Nevermind: the definitive authorised story of the album…

Nevermind: the definitive authorised story of the album…

Seattle --> Sub Pop

Dave Grohl: “We had that sort of DIY punk rock ethic that we all shared”.

Producer: Butch Vig

Dave: “Van Nuys in the Valley: ‘Sound City’”.

Krist Novoselic: “I just see the progression of Nirvana when it just started offas this kind of whack dissonance punk band, it was a dissonant punk… and it evolved and moved towards a more pop music”.

Butch Vig: “… he know the songs were really hooky, really poppy, lots of pop melodies”. “He didn’t want to come across as sounding too poppy”.

“A lot of them were about what he felt about life”.

Dave: Kurt’s focus was the melody” “The songs were intended to be as simple as possible”.

Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth): “Without that voice I’m suspect that the band wouldn’t have been as great as what it was”.

Chris Montgomery: (Sound Engineer): “…rocked so much harder than the other bands that take it seriously”. “… pretty much taking the piss out of rock ‘n’ roll and rocking way harder than anyone else.” “It felt like the centre of the universe at the time…”.

Krist: “You smash your gear and it’s a stellar ending to the set”.

Charles R. Cross: “It’s a universal truth… I think we all feel alienated from each other and from our own beings at times.” “He just cut to the core and put it right there in his music”.

“Kurt was attractive to a lot of people, to a lot of young people who were confused about their place in the world.” “… they heard somebody that was equally confused”.

“He made it sound like he was singing about you”.

Smells like Teen Spirit:

- Sam Bayer, Director; “Nirvana hired me because my reel was so bad…”

“It was all there and there was literally nothing else on television like it”.

Amy Finnerly (MTV programming): “It changed the entire look of MTV.”

“… made MTV very successful, … a new platform, … a whole new generation to sell to…”

“It wasn’t cynical, …it was a shot of life..”

“It was just one of those things that happens maybe once every generation…”

“This roll, this momentum, word of mouth.” “You must hear this band Nirvana”.

“… in terms of who knew them at one point and how everyone knew them at the next one, it was literally overnight”.

Gary Gersh: “Kids weren’t reacting to it like a normal record”. “They were reacting to it like a movement”.

Dated: Jan 12^th 1992- Nirvana no #1

Thurston Moore: “not only reached no# 1… just broadened out.. completely changed the demographic of what the rock audience was… USA… then it went global. Crazy.”

“Kurt or Nirvana’s greatest legacy was to bring the underground… overground”.

Charles:

“It wasn’t that the kids from the wrong side of the tracks got it. Everybody got it”.

“He was right… he knew all along”.

Final Essay Preparation

The progression of alternative music and the emergence of Grunge: Nirvana and the overnight global sound

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My argument:

What was it about Nirvana and the local Seattle Grunge scene that made it such an instant worldwide phenomena?

- authenticity

- simplicity

- performance- dress, mentality, taking the piss, freedom, rocked hard

- musical brilliance- the hook of the song

- intimacy

- he sang for you, understood you- understood youths confusion and related

- popular music- like a mirror – you see yourself

- he made the songs sound like they were about you

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- relate to DIY mentality, new media, radio and MTV, internet, global maintenance

- the future of youth culture- 90s and onwards

The progression of alternative music and the history of punk and following trends in music

What was it about Nirvana that transformed them into a global sound overnight?

Why was Nirvana received so well… and why was everyone waiting for their sound?

How did they change the face of music? Focus on the global scale and maintenance of the grunge global network?

Focus on the authenticity of Nirvana. They were all about simplicity, and the ‘hook’ of the song. Relate to original rock and punk- authenticity and meaning.

AND OR

The local Seattle scene and how this served the beginning of all of those early 90s bands and how they became global.

AND

Media – the importance of radio and MTV

Significance of the charts and knocking off Michael Jackson from the no #1 spot.

How did the global sound spread? New forms of media such as MTV allowed everyone to see the band and know who they were instantly; hence everyone knew who they were overnight.

Issues with the cover sleeve of Nevermind.

Grunge on the internet and fan sites today.

