Sometimes I just can't figure out where his head is. All over the place.

I used to like Nirvana until I realize they sucked.

i like Nirvana.

DaShredda: I used to like Nirvana until I realize they sucked.

This. The most overrated band of the 1990s, hands down.

They didn't suck, but they did get lucky. If I had to choose one band out of that scene to make it big, it would have been the Supersuckers rather than Nirvana. Or maybe the Melvins.

I'm predicting at least 30-40 more posts of people with nothing more interesting to add than "they was overrated."

Who? Oh, that oafy dude that knocked himself out with his bass while on primetime television and then started crying for Axl? Oh. Carry on.

DaShredda: I used to like Nirvana until I realize they sucked.

I am actually in the opposite camp. I hated Nirvana with a passion when they first came out. I hated them up until a couple years ago when I bought a copy of nevermind on vinyl (classic album, needed it for collection) I gave it a listen and was blown away by how good the songs were. Sure they were over played and over hyped but they really do have an incredible grasp of music in general, but the songs really work on almost every level. Pop kids can like it, punks can like em, metal kids can like em. The list goes on. Were there better bands out there then, hell yes. But there weren't any more universal than Nirvana.

jerkobson: DaShredda: I used to like Nirvana until I realize they sucked.

I am actually in the opposite camp. I hated Nirvana with a passion when they first came out. I hated them up until a couple years ago when I bought a copy of nevermind on vinyl (classic album, needed it for collection) I gave it a listen and was blown away by how good the songs were. Sure they were over played and over hyped but they really do have an incredible grasp of music in general, but the songs really work on almost every level. Pop kids can like it, punks can like em, metal kids can like em. The list goes on. Were there better bands out there then, hell yes. But there weren't any more universal than Nirvana.

I had basically the same experience; the band was so utterly overplayed that I dismissed them without really giving them a chance.
It wasn't until I listened to them outside of the white noise that is radio that I began to really enjoy the band.

They are not my favorite band of all time, but anyone who says that they are overrated are just being "look at me I'm smart" contrarian.

They was overrated.

I really have to work out whether the people who post in every u2/Nirvana/etc thread are the same people posting the same things every time, Bevets-style, or new people thinking they're bringing something new to the table when they say "I liked U2 in the 1980s" or "Nirvana sucked".

DaShredda: I used to like Nirvana until I realize they sucked.

I used to hate Nirvana until I realized they were pretty good.

If Cobain didn't kill himself right in the middle of the band's prime, they wouldn't get nearly as much praise as they get. Having said that, I still remember when I first heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and knowing that I'd be listening to it for the next 20 to 30 years. They have good songs.

/Was 13 when Grunge broke into the main stream. Yep, the same age as the kid mentioned in "Alive" from Pearl Jam.

CheddarPants: They didn't suck, but they did get lucky. If I had to choose one band out of that scene to make it big, it would have been the Supersuckers rather than Nirvana. Or maybe the Melvins.

This.

I don't necessarily hate them, but I'm tired of hearing how great and revolutionary they were.

sure nirvana was overrated.
does that make them any less influential when it comes to the music of the 90s? no.

i love nirvana dearly, but i always admit to people that soundgarden was the best band to come out of that region in the 90s.
they were more technically skilled than nirvana was, and chris cornell was 10x the singer kurt was.

can't we all just admit that the early 90s was a great time to be an alt-rock fan and get back to hating nickelback and soulja boy?

If you can listen to the awesomeness that is In Utero and say Nirvana is overrated, there isn't much hope for you. The fact is that you didn't listen to their albums. You heard them on the radio and decided that they were overrated.

Even their B sides album Incesticide was excellent.

Nirvana was not overrated, they were just really popular. No one would say the Jonas bros. are over rated.

Nevermind is the album that Doolittle by The Pixies should have been.

cold and unreceptive to the idea...o yeah and kinda lost his head!

i've seen a few interviews with this Novoselic fellow...
anybody else think he looks a little like Andy Kaufman?

/i think "nevermind" was a landmark album, but it was just one of a bunch of landmark 'grunge' type albums released around that time. i think it just struck out and got lucky. and is a little overrated... probably because the 'hits' from that album have got played to death since then...
PJ's "Ten" sold more... imagine that... [lol probably cuz it was more radio-friendly]. [hey there *are* some kinda far-out songs on nevermind....]

p.s. for F**k's sake... Kurt Cobain was not Jesus. he was not the messiah. sometimes i really wonder why people bow down and worship him and put him on a high pedestal so much...
he was just a depressed angst-filled American 20-something who had a mostly crappy childhood and teenage-hood, and happened to write neat/good lyrics and interesting musical arrangements, and play the guitar semi-well.
but then again, so was John Lennon.
[except that John was not American... he was British instead... and he lived until he was 40, not 27]
and people think very highly of him and bow down / worship him, and put him on a pedestal as well.
hmmmm i'm sensing a pattern or common theme here....


