Never compare prog to hair metal, and as for the overblown/pretentious statement, a lot of punk is just that, in fact even though I will get burned for this one, punk was founded on various hypocritical ideals, such as being anti corperate, yet many of the most popular (and important) 70s punk bands signed on big labels first thing they did... While prog may have been full of lyrics that went over peoples heads like led baloons, progressive rock bands didn't sprout a bunch of political mumbo jumbo that they would then contradict with their own lifestyles, which to me is as pretentious as you can get.

Punk never killed prog, it's popularity declined on it's own due to overexposure, but unlike hair metal it's still around, and many young bands devote themselves to the artform, hence the MANY music festivals out there devoted strictly to progressive rock acts, cleverly labeled as "prog-fests".

It's funny that when Yes wrote lyrics that promote pacifism it's pretentious, when Sex Pistols and Minutemen write lyrics that promote anarchy and socialism, it's just self expression.

Ahh the double standards Nazi music critics love so much.

I'm just talking about shifts in what dominates the mainstream. With punk it shifted from complicated and longwinded to short and fast, but in the 80's it started to reverse with hair metal growing in popularity. I think Nirvana, like punk before, caused the same sort of shift.

I think that was my basic point.

Have you heard the cover?

In your point of view Nine Inch Nails is better than Johnny Cash and he knows it.

NIN influenced Johnny Cash.

This is really going nowhere.

The Melvins had Kurt Cobain co-produce an album for them, which alone signifies that they may have been going for a sound not too much unlike what Nirvana were doing.

That probably dosen't outright qualify as musical influence (probably not) but it counts as something at least.

Kurt Cobain auditioned for their band and failed. They just let him be co-producer because they were friendly and didn't want him to feel bad. Lets not forget the Melvins released music in 1986 of the similar style as to what they did on Houdini which Kurt helped produce which is some 7 years later.

Maybe so, but the concept of Nirvana influencing The Melvins in some minor way at least shouldn't be ruled out, especially when there is very little to prove it true or false.

Of course but coving a bands song doesn't mean you are influenced by them, which is what Raine is saying.

True, but I doubt anyone would cover a band and not have some kind of respect for them in some way, unless of course if the cover was intended as a parody.

Of course there was the respect. Crover was (still is?) good mates with Grohl, Crover is how Grohl came to be a part of Nirvana, and Crover also played in a band with Kurt prior to both the formation of the Melvins and Nirvana. The two bands definitely had quite strong ties.

But I'd have to argue that the Melvins were proportionately more influential upon Nirvana than Nirvana was the Melvins.

Well that's already pretty obvious.