Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

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Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by PorkyPrimeCut » Fri Sep 24, 2021 12:35 am

Love it or hate it, I'm certain a huge amount of people are on this forum thanks to the guitars used by Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth and, of course, Nirvana & that album.

I can still remember the day I bought the record, and how it blew my mind. In terms of production & songwriting it was a real step up from their first record &, in retrospect, a total game-changer.

I still occasionally listen to it, from start to finish, and think it's aged well, unlike similar albums from that genre & era. I also feel thankful, as fucked up as it may seem, that they ended so abruptly. Better to burn out than to fade away, and all that.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by lastactionhero12765 » Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:02 am

The staying power of this album is pretty incredible. I was too young to listen to Nirvana when they were around & thriving and got into them about a decade later and I'm sure there are still kids who are "discovering" Nirvana and enjoying the hell out of it! To this day, this is the only album that I can ever remember my dad--a Bruce Springsteen-loving, americana & classic rock fan--has ever asked me to make him a copy of and that, in my book, is incredibly high praise.

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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by burpgun » Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:07 am

This Nirvana thing is always tough for me. I respect the band and understand they were a legit product of their scene. They were not posers, their peers respected them. But I was also just hitting legal drinking age when Nevermind came out and was already throughly into alternative and punk stuff then. So while I could see they had good songs, there was nothing to me that was mind blowing. It just seemed like a well played, more focused version of what was out there. I can barely listen to them anymore, but I was still big into the Pixies then, and that was much more exciting to hear the first time around, and in its own way deserved bigger successes. Sonic Youth was more important artistically but was, understandably, too abrasive to cut through to the mainstream. I've still never owned a copy of Nevermind and it's always just been radio music and now is pretty much just classic rock station fodder.

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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by Larry Mal » Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:41 am

It's a very good album. Probably the last rock and roll album that will ever have that kind of impact.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by BTL » Fri Sep 24, 2021 11:35 am

I was 26 and Nirvana's Nevermind hit in a way that resonated with me at the time and still does to this day. It was a great album and a great time for music in my life. I have one of the new Jag-Stangs because of the influence of both that album and the this forum. It's the first non-Lowe guitar I have owned in more than a decade.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by Embenny » Fri Sep 24, 2021 1:48 pm

I was too young to have any awareness of this album when it came out (I was 5, Fred Penner and Raffi were more my jam) but grew up listening to 90's alternative that existed entirely on terms Nirvana had dictated. I can't imagine what living through that release would have been like.

I agree with Larry, I don't see a rock album having that kind of cultural impact again. Rock has been aging more or less like the Boomers who popularized it, and albums as a concept and a commercial entity are nearly irrelevant in the streaming era.

Come to think of it, Dave Grohl is probably the youngest/last active artist producing original music who could be called a "rock god" or "rock star," and his most influential album was this one, 30 years ago.

The next two generations just haven't been into the Rock star thing. The zeitgeist drifted away from that. Just so many things have changed. When I was a kid, people were still debating whether Nirvana and others "sold out" by signing to labels and making money off their art. It was basically an insult to be viewed as prioritizing making more than a subsistence living off of music.

My sister-in-law is 15 years younger than me, and hers is the generation where getting a company to pay you to use it on Instagram is celebrated as success. Getting big enough for any reason whatsoever to get rich shilling for corporations has become culturally enshrined.

So much has changed that I just don't see a collection of songs changing popular culture overnight like that again.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by s_mcsleazy » Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:50 am

to this day, i have mixed feelings on nirvana, most of it down to the fans who suffer from "teh kurtdz" and the endless music journalism wankery. but it was also one of the first albums to resonate with me.

as an album? it's ok. i think in utero is the more solid album.
as a gateway into alternative music? yeah it's a good starting point.
as a cultural touchstone? i think it's been given a greatly exaggerated legacy.

