Bleach was alternative pop/rock and grunge.

Doesn't matter what it's called the sound was very much the same.

True.

Artists that sound similar to Nirvana: Hole, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, The Breeders, Everclear, Bush, Sugar, Green River, Hüsker Dü, 50 Foot Wave, Local H, The Frogs, Blur, Superchunk, Paw, Flop, Jane's Addiction, Babes in Toyland, Beck, The Offspring, Paul Westerberg

Some of those are a bit of stretch...

I went from most like to least like.

Why?

Why not? What is your aim here?

I just don't understand the point of posting a list of artists that sound similar to Nirvana which has artists that don't sound similar to Nirvana.

Every artist on there sounds similar to Nirvana, albeit on different degrees.

The last few artists still sound similar to Nirvana, just not as much as the first few.

I thought I explained this...

I don't understand how Everclear, Babes in Toyland, Beck, Blur, Husker Du, The Offspring, Jane's Addiction and Soundgarden sound like Nirvana.

Oh, okay.

Bleach sounds like a lot of the 80s sludge metal. OBVIOUSLY not hair metal etc, lolol

Course, "About A Girl" was the blueprint for where Nirvana were headed.

Bleach was not a good album, it was the product of a band that still didn't really know what they were doing. Cobain deep down always wanted to be playing Pixies-esque pop-punk, not the crap that most of the grunge bands were playing.

Yeah...Especially when he took the riff for Smells Like Teen Spirit from them :)

I never got that comparison, please explain?

Pixies-Nirvana you mean? Kurt had expressed on various occasions how he absolutely loved what Pixies were doing, and clarified in at least one interview that he referred particularly to their utilization of the soft-loud-soft-loud aesthetic. He was inspired to do the same sort of thing (within his own framework of course) by listening to Pixies. It's not some bogus comparison, it's a fact straight from the mouth of the man himself.

That doesn't really clarify it musically just because he said it.
And anyway i was looking for that specific example with Teen Spirit, the Soft-Loud thing just doesn't do it with me.

Rainard said it perfectly. But here is a quote from an interview he did for Rolling Stones back when it came out.

"I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it (smiles). When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band - or at least in a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard."

The quiet and loud part really fits into Teen Spirit because that's what they did. Get very hard than quieted it down than got loud again.

I guess you are right, I just don't really think of those bands as being metal. Even Fudge Tunnel, who I was into a lot in the early 90's and who was on earache, I never thought of as a metal band.

The Melvins, The Butthole Surfers, Helmet and Albini's projects I definately never though of as metal.

Fudge Tunnel-sludge metal, heavy metal, alternative metal
Melvins-heavy metal, alternative metal
Helmet-alternative metal

I don't think any of them are heavy metal, but whatever you want to call them that is fine.

I can deal with Fudge Tunnel having metal attached to their name.

Helmet....meh I think helmets roots were more in the heavy alternative rock scene than any metal scene. I first saw Helmet live in 1993 and they supported Sonic Youth and Mudhoney. Hardly a metal gig. These days I think they are lumped into the metal scene as their detunned riff-o-rama sounds have been coppied by many (nu) metal bands.

The Melvins are not metal they never have been. If you must use that horrible word (grunge) fine they are heavy grunge but they are not metal.

You need to realise that heavy does not mean metal.

One of my favourite examples of the Pixies embodying that idea is Tame off of Doolittle.

Tame is flippin' mighty, it has to be said.

You're the only one, sorry.

I said they all showed INFLUENCES from Punk / Metal & Noise bands.
I never said they WERE metal bands.

Good.

Hence the alternative metal?
I don't see how who they went on tour with varies directly with what genre they are.

Helmet has influenced the likes of System of a Down and other current artists.

Heavy grunge?

They are grunge, but they are also heavy metal and alternative metal


You talk like there's shame in being labeled metal. If they aren't metal, what are they? Enlighten me.

I'd call the Melvins grunge, which in itself implies a heavy metal influence anyway.

qft.
Melvins are Grunge, and like Piss Me Off said Grunge itself mixes metal into the sound. Bands like TAD are Grunge and carry over a metal type of sound, same principal.

Nah no shame in being metal. I am one of the few people on this forum that is actually old enough to have experienced heavy music in the 80's. In the mid-late 80's I was a huge metalhead. All I listen to was metal.
Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, Slayer, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth, Exodus, Sepultura were metal.
Come the early 90's and I discovered bands like Helmet and The Melvins. They were very different. Still heavy but with a different attitude, which fit in more with the punk/alternative rock scene. They dressed differently, their lyrics were very different, they didn't care about guitar and drum solos they were much less flamboyant and theatrical.

These days the lines between metal/hardcore/punk/alternative rock are much more blured. I struggle to hear the difference between many so called hardcore bands and death metal. But back then the lines were much more defined. Metal bands were METAL bands, the others were either punk or heavy alternative rock. The term grunge I think was a name invented to cash in on the whole early 90's alternative lifestyle and the punk rock explosion that went with it.

Actually Mark Arm coined the name while he was still in Green River. The name came about about 2 or 3 years before the explosion....Maybe longer.

I have to say, that actually was a very well constructed argument, even if it's against mine. But I still hold Melvins and Helmet as metal. 80's metal and 90's metal were just worlds apart.