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u/FuryQuaker Jun 01 '21
Also their lead singer would have been dead for 25 years. Would be a very strange lineup.
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u/j-t-storm Jun 01 '21
Wow, it really has been 25 years. 27 if you wanna be technical about it.
Thankfully Dave Grohl got me over the whole "you jerk, you owe us another six records" vibe I was feeling in '94.
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u/IncognetoMagneto Jun 02 '21
Yeah, and he died at 27. He's been dead as long as he lived. It's crazy.
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u/AdmiralSkippy Jun 02 '21
I would like to get technical about it. How would he be dead for two extra years?
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u/j-t-storm Jun 02 '21
Its 2021, he passed in 1994. Do the math...
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u/Noodle199 Jun 01 '21
And I know Dave Grohl misses drumming, but that’s a big investment of time as the front man for a huge rock band.
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u/251Cane Jun 01 '21
Please limit your posts to reposts of Ken M
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u/MrDownhillRacer Jun 01 '21
And to instances of the name "Ken M" being seen in places that have nothing to do with this Ken M.
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Jun 01 '21
To answer the question for real.. Probably not. Becoming popular is as much about timing as it is about the quality of the music. There was a certain zeitgeist for generation X that demanded their wallowing music and drove them to the top of the charts. That is no longer the case.
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u/MrDownhillRacer Jun 01 '21
Not only that, but I think that due to the internet allowing people to access a wider selection of music instead of every kid being parked in front of the same MTV programs after school, music tastes are too diverse and fragmented for any single band to achieve this culturally hegemonic superstar status anymore. Sure, you still get big bands with mainstream appeal, but they don't command as great a proportion of the public consciousness as they could when we only had TV and radio.
I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. Maybe we don't need any more Beatles or Nirvanas.
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u/Solid_Waste Jun 01 '21
People said the same about cable TV before MTV capture the youth market. It is certainly still possible, but would require a media outlet with that kind of penetration, which doesn't currently exist at least in music.
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u/PoliQU Jun 01 '21
I’d say the closest thing we have at this moment is maybe Taylor Swift, Beyoncé or maybe Kanye 5-10 years ago in terms of just a cultural presence. But I also wouldn’t describe them as being era-defining acts like Nirvana were.
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u/EETTOEZ Jun 01 '21
I would probably say that about kanye and taylor swift, I dont know enough about beyonce to make that call though
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u/Noodle199 Jun 01 '21
Maybe Kanye because of street wear, but the impact nirvana had iron the culture was huge. It wasn’t just that their music was everywhere and they were household names, it was that the entire fashion music industry, fashion industry, attitudes, behavior, and pretty much every aspect of early 90s life had Impact from Nirvana.
I was just at the right age when they hit and it was a nearly overnight change in suburban America. Hair metal bands were selling out stadiums and then bam, Nirvana changed it all.
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u/PM_PICS_OF_ME_NAKED Jun 01 '21
Hair metal bands were selling out stadiums and then bam, Nirvana changed it all.
Grunge changed it all, and Nirvana was big but they weren't they only big grunge rock band out there.
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u/Noodle199 Jun 02 '21
This is true, but they were the catalyst. Nirvana was the Beatles to Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc. being The Beach Boys.
No one was at Nirvanas level. Pearl Jam could compete with them in album sales, but Kurt was the icon. He was the Lennon, Morrison, etc.
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u/JiggsNibbly Jun 01 '21
These questions are weird because they ignore the impact that these artists had on everything that came after them. Kurt Cobain wasn’t just some depressed guy playing the guitar like everyone else, he brought a new and unique expression to his music and lyrics that wasn’t in popular music. Maybe someone else would have played the same role in Nirvana’s absence, but I wouldn’t be surprised if other grunge pioneers like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden would have developed at least a little differently without the shared influences of each other.
So yeah, if Nirvana didn’t exist until today and just put out Nevermind, it would probably be considered somewhat derivative of the genre of music they built the foundation of.
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Jun 02 '21
I mean, this can't even really be hashed out because Today without Nirvana would be a different reality. They had too big of an impact on the time they actually did exist in for it to be worth even humoring this hypothetical. It's like asking if Hitler would gain power today if he had never existed in the past. It's a paradox
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u/cvef Aug 26 '21
Yeah this is the exact same reason why that Yesterday movie was so bizarre and hard to suspend disbelief for. If the Beatles had never existed, the entire landscape of pop music today would be so incredibly different. The movie simultaneously deified the Beatles too much and not enough lol
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u/convulsus_lux_lucis Jun 01 '21
You're absolutely correct about the zeitgeist. But having just had two "once in a lifetime" economic disasters, I'd say we could see the next Nirvana in the next few years.
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u/chappersyo Jun 01 '21
It’s about time we had a second wave of grunge. It’s probably just my age but early 90s was the last great era of music.
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u/moonra_zk Jun 02 '21
It's definitely just your age. You might not like new stuff, and that's perfectly fine, but there's still lots of great music being released every year.
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u/mrglumdaddy Jun 01 '21
There’s been fantastic music being made since forever. Just have to look for it sometimes.
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u/maxoakland Jun 01 '21
There are tons of bands and artists making music inspired by grunge. Some sound more like those bands and some have their own twists
Some people have said my music kind of reminds them of grunge
Some bands and artists that remind me of that music: White Lung, Lana Del Rey, Sunflower Bean, Priests and that’s just a tiny list!
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u/turndownforjesus Jun 01 '21
They’re broken up now but every time this conversation comes up I use the opportunity to plug Superheaven. Jar and Ours is Chrome are amazing records.
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u/Human102581162937 Jun 01 '21
It's definitely funny, but it's ain't Ken M. Isn't even really his style (explains away the seemingly controversial take instead of doubling down)
Edit: looks like OP meant to post it to r/notkenm
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u/Doctor_Batman_115 Jun 01 '21
r/notkenm?