Irredeemable Artists

[Patrick Thistle]

I disagreed with his characterization of Metallica as more of the same, and am generally on board with the characterization of Nirvana here. Having said that Metallica seem like a bigger deal overall doesn't mean I think Nirvana weren't a big influential deal.

Both bands represent evolutionary jumps, neither made the jump in isolation.

Someone makes the jump first. And some people jump further. I think Nirvana jumped further. faster, and to more popular acclaim. In 1991 Metallica broke through onto the chart. They were already 8 or 9 years old and 4 albums in to their journey. Nirvana were 4 years old and 2 albums in, and seemed bigger, at least on the ground. When the Unplugged album cam out, Metallica's moment in the sun was already over and the masses had moved on. Kurt was dead and the Unplugged album was a huge deal.

You have to mention the other grunge bands as you have to mention the other thrash bands. Grunge and thrash were both derivative. The template for pretty much all subsequent popular music was largely in place by the 1970s. As a musical evolution, grunge didn't and doesn't strike me as anything earth-shattering,

And Metallica did strike you as earth shattering?

a fusion of certain punk and metal sounds that ended up recalling some late 60s heavy bands like Blue Cheer. I found it heavily image-dependent at the time as a rejection of 80s pop culture, and I think the image tends to influence how people perceive the music,

Unavoidable. And Metallica had an image, otherwise why did every Kerrang poster of them have Kirk or James giving the finger? Their anti-image, if you will, was their image.

which consisted almost entirely of familiar sounds rearranged.

All music is.

Metallica on the other hand (along with some others) brought a new level of virtuosity and complexity to metal, so I'd give them the nod for raising musical standards. Grunge inspired a lot of shit imitators; if you wanted to imitate Metallica, you needed to have your shit together.

Well that's your opinion.. Their breakthrough black album is the one people think of when they think of Metallica. But their sound had evolved considerably from the records they released in the 80s. They are skillful musicians, no doubt. But so was Kurt, and so is Dave Grohl.

[Patrick Thistle]

****MASSIVELY EDITED****

Both "Alive" and "Ten" were released around a month - six weeks before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Nevermind" respectively and were already hits.

For me, the Seattle scene was because of the pair of them at the same time. One was not following the other.

I'm basing this on my experience of school in the provinces in 1991, but awareness of Pearl Jam definitely followed awareness of Nirvana and the reach was nowhere near as as great..

[Patrick Thistle]

Going back to the record sales thing. It's a bit warped when we talk about 80s/90s records because of the ubiquity of home taping and copying. As 15 year olds, we all had copies of Nevermind, but few of us had bought it - mine was taped by my friend Tim, who introduced me to a lot of "choons" before he got into dance music and our tastes therefore diverged. I had a proper copy of Metallica;s black album because my Mum bought it for me for Christmas. My metal-loving mates had, erm, copies of it.

(None of us had copies of Garth Brooks, genuine or pirated.)

[Patrick Thistle]

If you're going to being in record sales, again, Metallica has sold far more than Nevermind. You'd also want to factor in touring, where Metallica brings huge to epic sized crowds. I don't know about "moment in the sun" viewed as having singles currently on the charts, because bands stay relevant long after they're no longer on the charts.

I'm speaking of a small sample, about 60-70 kids in a school in a sleepy English shire town, but the ubiquity of piracy among that social circle makes me look at album sales wide-eyed. But I'm pretty confident Nevermind was pirated a lot more than the black album.

Metallica have had a longevity in terms of touring where they have a natural advantage to Nirvana, of course, in that they can tour, and continue releasing records. But the Foo Fighters tours are pretty big when they come over here.

My Metallica cassette died a few years back. I got the CD for Christmas last year (27 years after I got it for Christmas in 1991). That doesn't really mean anything except that I liked that album.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I'll give it a whirl tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

I think that it was Three Days that I was thinking of, but it's only really the first minute-and-a-half that I adored, basically until Farrell's vocals really start to kick in.

[Lang Spoon]

Yeah his voice is v much an acquired taste.