Nirvana: the untold stories

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Nirvana: the untold stories

“Nirvana’s timing was just right…”

“Tore up the pop rule book”

“Music scene of the late 80s was dominated by manufactured pop acts..”

“They had to type of sound that people were waiting for… that generation X you know…”

Soundgarden, Melvins, Mudhoney- nurtured grunge

Seattle- new global sound- isolated, far from outside music influences…

Why? Nirvana- Best underground band ever. Catchy songs, strong melodies, simple songs. Songs- “all hooks”.

“I think it was the voice first…”

“credit them for their innovation”

Charles R. Cross- biographer and follower of Kurt Cobain and veteran of the Seattle music scene

Aberdeen- Kurt’s hometown- he tried out for the Melvins and chooked.

First band named “Faecal Matter”

“Kurt took his pain and gave us the gift of art…”

“What sold Nirvana was Nirvana, you just had to hear them…”

Kurt was all about the hook of the song.

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Understanding Scene

Understanding Scene

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I recently went and saw Nine Inch Nails at the Riverstage. It was awesome. I don’t really know what else to say about it. The performance was pretty flawless. As soon as we walked in I thought the venue was pretty cool. It was much more intimate and no where near as crowded as what I was expecting. Hadn’t been there before, the hill kinda comes down to the stage and it looks like a natural amphitheatre. I think I enjoyed it way more than the Big Day Out simply because of the space and there wasn’t a ridiculous amount of people there. You look around and can’t get past the sea of black t-shirts most of which had nine inch nails on them or just one of the albums. Some chick had dressed up in some bright red fluoro shiny vinyl thing… I bet everyone there just wanted to slap her.

Oh yeah the support band Serena Maneesh sucked and it seemed like no really liked them. By the end of their session everyone was just chanting for NIN.

I didn’t really wanna get drunk and go to the mosh pit like I guess I normally do. Trying to get close just resulted in seeing a bunch of heads wave around and being stopped by a definitive wall of people; and if you got past that you just got sucked in. So I just stood right in the middle of the hill and just enjoyed the performance trying to take everything in. Afterwards you just try and remember as much of it as you can and couldn’t really get past the comment that it was just awesome.

Mostly everyone there looked like they were apart of a larger group or community and I just thought that it was a really obvious example which improved my understanding and realisation of scene.

http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/content/view/3634/82/

http://thedwarf.com.au/nd/livereviews/brisbane/nine_inch_nails_river_stage_city_botanic_gardens

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I went and saw Reel Big Fish at the Tivoli a while back and just wanted to comment on the weird fashion scene that I wasn’t expecting. I wasn’t a real big fan but went along anyways just to enjoy the performance. Heaps of people had chequered arm bands and socks and stuff and really retro shirts. It seemed like a weird blend that came from multiple sources. There was a pretty big difference between the support bands Guttermouth and Bagster and the main performance- Guttermouth was much more thrash and didn’t really seem to have the easy going almost friendly nature of the main performance- but everyone seemed to get into it anyway. Someone in the crowd had a massive spit on the lead singer which he held up for everyone to see then he tried to pick a fight with some fat guy… he just hugged him which was a bit of an anticlimax.

It was a pretty good performance but I guess I just don’t get Ska.

I pretty much totally agree with everything Chris says in this review:

http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/content/view/3131/82/

Rant:

Rant:

I thought generally I could look at the progression of music and alternative music, first rock, then punk, and from punk spawned a heap of new subcultures. Particularly I wanted to focus on grunge and the ‘overnight revolution’ of Nirvana and what this meant for a lot of fans. Particularly all the people fed up with ‘big hair’ epic rock music at the time. I wanted to investigate how grunge operated on a local and global scale and how grunge may be defined by scene.

I wanted to gain a better understanding of the patterns of music and popularity and the occasional booms in popularity such as punk and the Sex Pistols and grunge and Nirvana and why these happen when they do and how this effects people on a local and global scale.

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Blog Intro

Intro

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I have selected grunge as my chosen subculture and will investigate the progression of alternative music from punk and all branching forms of music, the emergence of grunge, how grunge was maintained on a global scale, the implications of scene and grunge and the theory of scene and why the theory of scene best describes my chosen subculture.

This is really vague and I should refine my research question as soon as possible.

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