but i do wanna talk about the legacy of this album in a weird way. so in my music listening lifetime, the most common argument i heard was "oh it came along and destroyed all the hair metal and re-defined rock music" well, i don't disagree and i don't fully agree. there had been bands who'd set the groundwork since then. mudhoney, the pixies, husker du, big black, sonic youth, the vaselines, butthole surfers, the meat puppets, the wipers, the replacements...... to name a few. i think nirvana were the ones that did the most accessible version. there's nothing wrong with being a gateway band. plus kurt was always very open about his influences which helped many bands maintain a career to this day. i was talking to frances from the vaselines a few months ago and she told me that in many ways, they owe a lot to nirvana. for better or for worse, i discovered the vaselines through nirvana.

the hair metal thing? yeah, i think nirvana just put the final nail in the coffin. but hair metal was dying at that point. the genre had became over-saturated. at one point, it feels like they were just pulling rando's off the street, giving them a makeover and a ghost writer. people get tired if that's all their exposed to. the genre had got so out of hand with the stage shows, cheesy songs, objectifying lyrics and all that other stuff that it was time for a change. look at a bon jovi live show then look at a nirvana live show from the same era. yeah, it was basically like any punk/alternative show of the era, but if you were a suburban kid who's never been to a show and thought "oh they must all be like the living on a prayer video" can you imagine how your mind would be blown?

there's also the "rockstar" factor, i know this is going to hurt some feelings from both sides BUT kurt had an anti-rockstar image, but that's still a rockstar image, for better or worse. that's weirdly something i feel rock music is missing. those big personalities who can break through into the mainstream. as much as music is important, image and charisma also matter. i've seen some people say joe talbot - idles has that ability to break through as a mainstream rockstar and he is a great frontman...... but i don't think that's ever going to be the case. not to pull the age card BUT i think most the current big names in rock are a little too old, i'm including myself in that. i'm 30 and i feel very out of touch with "the youth" i was having a sammich a few days ago in city center and seeing all the alt kids hanging outside the museum made me feel super old because 15 years ago, i was one of them...... but one of them did like my "can i borrow a feeling" badge. good to see a classic simpsons fan out there.

as for foo fighters and a lot of the "current" popular alternative music, it's mostly old shit. i've said this before but go on websites like loudwire and see how many new artists they cover...... it's usually pretty just bands from 10+ years ago, this is meant to be the website to keep upto date with modern rock music/culture and they just keep chatting about what corey taylor said that week or dave grohl ate for brekfast that morning. i don't blame websites like loudwire for covering that kinda drama, but it feels like they could talk about some recent acts just as much. as much as i hate MGK, he's getting attention and chart success, at what cost? who knows BUT he's doing it.

i also find it funny that the narrative was "nirvana came along and killed all the hair metal/arena rock bands" when foo fighters, queens of the stone age and a lot of those bands have become arena rock bands. what 15 year old has £120 to spend on tickets to see foo fighters? that's if they actually play a fucking show, it's mainly festivals. what parent would let their kid go to a festival?

sorry, i know i went off on a tangent there but it was an important one i feel.

so, yeah..... happy 30th birthday nevermind. you made alternative culture popular and accessible for better or worse but ya did good.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by JSett » Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:47 pm

mbene085 wrote:
Fri Sep 24, 2021 1:48 pm

Come to think of it, Dave Grohl is probably the youngest/last active artist producing original music who could be called a "rock god" or "rock star," and his most influential album was this one, 30 years ago.
I've said it before but it's always worth repeating. That incessant smiler Grohl has been making money puppeteering the decaying corpse of Cobain for far too long now and needs to stop. Please stop, Dave. Please.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by natthu » Sun Sep 26, 2021 12:13 am

Smells Like Teen Spirit blew my mind when I first heard it. I had never really noticed guitar as an instrument in its own right before that.
I always loved listening to music but Nevermind, and Pearl Jam's Ten, were the reasons I wanted to learn guitar and play music myself.

