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    Originally posted by Bruno

    I wasn't just referring to 80s hard rock, I tend to view the entire pop-culture mainstream of that decade as shot through with inauthenticity, and I think Metallica and Nirvana did too. Not just the music but the whole music industry, the way it did business, and you can also watch the most popular 80s TV and movies and reach the same conclusion. That's what the 90s alternative/indie movement drew its life blood from. 90s grunge and indie rock got credit for breaking the spell of 80s phoniness,
    As I've said before, I largely agree with Andrew Potter (check out The Authenticity Hoax) that "authenticity" doesn't make a lot of sense as a concept in these contexts. How do you know when you're being really real? And yet, I find that inauthenticity does seem to make sense. We all know when we're faking it. I haven't been able to come up with a really clever-sounding explanation for that.

    Perhaps that's what you mean about 80s pop culture. Lots of heavily produced stuff. Lots of money spent on image and a lot of those images were all the same. Everything on TV was similar to five other shows on TV. The way to get a hit record was to have it on the soundtrack of a big movie and then the video on MTV had bits from the movie. As the Chart Music guys have explained., it all went bad around the time of Live Aid. I don't know if it was especially inauthentic, but it certainly was derivative, lifeless, and boring. College music/alternative music was all about trying to actually feel something, even if it came off a bit maudlin or overwrought.

    Certainly, the early 90s featured a lot of backlash to the perceived phoniness of the 80s. And a lot of good came out of that in music and film.

    But that got old too. I recall in college feeling like the pressure to "be yourself" was crushing. There was a lot of navel-gazing and concern about "selling out," which just got really tedious very quickly.

    Recall that in Reality Bites, the quintessential film about young Gen X people in the early 90s (which I was then), Winona Ryder gets mad that Ben Stiller's character who actually cares about her makes her documentary too MTV-esque so she ends up with the more "real" Ethan Hawke character who, while certainly "keeping it real" and doing what he really wants to do, is also a total asshole and treats her badly. Of course, many women I know say that's exactly what they did at that age in that time-period.

    But it didn't take long for authenticity to be packaged and sold like any other artifice. We had that whole run of MTV Unplugged shows. Some of those - especially Nirvana's - were good because the songs were good. But the whole thing just dripped with authenticity-mongering, to steal Potters term (at least, I think he made that up). And, of course, that was the dawn of "reality TV" which we all know now isn't any much more grounded in "reality" than Star Trek. And then we elected it President. Fuck.


    Originally posted by Bruno
    80s alternative metal didn't get enough credit, despite how heavily and obviously indebted grunge was to metal. You could also mention a band like Black Flag for pushing punk in new directions in the 80s, but we tend to talk about punk as a short fad that was supplanted by new wave. Anyway punk and metal are very closely related musically.
    That's probably true, though I'm not familiar with enough of those 80s metal bands to say. I suspect that a lot of what got called grunge, or evolved into grunge, were bands that loved metal but were embarrassed by the Spinal Tappy elements of metal - the costumes, the dumb satan stuff, the hair spray, etc. Alice in Chains, Helmet... I'm sure you could name many more. Metallica might not even have been regarded as metal if they had shaved their heads and called themselves something without "metal" in the name.


    Originally posted by Bruno
    Yeah, the musicians themselves were generally hard-working and honest. But they were virtually all compromised by the image-making machines and the unsavoriness of how business was done.
    All those VH1 Behind the Music episodes (I think that was mostly on in the 90s and early 2000s) tell that story. It makes you feel really sorry for Winger.


    Originally posted by Bruno
    I don't think I called them inauthentic (?), I called them self-regarding. You can be authentically that for sure.
    Oh I see.

    Did you see Montage of Heck? That explains a lot.

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      Very much enjoying this thread. I presume someone's already done Stereophonics?

      How about Madness? I mean, bloody awful, all of it. I realise I'll get pelters for that, but really, we're all grown-ups round here. Nobody ever needs to listen to that drivel ever again. I couldn't get on with it when I was a teenager and still do.

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        Now that really is madness...

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          I fuckin hate Suggs. That Cecilia cover he did in the 90s needed shooting

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            You're breaking his heart.

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              Originally posted by KGR View Post

              How about Madness? I mean, bloody awful, all of it
              Not all of it - "Embarrassment" and "Grey Day" were good - but most of it, yes.

              The "nutty" version of The Beatles.

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                You're shaking his confidence daily.

                I understand that you could find Suggs irritating, I understand that you could not like that particular brand of ska/two-tone but that's one of the most out there calls yet on this thread.

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                  John Lennon as a solo artist. Even as a Beatles obsessive young fool, Walls and Bridges could induce illness in me. Whatever Gets You Through The Night stinks of shit booze shit drugs and shit clothes. And he seems such a horrible cunt without the Beatles reigning him in. Mawkish or full of fatuous venom.

