20 years since Nevermind... Really?

http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=spin+presents+newermind

anyway, there's some good covers. so go to grooveshark and, uh, listen to them.

I dont get this Nirvana worship... I mean, why hasnt there been anything else in the meantime that has had the same impact? Instead we get shit like Nickleback or Coldplay, or whatever is fashionable this month.

It's time, y'know, let it go, find something new.

I don't worship Nirvana, but I do think they did a lot for music, and for society in general. I can appreciate this album... But I'm not going to buy it. And you're right, we get a lot of crap music these days, which is probably why bands like Nirvana are still so stuck in people's hearts and music collections. Nothing to replace it with just yet.

There's a lot of good music out there, if you're prepared to listen.

Yep. I'd go so far as to say that no era had better or worse music than any other, this one included.

I think you've all missed my point... its not the quality of music I'm on about, it's that nothing challenging to the status quo has come through since grunge slayed 80's MOR boredom, or the way punk/new wave killed 70's bloated prog rock, etc...

20 years is a long time to be self satisfied.

Rap/hip-hop/R&B/reggae/"black music" took over almost completely for a while there, and has now gone pretty damn stale. Now everything's dance/house-based.

And it's all pretty safe... I think maybe with the times being what they are, something with a real edge will finally rear it's head. Or maybe the way music is distributed these days, it's too hard for an act to breakthrough the way of Nirvana, or the Sex Pistols, or even the Beatles did.

Yeah, there's a lot of hard edged music out there, but it's all niche market. I want something to grab the mainstream by the bollocks and twist hard. I cant see a Sunn O))) or a Dillinger Escape Plan or a Dimur Borgu doing this to the mainstream. I think the closest we've had in recent years was the White Stripes.

Radiohead briefly seemed like they could seize the mantle to me, but they rapidly moved in a direction too foreign to mainstream audiences to have staying power.

I think a lot of music with a hard political/social edge isn't subtle enough to hit the mainstream.  Kurt certainly had a message, but I think the presentation of it through the music was ambiguous enough that it slipped through.  I also think that in the last decade Americans have become less open to criticism than possibly any time in history.  So cultural conservatism + lack of subtlety = nothing breaking through.

Also keyed into the cultural conservatism, I think that mainstream audiences haven't really been ready to listen to anything particularly challenging.  Even when hip hop was holding sway, I would say many, if not most, of the biggest hits used hooks from past popular songs.

Also - the biggest reason I would say that Nirvana still holds popular imagination is because it's a moment frozen in time and a voice that's not around to comment anymore.    If Kurt had lived and kept running his mouth, I'd say it's likely Nirvana would have fallen out of favor too.

Most definitely. Dying is the best possible thing that can happen to a musician's career.

One of the biggest problems is that all of the radio stations are owned by one or two people and only play what their advertisers consider safe and proper. So, MOST new music of any sort only gets limited or nonexistent exposure to the general public. Except for mexican music, that shit is taking over around here.

All of the best music I've found has been underground. Or just not mainstream. No radio. Well, maybe college radio. I put the Pandora Radio app on my phone and even though I must constantly attend to the thumbs-up or thumbs-down"ing" of each song (on each station) to keep the station going in my desired direction, I've stumbled upon quite a few musicians that are completely new to me. Stuff that wouldn't fly for either the radio stations or the masses in the middle of po'dunk Missouri.

As far as Nirvana, I really agree that they paved some sort of new path for music. I believe Smells Like Teen Spirit came out when I was a freshmen and I listened to it a lot, and while my best friend really did worship Nirvana (while bleaching, shaving, and collecting his pubic hair in baggies and dropping acid) something about that style of music made it possible for me to explore other kinds of music as well.

I LOVE Dream Theater and old Metallica and Slayer ....
That, and Joe Satriani make for KILLER jam sessions for my at night ...

That said: thanks, Sarah; good link!

Was grunge really that revolutionary?

No, but it did remove Warrant and Poison from the radio.

So did Ace of Base.

Yeah, but I paid Ace Of Bass the attention it deserved... none at all.

Was grunge really that revolutionary?

It's hard to be a revolutionary when your genre is defined by [noembed]
apathy[/noembed]...

EDIT: Goddamit, does anyone know how to properly use noembed so it doesn't make a broken link errytime?

One of the biggest problems is that all of the radio stations are owned by one or two people and only play what their advertisers consider safe and proper. So, MOST new music of any sort only gets limited or nonexistent exposure to the general public. Except for mexican music, that shit is taking over around here.

That's why you need unplaylisted radio... like this

The 20th anniversary of "Nevermind" made me feel old.

Kinda like when I had to explain the word "cunt" to my 12 year old.

Fuck...I listened to "Nevermind" when I was 12.