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Nirvana - Over rated?


ZeromiserY

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They got me into music and I love everything they ever recorded. Very special to me personally. Love them as do many people I know so I'd say nope, not overrated at all.

Pretty much the same with me really, and I'll happily admit that. If it weren't for listening to my sisters copy of Insecticide back in primary 5, who knows what would have happened with me in regards to music.

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I think there's no doubt that their music has been propelled by Cobain's death, but I think the music they created was amazing and I don't think it could be regarded as over-rated. Nirvana released me into many other types of music and has inspired bands to create great things.

I think Nirvana would have also continued to produce brilliant records if it had not been for the death of Cobain

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I never could stand that whining depressive rubbish and the kids who listened to it.

What about the grown ups?!

Bar a song here and there I couldnt describe any of their stuff as whining or depressive. Anyone who doesnt feel or understand the magic of Nirvana has my sympathies.

I suppose the point on Cobains suicide propelling their superstardom could be true to an extent. As Dave said they were one of the biggest bands in the world at the time. Those who loved them when they were around mostly still do to this day but the kids who are into them now may not have been if he hadnt died. Who knows what might have happened.

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Ignore everything surrounding them then go and listen to them, they had great songs, they had noisy bits their music was raw and honest...

It was the first band I listened to that wasn't on the radio that had noisy bits and feedback and guitars going crazy. I dont listen to them much but I still think they were a brilliant band.

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Nirvana were a big fucking deal for me when I was in my teens, they were the first 'real' band I got into and I was just getting into them big time when Kurt killed himself.

I would never say they were over-rated. OK if you listen back to it now, some of the stuff is a bit 3-chordy and a bit angsty, but the impact they had on the music scene can't be denied. They changed the whole face of it, single handedly ridding the world of pretentious shite like Guns n Roses and all the cock rock bands from the 80s. Oh, and Roxette, which they should be thanked for.

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Guest Steven Dedalus
Ignore everything surrounding them then go and listen to them, they had great songs, they had noisy bits their music was raw and honest...

.

Ahhh....here's where I offer a different view of things. (said like a pretentious fool...)

If one ignores everything around them - the hype, the stardom, the deification of Cobain - in my opinion all you have left is a pretty good indie-rock band. I think the biggest part of Nirvana's legacy IS all the other stuff around them, not thier recorded output.

The reason we remember NIrvana (in my humble opinion) is because the industry picked up on them, they were the right band for the right time, and they made a lot of other things possible. The amount of bands that 'made it' because of NIrvana is staggering, but more importantly the number of bands that were completely re-evaluated after their impact is mind-blowing. After the success of Nirvana, bands like Husker Du, the Meat Puppets, even Sonic Youth, were seen as having been vindicated, and all of the 'underground' success they achieved was laid out for all to see.

I'm not saying I don't like Nirvana (I'm quite fond of them at times), but I feel their actual back catalogue is not as 'legendary' as it's often made out to be ('over-rated', as the title of this thread suggests...). Songs like 'Teen Sprit' and 'Heart Shaped Box' or whatever have been stripped of their power to me, and because I've heard so much other stuff, I have a tendency to look at Nirvana as a band who ripped off (in a good way) loads of bands that I really like and made some pretty decent songs. For me, Kurt Cobain doing his version of Black Francis' scream will never be as good as Black Francis doing it.

So yeah, I think they're over-rated, but they're still pretty good.

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Ahhh....here's where I offer a different view of things. (said like a pretentious fool...)

If one ignores everything around them - the hype, the stardom, the deification of Cobain - in my opinion all you have left is a pretty good indie-rock band. I think the biggest part of Nirvana's legacy IS all the other stuff around them, not thier recorded output.

The reason we remember NIrvana (in my humble opinion) is because the industry picked up on them, they were the right band for the right time, and they made a lot of other things possible. The amount of bands that 'made it' because of NIrvana is staggering, but more importantly the number of bands that were completely re-evaluated after their impact is mind-blowing. After the success of Nirvana, bands like Husker Du, the Meat Puppets, even Sonic Youth, were seen as having been vindicated, and all of the 'underground' success they achieved was laid out for all to see.

I'm not saying I don't like Nirvana (I'm quite fond of them at times), but I feel their actual back catalogue is not as 'legendary' as it's often made out to be ('over-rated', as the title of this thread suggests...). Songs like 'Teen Sprit' and 'Heart Shaped Box' or whatever have been stripped of their power to me, and because I've heard so much other stuff, I have a tendency to look at Nirvana as a band who ripped off (in a good way) loads of bands that I really like and made some pretty decent songs. For me, Kurt Cobain doing his version of Black Francis' scream will never be as good as Black Francis doing it.