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                    Ok - go with me here:

                    Yuppie/excess was the antidote to hippie/love, and grunge/slacker was the antidote to that. And Nirvana epitomised the grunge ethos in the most profound way.

                    Also, at least in my experience, only dudes like Metallica but everyone can dig Nirvana.

                    Does this mean Nirvana wins?

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                      Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                      John Lennon as a solo artist. Even as a Beatles obsessive young fool, Walls and Bridges could induce illness in me. Whatever Gets You Through The Night stinks of shit booze shit drugs and shit clothes. And he seems such a horrible cunt without the Beatles reigning him in. Mawkish or full of fatuous venom.
                      But Mother? C’mon man. Mawkish or otherwise, he puts it out there on that one.

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                        Yeah, Plastic Ono Band has some good stuff. But Proper Solo 70s Lennon? Fuckin Dogshit.

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                          You're rigging it by defining Proper Solo 70s Lennon in a way that excludes his best album. POB is a 'band' in name only and solo Lennon in all other respects.

                          In addition, 'Instant Karma' is better than a lot of late Beatles stuff.

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                            Agreed on Instant Karma. Ok, 70s Lennon post plastic Ono band is shit so.

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                              Originally posted by 3 Colours Red View Post
                              You're shaking his confidence daily.

                              I understand that you could find Suggs irritating, I understand that you could not like that particular brand of ska/two-tone but that's one of the most out there calls yet on this thread.
                              They did the New Years Eve gig on BBC2. I switched it on just to see a couple of minutes and ended up watching the lot. I'm not going to go out and buy tickets to see them, but I wouldn't turn down the opportunity if someone gave me a ticket.

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                                I'd interpret their near equivalent plays on steaming services as testament that lots of people still find Nirvana relevant, almost a quarter century after Kurt's death. Will that be the case with Metallica? Hard to know, really.

                                On another note I'm going to nominate Morrissey. Not just because he's a quasifascist dillweed, but because his music is actually maudlin self regarding shite. All of it.

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                                  Originally posted by Bruno

                                  I would say that metal has been more historically influential, or at least popular, than grunge, which came to epitomize and be firmly dated to the early-mid 90s, much like disco epitomized the late 70s.
                                  You’ll love this:
                                  https://youtu.be/qR7U1HIhxfA

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                                    I don't quite get this continued 'metal vs grunge'-scenario. It's like comparing a continent to a city. Grunge (if we must categorise it thus) was a small-ish and relatively short-lived subsidiary of post-punk music which, in some cases, overlapped with metal. Metal itself is an entire genre with a hundred off-shoots of its own.

                                    I'd still however argue the case for Nirvana's broader initial impact on those retrograde metal acts of the late eighties over that of Metallica, mainly because they (and one or two others) actually filled that same commercial space - albeit briefly. As we've already ascertained, despite selling truckloads, Metallica simply didn't want that. That isn't so much a comment on their ability, craft or whatever as it is an observation based around overall public perception. I 'personally' favoured the grunge bands, but that's just my take: previously I'd been into The Pixies, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, The Gun Club - and can definitely see how Nirvana in particular might fit that lineage.

                                    Metallica have done stuff I've quite liked, but in terms of that (early) era's thrash metal, I preferred Slayer. (Probably because Peel played them quite a bit.)

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                                      This thread had me listening to Ride the Lightning today. What a great album. Doom!

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                                        Originally posted by Bruno
                                        The conversation drifted into metal-vs-grunge but my initial suggestion was only that Metallica were/are a bigger band than Nirvana. I think the overlap between metal and grunge is greater than you seem to suggest.
                                        Well, that's open to conjecture: I think the bands that were originally* dubbed as such - Nirvana, Green River/Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr, Melvins, Screaming Trees, etc - were all far more influenced by punk/post-punk, with several of those lumped into the category like Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and Stone Temple Pilots probably owing more to metal. One thing all had in common was an apparent detestation of the expression 'grunge' - which suggests that they themselves didn't really see it as much more than a media catch-all. (The majority of the bands that then cashed in on the genre could arguably be classed as 'grunge-metal'.)

                                        (*The term was being used by the UK press in the mid/late-eighties: I can even recall the Jesus & Mary Chain being labelled thus when their Automatic was issued in 1989.)

                                        Viz this 'who is the bigger band?'-continuum (which personally I don't think matters a jot), it would be pretty hard to argue against Metallica. They've sold more records overall and have lasted something like thirty years longer than Nirvana did.