[Fussbudget]

Sorry to pass on my shite earworms to everyone, but every time this thread pops back up on the front page all I can hear is EMF singing "you're irredeemable"

[WOM]

The things you say...

[Benjm]

Sorry to pass on my shite earworms to everyone, but every time this thread pops back up on the front page all I can hear is EMF singing "you're irredeemable"

No apology needed; I think it's now going to dislodge the Something Inside So Strong that I picked up on the Mundane Thread.

[Patrick Thistle]

Ha! Sara Cox played EMF on the afternoon drive show yesterday. I turned the volume up.

[Jah Womble]

Not really a band with a large body of work behind it. File away with Sandi Thom and Chesney Hawkes.

Oh, I'm not pitching them for the overall thread - Kevin S was after a band (other than Bush) that ripped off Cobain and co.

Stiltskin were clearly the sitting duck.

[Jah Womble]

I would say that Staind, Creed, Live etc were riding Pearl Jam's coattails rather than Nirvana.

Yep, I was citing those bands as having been heavily influenced by that scene as a whole.

[Kevin S]

Just decided to look at the Spotify stat and it says:

Nirvana: 12.56 million monthly listens
Metallica: 12.54 million monthly listens

Thinking of this in terms of natural disasters (it's a frame of reference I'm sure music journalists often turn to, and of course they are ways of 'changing the landscape') I'm likening Nirvana to something intense but short lived, like an earthquake, and Metallica to something like those Australian forest fires that seem to last forever.

[Kevin S]

Guns and Roses, incidentally, are at 15.5 million...

Thanks for the other examples. I'll be honest I've never drawn a line from Nirvana to Radiohead but then I've always eschewed the Pablo Honey stuff which never really grabbed me. And nu-metal bands like Linkin Park I would think are more influenced by metal than grunge.

[Hot Pepsi]

"Authenticity" doesn't really mean anything in this context and insofar as it does it is, Metallica don't have any special claim to it. They certainly dropped a lot of the trappings and nonsense of other metal bands at the time and are/were a pioneer of that particular kind of metal, but it was still just an evolution of something that had come before. Nirvana were also pushing ideas that had come before. I don't know how to measure "originality" but I'd guess they're about the same on that scale.

Metallica have definitely nurtured their "brand" over the years and they clearly do give a fuck. If they didn't, they wouldn't still be doing it and playing arenas. Nirvana acted like they didn't really want to be there at all by the second album and were so "self-regarding" that the bassist quit the business and the lead singer quit this planet.

And if you don't think Metallica are self-regarding then I question if you've ever seen any interviews with them. (I know you have so how you came away from that thinking they're not really impressed with themselves, I don't know).

[Hot Pepsi]

Yep, I was citing those bands as having been heavily influenced by that scene as a whole.

It got bad pretty fast, but I like a lot of the "original" grunge bands like Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, etc, as well as some of the stuff that influenced them like The Sonics.

[3 Colours Red]

Not like me to bring this firmly back on topic but... Black Eyed Peas.

[Jah Womble]

Thanks for the other examples. I'll be honest I've never drawn a line from Nirvana to Radiohead but then I've always eschewed the Pablo Honey stuff which never really grabbed me. And nu-metal bands like Linkin Park I would think are more influenced by metal than grunge.

Possibly, yes - but the self-regarding 'poor me'-aesthetic had been translated into a major commercial dollar by some of those grunge bands that preceded them. (By which, I'd venture mainly the crap ones - like the aforementioned Bush.)

I'm not entirely convinced by the Radiohead lineage, either.

[Lang Spoon]

My Iron Lung is a Heart Shaped Box rip off.

[Hot Pepsi]

The problem with the 80s mainstream hard rock wasn't so much that it was "inauthentic" but that it was just dumb and boring. Lots of stuff that is calculated and "artificial" can be very interesting - any movie with a script, for example - but I don't see that in 80s hard rock. I don't really see that in metal in general. I've tried to forget all the associations I have with metal and terrible people I knew in school and listen to it with fresh ears. I've found that like the same Black Sabbath songs that everyone does and a few Metallica songs, and maybe a half dozen from Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, but mostly it just leaves me cold. And I've never got the appeal of the satanic shit or rooting for the bad guy.