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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by ThePearDream » Sun Sep 26, 2021 9:21 am

I was a month shy of my twelfth birthday and had just started the 7th grade. It wasn't mind blowing as much as it was refreshing. Even at 9 and 10 years old I knew that the hair metal and pop that had been all over Mtv was bullshit. I wasn't old enough yet to have explored the underground though. So I was pretty much in the right place for Nevermind to quickly become the center of my universe. Hell, I lived on the coast of Northern California and even had a decent amount of flannel in my closet already

So, yeah Nevermind was a pretty big deal to me. Incesticide was the Nirvana "album" I listened to the most as a teen though, followed by Bleach. I'm pretty sure I bought In Utero the week it came out.

Processing your hero's suicide when you're 14, was probably the more impactful thing though. That really complicates their legacy for me. I saw a kid around 11-12 years old getting off a school bus the other day, he was wearing a Nirvana shirt. I thought that was cool. He gets to just enjoy the music. Me, I have a bunch of messy emotions wrapped up in it and I rarely listen to Nirvana anymore.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by Larry Mal » Sun Sep 26, 2021 10:33 am

Yeah, Incesticide! Still by far the best thing Nirvana ever did. Fun new wave music.

I had already discovered the Stooges and shit so Nirvana seemed like overly polished MTV people, but I could never deny that Nevermind was a great album. That being said, it sure got played out pretty quickly. I was done with the Nirvana thing but then Incesticide came out.

I loved that album like crazy. I was totally into Nirvana, buying rarities bootlegs and shit. I loved their cover of D7 and it got me to check out the Wipers as soon as I could.

Then they ruined it with In Utero. In Utero is actually a great album, but you'd never know if from the awful first singles that came out.

"Rape Me" is dreadful, rock star whining, boring, dull and I guess at the time it wasn't known by everyone how cringeworthy a rich guy using rape as a metaphor for his problems with his successful music career was (although it was gross to me even at the time), but fuck, it's deeply excruciating now. I hate that song.

"Heart Shaped Box" isn't quite as bad, but it's awful, boring, plodding, with a subject matter of no interest to anyone except the guy who wrote it.

So I wrote that album off immediately, later people played it for me and I came to discover that literally every other song on that album is better than the first singles that came from it. Go figure.

I mean, "Serve the Servants" kicks off with him singing "Teenage angst has paid off well... now I'm bored and old," which shows that they still had a good sense of humor there which was not at all apparent on those other two awful songs.

I never listen to Nirvana anymore. Isn't it funny how that happens?
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by marqueemoon » Sun Sep 26, 2021 11:00 am

To me what makes Nevermind interesting to me is the tension between the rawness of the material and the slickness of the presentation. The strength of the melodies and hooks is why it’s held up so well.

A lot of people like to make the claim that Nirvana “killed hair metal”, but to me sonically the mixes on Nevermind borrow pretty heavily from the mainstream metal playbook.

Can’t say I’ve listened to it a ton, and if making a list of favorite albums Nevermind would not be on it. It made an huge impact on my life as musician though. I was 18 and just starting college when it came out and had bought a bass with money from a summer job. Nevermind gave a shot in the arm to the little music scene in Colombia, MO at the perfect time.

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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by HNB » Sun Sep 26, 2021 11:51 am

I think from the perspective of trying to make new wave punk that Kurt did well. It served to help elevate the lesser known bands at the time that he was a fan of and people who influenced him. It sounded like in interviews that after Nevermind and Incesticide that he struggled making new song lyrics. He used to just easily put random thoughts and words together for his music. Once he got to In Utero he had started making songs that were inspired by stories or poetry he was in to. That makes me think a lot of how Ben Gibbard often writes. It also sounds like towards the end he felt like he was just phoning it in and regurgitating what people seemed to be in to. (Like ACDC they had a formula that worked and was popular.) He wanted to try something else. I wish we had been able to see what that could have been. It might have sucked, but I feel bad that he felt trapped into making the same stuff over and over. Not saying he wasn't happy with what music he made, but it sounds like his heart wasn't in it anymore. I can kind of understand breaking under that. You go from going to small punk shows to arenas where there are dad's with their kids there and start to feel like a sham.