                                        Originally posted by Bruno
                                        Metallica didn't want what? Not sure what you mean. My argument for their initial importance hinged on their being against hair metal and corporate rock well before Nirvana appeared. They were an alternative before "alternative," with a quite similar point of view, and the argument that they were less important depends (imo) on cordoning off metal as somehow irrelevant or ancillary to the "commercial space" you're referring to. That commercial space was largely a concoction of the corporate music industry, whose business model was "what's going to be popular this month, it's time to throw away last month." Hair metal was the answer to "how to make metal mainstream," but metal has never needed to be mainstream, it has always had enough fans to sustain it who don't care about or who actively reject the mainstream, and that in itself is important -- especially when viewed in the light of today's fragmented musical landscape, when a single commercial space no longer dominates the entire business.
                                        Metallica 'didn't want to play the game' - as we've already established. Despite everything that Kurt may have said, it was apparent that Nirvana were fairly at home in the spotlight - or at least their media profile suggested this. As Nevermind moved them into the mainstream, their commercial/image value obviously increased exponentially. And they somehow managed this while remaining an 'important' band.

                                        Metallica were clearly shifting units in eye-watering amounts, but they didn't at any point impact the public consciousness to the same extent that Nirvana did between 1991 and 1994: yer Moms and Dads knew who Cobain was, especially when their offspring were pinning photos of that very photogenic guy on their walls (and refusing to wash their clothes). It wasn't necessarily what Nirvana were 'about', but it happened - and having seen them open for Tad and Mudhoney in 1989, I was mightily surprised to witness that.

                                        But, to get this straight, I agree with you regarding Metallica's standpoint - which did indeed pre-date Nirvana et al by some good while - however, I'm not sure about the phrase 'alternative before alternative', given that non-conformist bands existed way before they did. But anyways...

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                                          Originally posted by KGR View Post
                                          How about Madness? I mean, bloody awful, all of it. I realise I'll get pelters for that, but really, we're all grown-ups round here. Nobody ever needs to listen to that drivel ever again. I couldn't get on with it when I was a teenager and still do.
                                          Christ...what next? The Clash? Madness were and sometimes still are marvelous. The Liberty of Norton Folgate was a wholly unexpected late-career high point. Forget all the latter-day covers and shit; they had a double-album's worth of great tunes over the years. A lot of fluff, but plenty of brilliance.

                                          Glad I talked you out of that....

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                                            As soon as this thread started I assumed that every well-known band or artist, other than perhaps the Beatles, the Fall, Joy Division and Bowie, would get a mention at some point.
                                            Last edited by Nocturnal Submission; 16-05-2019, 15:05.

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                                              Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Post
                                              As soon as this thread started I assumed that every well-known band or artist, other than perhaps the Beatles, the Fall and Joy Division and Bowie, would get a mention at some point.
                                              You'll have to take The Fall out of that list now...

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                                                Hah! Is it worth me swapping Kraftwerk in, I wonder.

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                                                  Originally posted by johnr View Post

                                                  You'll have to take The Fall out of that list now...
                                                  Hmm...Fall-friendly songs for hitherto non-lovers: Edinburgh Man, Entitled, Taurig, Shoulder Pads, Bill Is Dead, And This Day?

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                                                    Originally posted by Bruno
                                                    Yeah I meant that comment as an aside and didn't expect it to turn into a debate.
                                                    Okay, was just taking it as I read it.

                                                    Originally posted by Bruno
                                                    A more mundane way of phrasing your first point about "impacting the public consciousness" would be that Nirvana got more media attention than Metallica, which is definitely true. That's in part because the mainstream media tends to just ignore metal, literally as though to pretend it isn't happening. There was always a big disconnect between the amount of mainstream attention and the size (and loyalty) of the following.
                                                    Well, as we've established, that rather tended to depend upon what 'type' of metal: from NWOBHM onwards, hard-rock acts seemed (to me. at least) to get a lot more attention than they had previously from the mainstream. Obviously, a lot of this was at the 'pretty-boy'-end (Bon Jovi, glam/hair metal, etc) - which was where the hits were. Metallica, Slayer, Sepultura, etc, weren't daytime-friendly and therefore weren't going to cross over at any time, so, no, the media largely shunned them - as it did most post-punk/hardcore. (Metallica must've made a few promos, though, since I can recall seeing one or two on The Chart Show, MTV, etc.)

                                                    Originally posted by Bruno
                                                    There were non-conformist bands before Metallica, but my point was that 90s alternative and Metallica et al were arrayed against the same enemy, at a time when the corporateness of the music industry, of how hits and hit artists were made (in tandem with the MTV craze) was really crystallizing. Those forces were all evident already in the 70s, but had progressed to the point of absurdity, or a breaking point, in the 80s.
                                                    Yep, true enough. It doesn't compare with how the land lies today, however: I mean, at least back then, pop/R&B/soul fans would've been 'aware' of a Metallica.

                                                    Originally posted by Sporting View Post
                                                    Hmm...Fall-friendly songs for hitherto non-lovers: Edinburgh Man, Entitled, Taurig, Shoulder Pads, Bill Is Dead, And This Day?
                                                    LA, Creep..?

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