to the critique, instead of constantly critisizing the music by a particular band or artist.

I think people are more likely praise the bands they do like and criticize (in a negative way) the bands the don't like. And sometimes give a plus & minus account of a band. I think they are more prone to do that if they are not invested as a fan of the band or the band has an inconsistent output. It seems it would hard to able to stick to the critique (if what you mean by that is to explain the good and band points equally). I think someone sets out to do that, there will still be a tendency for them to be bias in some way. I think it is inevitable because they already know how they feel about it, so they find arguments to support what they think of it either way.

I can understand what you mean "constantly criticizing" a band. I am usually on the short of the stick when it comes to that. What I notice is that there is almost a group mentality on whether a band should be accepted or rejected. And it always seem that I am on the wrong side. I notice that I love to find a band that no one criticize. For me they are in a safe zone away from the music critic and negative criticism. And I can enjoy the music for what it is, not what it fails to be for those who don't get it.

Necromancer · 10-07-2014, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

I think people are more likely praise e bands they do like and criticize (in a negative way) the bands the don't like. And sometimes give a plus & minus account of a band. I think they are more prone to do that if they are not invested as a fan of the band or the band has an inconsistent output. It seems it would hard to able to stick to the critique (if what you mean by that is to explain the good and band points equally). I think someone sets out to do that, there will still be a tendency for them to be bias in some way. I think it is inevitable because they already know how they feel about it, so they find arguments to support what they think of it either way.

I can understand what you mean "constantly criticizing" a band. I am usually on the short of the stick when it comes to that. What I notice is that there is almost a group mentality on whether a band should be accepted or rejected. And it always seem that I am on the wrong side. I notice that I love to find a band that no one criticize. For me they are in a safe zone away from the music critic and negative criticism. And I can enjoy the music for what it is, not what it fails to be for those who don't get it.

I wasn't referring to you or anyone in particular Neo. I don't see you as always being on the wrong side either. Just about everything concerning music can be subjective in one way or another.

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.

Chula Vista · 10-21-2014, 08:59 AM

^^^^ Excellent post! I completely agree. And I was an active guitar player throughout both of those eras.

Plankton · 10-21-2014, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kriswright

"Unskinny Bop" by whoever did Unskinny Bop.

Poison.

Hate that song, but it sticks to your ear like a leach. Or an earwig. Do earwigs suck on earwax? I dunno, but yeah, hate it.

Moss · 10-21-2014, 10:20 AM

I remember when I was in College (late 80's) and I was jamming with various people trying to find a good fit. Me and another guy were guitar players and had really connected. We found a drummer that was huge into hair metal. To the point where it was just us playing in a garage and this guy was still mugging and making stupid faces and spinning his sticks and **** like there was a camera in there. He actually gave me a manual on how to be in a metal band that had such nuggets like "Pantene will give your hair nice body and bounce...". Basically it walked you through how to do all the cliche things those hair bands were doing. That's when I knew I was out of step with the current state of rock music and something needed to change. I still remember exactly where I was when I heard Smells like teen spirit. It sounded so damn different and refreshing. Hair metal had run it's course and was ready to die, thank you Nirvana for hastening that demise. I enjoyed hair metal for what it was, I played Ratt and Tesla and all that in bands, but at some point it just started getting ridiculous. Any type of music that gets big spawns the imitators and starts killing it off. It happened to Grunge with bands like Creed and candlebox or whatever.

kriswright · 10-22-2014, 08:51 AM

There's probably an interesting conversation to be had comparing late-period hair metal to Creed-era post-grunge. Which is worse? I'm a Nirvana loyalist all the way, but even I'd rather listen to Firehouse than Creed.

10-07-2014, 08:42 PM	#251 (permalink)
Black Francis Out of Place Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: in an abstract house Posts: 4,111	Going back to the Nirvana topic, i think the hair metal movement was gonna get replaced with the grunge movement even without Nirvana. Every decade we go through this change in music and while some bands play a big part in that movement the musical movement itself is bigger than them. __________________ "Hey Kids you got to meet the MIGHTY PIXIES!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbRbCtIgW3A

10-21-2014, 08:59 AM	#257 (permalink)
Chula Vista Toasted Poster Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: SoCal by way of Boston Posts: 11,332	^^^^ Excellent post! I completely agree. And I was an active guitar player throughout both of those eras. __________________ “The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

10-21-2014, 10:20 AM	#259 (permalink)
Moss Scuttle Buttin' Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Boulder Colorado Posts: 972	I remember when I was in College (late 80's) and I was jamming with various people trying to find a good fit. Me and another guy were guitar players and had really connected. We found a drummer that was huge into hair metal. To the point where it was just us playing in a garage and this guy was still mugging and making stupid faces and spinning his sticks and **** like there was a camera in there. He actually gave me a manual on how to be in a metal band that had such nuggets like "Pantene will give your hair nice body and bounce...". Basically it walked you through how to do all the cliche things those hair bands were doing. That's when I knew I was out of step with the current state of rock music and something needed to change. I still remember exactly where I was when I heard Smells like teen spirit. It sounded so damn different and refreshing. Hair metal had run it's course and was ready to die, thank you Nirvana for hastening that demise. I enjoyed hair metal for what it was, I played Ratt and Tesla and all that in bands, but at some point it just started getting ridiculous. Any type of music that gets big spawns the imitators and starts killing it off. It happened to Grunge with bands like Creed and candlebox or whatever. Last edited by Moss; 10-22-2014 at 10:20 AM.

10-20-2014, 10:27 PM	#256 (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.

10-22-2014, 08:51 AM	#260 (permalink)
kriswright Groupie Join Date: Oct 2014 Posts: 33	There's probably an interesting conversation to be had comparing late-period hair metal to Creed-era post-grunge. Which is worse? I'm a Nirvana loyalist all the way, but even I'd rather listen to Firehouse than Creed.