[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

nirvana epitomised almost everything about rock music they claimed to despise.

Sure Nevermind sounds as clean as other rock records coming out, but how many bands at their level was or are willing to release an album like In Utero? At the end of the day Nirvana (or Kurt if you will) were great at making pop hooks in punk rock songs.


this whole liberal purist attitude - ok you're not racist, sexist or homophobic, great. but you won't committ to any kind of meaning either.

Their interviews are littered with them standing against sexism et. What more do you want? Millions being given away in support? Benefit concerts galore? Serious looking adverts?

kurt wanted to have his cake and eat it too. be an underground punk band but also be the biggest mainstream band on the planet.

That's the great contradiction about them.

the niaeve belief in the power of what is not a particularly great art form ends up looking quite pathetic

.

I can't tell if yo're saying music isn't a good art form or they didn't do good music.

nirvana was a kind of weird post modern punk tribute covers entertainment act. they ripped off and plagiarised so much, and desperately tried to make some sort of grand statement out of it all.

They were the first to say they borrowed heavily from other bands. And they never made out to be making a grand statement.

i kind of think nirvana werent so much a punk act as a kind of folk act singing about punk.

What does that even mean?

axl didnt exactly turn out to be some sort of homophobic racist.

No, he was just a prick who beat his wife, all the while acting like a macho prick and singing about faggots and immigrants.

80's mainstream rock wasnt exactly the primary source of oppression for minorities and women.

If you can't see the blatant sexism in anything by Kiss, Motley Crue and the rest of that shit then you're blind.

what did nirvana really bring to the table?

For me this was a band that like The Sex Pistols hit against the stupid bullshit that was coming out of the time. Were they the only band? Fuck no, but neither were the Sex Pistols the first nor alone. Henry Rollins said it best "all it takes is for one band to say fuck you then he's called the voice of a generation."

the undercurrent of the whole thing is nihilism but kurt never managed to truly face the nihilism, or overcome the massively overstated attachment he had to a certain style of music. he believed in what he was doing and tried to find something transcendental in post punk bands and underground music but there's just not anything there.

I can't tell if you're really cynical about music. Music for a lot of people can be a transcendental experiance.

but kurt didnt develop any other interests than drugs and guns and he ended up hating music. he wasnt able to escape the cliches and traps of life, and didnt seem to be able to make any kind of pact with his misery.

That's hardly true. He seemed to obsessed with music and art. To make it seem like he was just a redneck with a guitar is silly. And the fact that he wasn't able to avoid the cliches of music is just a sad fact. However, that doesn't get in the way of the music.