There may have been some bands that were only doing big hair, spandex, misogyny, etc. because their manager told them it would make them rich and help them meet women who wanted to sleep with them. Or they wanted to be "BIG" for its own sake. I think that's what you mean by "inauthentic." Insofar as that's what it means, Metallica, to their credit, were not that. At least not in the 80s. But neither were Nirvana. They had no plan to be massive.

This is off the point but it might be worth observing that, outside of KISS and a few others, there was not as much of that calculated commercialism in 80s rock as we might like to imagine. Based on the documentaries and interviews I've seen, the people in that scene and the bands making that shit did so because they honestly thought it was cool. And besides, even if it is just an act to get rich and famous, as Patton Oswalt has explained, there are worse crimes.


With Nirvana I sensed more playing to the camera, but whatever. The "not wanting to be there" act was to me their most annoying and self-regarding aspect. If you don't want to be there, fucking don't. Without wanting to discount Cobain's suffering or be reductive, suicide can be seen as the crucible of self-regard.

They were more interested in videos than a lot of bands of their ilk. That's true. But that doesn't make them "inauthentic." It just means they liked videos. It's a perfectly cromulent art form.

They wanted to be there for Bleach and Nevermind and maybe for In Utero. But there was never going to be another album. Not soon anyway. Certainly by the time I saw them play in 1994, it was clear that it was winding down. They still sounded good, but even from way in the back of William & Mary Hall where I was sitting, I could feel the sadness. Especially compared to the vibe from The Breeders who'd opened.

Nirvana wanted to make music and pay their bills. They just didn't want to be that famous. I believe the quote was that they hoped they could be as big as the Pixies. It's very hard - perhaps impossible - to be exactly as famous as you'd like to be. Most bands undershoot the mark and a few way overshoot the mark, but not many get what they really wanted.

I don't think suicide is the "crucible of self-regard" in the way I'm talking about it. I'm talking about it more the Piers Morgan kinda way. Of course, I don't think Metallica are in that league of twatdom. Few are.


The band that takes the biscuit for playing up the "not wanting to be there" to the point of tedium was Smashing Pumpkins. I like a lot of their music, but, my God, is Billy Corrigan a grade A douche-canoe.

[Lang Spoon]

I caught "an Audience with the Black Eyed Peas" thing on ITV over Christmas. Presented by a gushing Joanna Lumley (who I really dislike since the Garden Bridge shite), and featuring Tom Fuckin Jones and some wally from The Script. One of the worst most bizarre things I've ever seen. If Lumley was even half sincere she fuckin thinks the pap rap wanks are up there with the Beatles.

[Hot Pepsi]

Possibly, yes - but the self-regarding 'poor me'-aesthetic had been translated into a major commercial dollar by some of those grunge bands that preceded them. (By which, I'd venture mainly the crap ones - like the aforementioned Bush.)

I'm not entirely convinced by the Radiohead lineage, either.

Everything Zen is a good song.

I like the early, now unfashionable, Radiohead. Haven't really made much effort with them in 20 years.

[3 Colours Red]

I caught "an Audience with the Black Eyed Peas" thing on ITV over Christmas. Presented by a gushing Joanna Lumley (who I really dislike since the Garden Bridge shite), and featuring Tom Fuckin Jones and some wally from The Script. One of the worst most bizarre things I've ever seen. If Lumley was even half sincere she fuckin thinks the pap rap wanks are up there with the Beatles.

Yeah, that. With a fucking cherry on top.

[Benjm]

Not like me to bring this firmly back on topic but... Black Eyed Peas.

When Prince did his 21 night stint in Greenwich, I went one night with one of my brothers. There had been a lot of coverage of the various stars who had joined Prince on stage during the run so in the pub beforehand we were batting round who the worst possible guest could be that evening. We settled upon Will.I.Am as the absolute rock bottom option. Later that evening...

[Snake Plissken]

That's almost as bad as Peter Kay making an "impromptu surprise" appearance at an Eric Clapton gig in Manchester. With accompanying double shovel.

Hmm. Thread idea.