So yeah, I think they're over-rated, but they're still pretty good.

Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Fair argument but it all comes down to how much you like the songs and if you don't dig them as much as you do Pixies, Husker Du etc. then that's ok (I allow this, carry on!). I dip in and out of the aforementioned influences (and yes, they were probably brought to my attention by Nirvana's existence) but none of them do anything for me compared to Nirvana.

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Ahhh....here's where I offer a different view of things. (said like a pretentious fool...)

If one ignores everything around them - the hype, the stardom, the deification of Cobain - in my opinion all you have left is a pretty good indie-rock band. I think the biggest part of Nirvana's legacy IS all the other stuff around them, not thier recorded output.

The reason we remember NIrvana (in my humble opinion) is because the industry picked up on them, they were the right band for the right time, and they made a lot of other things possible. The amount of bands that 'made it' because of NIrvana is staggering, but more importantly the number of bands that were completely re-evaluated after their impact is mind-blowing. After the success of Nirvana, bands like Husker Du, the Meat Puppets, even Sonic Youth, were seen as having been vindicated, and all of the 'underground' success they achieved was laid out for all to see.

I'm not saying I don't like Nirvana (I'm quite fond of them at times), but I feel their actual back catalogue is not as 'legendary' as it's often made out to be ('over-rated', as the title of this thread suggests...). Songs like 'Teen Sprit' and 'Heart Shaped Box' or whatever have been stripped of their power to me, and because I've heard so much other stuff, I have a tendency to look at Nirvana as a band who ripped off (in a good way) loads of bands that I really like and made some pretty decent songs. For me, Kurt Cobain doing his version of Black Francis' scream will never be as good as Black Francis doing it.

So yeah, I think they're over-rated, but they're still pretty good.

I understand where you're coming from. The only thing I'll say is I said ignore everything surrounding them because it makes no odds to the sound coming out of the speakers, it has nothing to do with the actual 'music'. The same with the comments about the industry, i'm totally unconcerned with that side of things.

I understand what your saying though, there were other bands doing this kind of thing before them that did not get the recognition that they deserved. I guess in that sense they could be seen as 'overrated' as they were not doing something completely new as a lot of people might think.

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Guest Steven Dedalus

See, they're a really difficult band for me to evaluate, cos they've got so much history to them, and they sort of defined the era.

I got into them around '93, when my best friend's big brother gave me and him a copy of "Bleach" and "Nevermind", so I suppose I've always associated them as 'someone else's music'. At the time, I was much more into the early REM stuff, and me and my friends loved that kind of stuff, and probably thought Nirvana were a bit too 'rock' for our liking (which is ironic considering REM were one of their big influences).

When Cobain died and it became big global news, for us, we sort of reacted against them, and gravitated towards stuff like Pavement, and some British stuff (yes, sadly I was a music fan at the height of Britpop, and I really liked the Bluetones, but that's a different story).

So it wasn't so much that I was reacting against Nirvana, but more that I was reacting against what I percieved they stood for, which was a self-indulgent, but strangely macho stance, that ultimately led to lots of self-pitying whilst simultaneously being very aggresive (you gotta remember that Nirvana crossed over to appeal to a lot of very suspect people...)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I do believe that they are over-rated as a band, because they never meant anything to me, and I've heard so much other stuff that was a direct influence on them that means so much more to me, but also that they represented something that I was opposed to so much. It sort of gets in the way of thinking of them as a band, ya know? They were more of a phenomenon in my eyes, and the actual music was secondary to that.

On saying that, I've delved into them again a while ago, and the thing that struck me was all the songs that I tend to forget. Stuff like "Something in the Way" and "On a Plain" are really good, but I still see the rest of it as just ok, not my thang.

But it gets ya thinking, doesn't it.

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blowing your head off is always going to propell a reaction from the media and the fans (there were a few copycat suicides as i recall). i agree that nirvana were just one of the so called 'grunge' bands the media picked up on. i always rated pearl jam as highly as what i did nirvana.

at the end of the day nirvana left us some cracking songs from weepies like 'something in the way' to all out noise fests like the wonderful 'tourettes'. i think cobain had probably peaked with 'in utero' i still doubt he would have made another record as powerful as that, i guess i kinda like the idea of its creator (yes i know they were a band but they were cobains songs and his musical tool) just a matter of months from blowing his head off.

suprised no-one has mentioned courtney love yet.... but thats another story i suppose!

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