Do you like Nirvana…?
The overlooked function of Nirvana, and indeed, the entire post-punk/grunge rock phenomenon was to entirely destroy what was left of the glam metal genre. Until the late ’80s, and even through the earliest parts of the ’90s, glam metal – or hair metal – was still heard on the radio and selling out stadiums. Poison, Motley Crue, and other bands who dominated the post-new-wave explosion were still going strong.
Nirvana’s second album, Nevermind, changed all of that. Most people forget that the much punker-sounding Nirvana album, Bleach, was actually released prior to Nevermind, though it never received much mainstream attention. This created low commercial expectations for the album, and made its surprise success in late 1991, even more amazing. Its catchy first single Smells Like Teen Spirit was dominating the radio, and although the glam-metalistas didn’t know it yet, the commercial appeal of the fuzzy, simple chords played by Kurt Cobain, would ultimately spell disaster for the entire genre of glam. The American consumer no longer wanted highly polished arena-rock-sounding albums with complicated harmony and overindulgent guitar solos played by virtuosos with permed hair.
By January 1992, Nirvana had dethroned the king of pop (Michael Jackson), and Nevermind had replaced his Dangerous at number one on the charts. It has been certified platinum ten times over, and is seen as the album that was responsible for bringing altrock to a much larger audience than ever before. Studios scrambled to sign sound-alike-bands, and Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, and many others exploded onto the scene, replacing the spandex and leather of glam with the stripped down grunge style of flannel and jeans.
Nevermind was incorrectly cited by Rolling Stone magazine as being the second most influential album of its time, being beat by Lauren Hill, and continuing Rolling Stone’s fine tradition of white-apologist-ass-kissing of any black person whose album they review.
But the enduring legacy of Nirvana was that they destroyed an entire industry, i.e. the one based around glam metal, which was selling out Madison Square Garden in the late ’80s, but which now couldn’t sell out an Olive Garden. Now, glam metal is seen as ironic at best, having lost all of its credibility to the average consumer, and being relegated to an embarrassing time of rock ‘n roll between post-punk/new-wave and grunge/altrock. Hair/Glam Metal never came back, and Nirvana successfully destroyed an entire genre of music, while ushering in a new generation of post-punk-rockers. The most popular bands of the pre-Nirvana months couldn’t even get a gig in the years following the release of Nevermind, and the world of glamrockers changed overnight, killed by a harder, more gritty musical style. The boozing and womanizing lyrics of glam became offensively stupid, seemingly overnight, and were replaced by gravely voiced singers screaming about Lithium and asking people to Come as you are.
I took my time, I hurried up, the choice was mine, I wasn’t late.
It should come as little surprise that creating a new work of art often destroys the ones that have come before it. From modernism, to post-modernism, to deconstructionism, the creation of art is frequently the destruction of that which has come before it, like a ladder that is used to climb to a higher level, and is then destroyed because it’s no longer useful. Sometimes, an entire industry needs to be destroyed, so another can be built on its ruins.
Generation S hits the shelves on October 15th.
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