I had my own microscopic version of this helping run a Anime convention in Seattle. When I started, anime was unknown and had a small following of fansubbers and such importing stuff from Japan. I felt a connection to these people early on who loved what I loved. We were running a couple thousand people convention and it seemed like a fun gathering I looked forward to each year. Then Toonami hit and Crunchyroll and Anime became so common and widespread that now we were seeing over twenty thousand people. I got to do opening and closing ceremonies for many years. People yelled my name and would want to get a picture with me in the halls and it just felt weird. I didn't know these people. Also seeing people online making me into someone I wasn't and growing haters just soured it for me and I had to step away. I never did it to be in front of thousands of people and for random people I never met wanting to talk to me like they knew me got really awkward. I just wanted to lay low in the background. Some people would love that. It just wasn't for me. I felt like I let a bunch of people down by leaving, but it was making me hate that stuff and I didn't want it to end that way. I wanted to leave while there was still love left.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by s_mcsleazy » Sun Sep 26, 2021 11:58 am

HNB wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 11:51 am


I had my own microscopic version of this helping run a Anime convention in Seattle. When I started, anime was unknown and had a small following of fansubbers and such importing stuff from Japan. I felt a connection to these people early on who loved what I loved. We were running a couple thousand people convention and it seemed like a fun gathering I looked forward to each year. Then Toonami hit and Crunchyroll and Anime became so common and widespread that now we were seeing over twenty thousand people. I got to do opening and closing ceremonies for many years. People yelled my name and would want to get a picture with me in the halls and it just felt weird. I didn't know these people. Also seeing people online making me into someone I wasn't and growing haters just soured it for me and I had to step away. I never did it to be in front of thousands of people and for random people I never met wanting to talk to me like they knew me got really awkward. I just wanted to lay low in the background. Some people would love that. It just wasn't for me. I felt like I let a bunch of people down by leaving, but it was making me hate that stuff and I didn't want it to end that way. I wanted to leave while there was still love left.
quick off topic but hazel did a great video about an infamous sub/translation from the late 80's or 90's. you might know this story but if you don't, might be a good watch.
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Re: Happy 30th Birthday, Nevermind...

Post by shoule79 » Sun Sep 26, 2021 12:56 pm

I was 12 when I first heard Teen Spirit and it changed me immediately. I grew up listening to hard rock radio, mostly AC/DC, GnR, Queen, Boston, etc, and also liked the stuff i'd hear on the college radio like the Cure, Depeche Mode, REM, Echo and the Bunnymen, and New Order. I like the guitar but never felt comfortable with the hard rock overall and didn't really connect with it. I think Faith no More was the only "rock" group that really resonated with me to the same level as the lighter stuff did.

Then came Nirvana. The light bulb went off over my head. The energy, guitar playing, all of it was what I had been looking for and hearing in my head. Right after Nevermind I bought Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains albums, and tried my first attempt to learn guitar. By the time In Utero came out I was into Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, MBV and the Butthole Surfers, and the guitar thing had stuck.

There are a few moments in my life that changed me, and that afternoon listening to Nevermind in my cousins room in its entirety on a dubbed cassette was one of them.

After Kurt died, I got reactionary to Nirvana, to the point where my old In Utero shirt had "I Hate" scribbled above Nirvana. The crass commercialization of his suicide and preppie kids suddenly wearing flannel bothered me to no end. To this day I can't listen to any of Unplugged because I remember hearing so much of it. As I aged out of teenage angst, I got over all that. I can listen to Nevermind now and appreciate it for what it was, a really slick sounding rock record with lots of great songs. Without it I wouldn't have gotten into punk, alt and indie music.

I think it still stands. I play music for my kids all the time, and 99% of the time they are indifferent, or downright hostile. With both as they grew up, they heard Nevermind and perked up and asked me about Nirvana, and became fans. I put faith in their child's naivete with music and generally find that if its something that's really good they will tell me. One loves grunge stuff like Soundgarden and STP, but also Big Star, Teenage Fanclub and the Dolls. The other likes Elton John, the Butthole Surfers and hip hop. Both love Nirvana.

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