/ don't get me wrong... i really like Lennon... his work with that 60's beat-group "The Beatles" was wonderful and interesting, and his first two solo albums "plastic ono band" and "imagine" were pretty darn good.

I need a new Nirvana album like I need a hole in the head.

Nevermind is the album that Doolittle by The Pixies should have been.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard Doolittle and still wonder...why it is so cherished amongst so many.

There are good songs on it and it is not a bad album by any stretch but...

jerkobson: DaShredda: I used to like Nirvana until I realize they sucked.

I am actually in the opposite camp. I hated Nirvana with a passion when they first came out. I hated them up until a couple years ago when I bought a copy of nevermind on vinyl (classic album, needed it for collection) I gave it a listen and was blown away by how good the songs were. Sure they were over played and over hyped but they really do have an incredible grasp of music in general, but the songs really work on almost every level. Pop kids can like it, punks can like em, metal kids can like em. The list goes on. Were there better bands out there then, hell yes. But there weren't any more universal than Nirvana.

Get off my lawn .... even though I'm not that old

No one on the planet has beat the dead Cobain horse like Rolling Stone mag has, and it's all David Fricke's fault.

well at least he got courtney love off of drugs.

My favorite Nirvana song?
CLICK CLICK BOOM.

\Graduated hight school in 94.
\\hated Nirvana

somebody post the links to the "cobain conspiracy pages"



/die junkie
//die die

jk it was suicide

I think Butch Vig deserves a lot of credit/blame, depending upon which side of the fence you fall on.

His production of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is part of what made it explode off of the radio and into people's consciousness.

Yes, it's been overplayed since day one, but it's a hell of a song if you strip away the hype.

srhp29: Nevermind is the album that Doolittle by The Pixies should have been.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard Doolittle and still wonder...why it is so cherished amongst so many.

There are good songs on it and it is not a bad album by any stretch but...



Pixies have a few good tracks, but I've never understood the love for them either.


eh, I've posted too many times why Nevermind is over-rated. Don't feel like doing so again.

the dude looks like my calculus professor in college. Getting old sucks balls.

I like Nirvana, but Doolittle is miles ahead of Nevermind.

Frances farmer and Radio friendly unit shifter ftw

I'm a huge Nirvana fan, I have been since I was a wee lad in the early 90's and mostly chalk up the whole "Nirvana sucks/was overrated" to a bunch of jackass neo-hipster posers. I knew of "You Know You're Right" and waited years to actually hear it and when I did my body froze and I had butterflies in my stomach. It was everything I was waiting for and so much more almost like a religious experience. I don't think Kurt Cobain was a Jesus-like character by any means, but the songs that Nirvana wrote held a deep resonance with me.

I'm sure somebody is going to come along and dissect what I just wrote with some smarmy, smart-ass verbal vivisection. But you know what, I don't care. Writing it may make them feel so super-duper uber-cool, but it won't convince me of anything. So they'd just be wasting their time.

I don't think Nirvana can be rated highly enough. They have songs they didn't even bother to release during Kurt's lifetime that would have been huge hits. They released a bunch of outtakes and covers(Incesticide) and it went gold.

Even when Nirvana did covers they were really tastefully done and really added to the original.

Dave Grohl is a great drummer and Kurt Cobain was an awesome singer. The fact that they could sell so many albums while playing such heavy music with often incomprehensible lyrics is a testament to the originality and skill of the songwriting.

If the rest of you who say that Nirvana is overrated or no good could name the bands you think are good, I'd be really curious to hear them. The other day some guy on Fark was going on about how much Frank Zappa sucked, and it turned out he was a Reel Big Fish fan. Not exactly the target audience to put it politely.

"...it's just so old school to fight amongst your peers or people that are dealing with rock & roll, whether or not they're dealing with it in the same context that you would like to."

DJLobo: If Cobain didn't kill himself right in the middle of the band's prime, they wouldn't get nearly as much praise as they get. Having said that, I still remember when I first heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and knowing that I'd be listening to it for the next 20 to 30 years. They have good songs.

/Was 13 when Grunge broke into the main stream. Yep, the same age as the kid mentioned in "Alive" from Pearl Jam.

He didn't kill himself in the bands prime. He killed himself after In Utero was poorly recieved by audiences (I don't know why as I love that record). They had a posthumerous prime as MTV Unplugged went huge after that.

GalleyWench: "...it's just so old school to fight amongst your peers or people that are dealing with rock & roll, whether or not they're dealing with it in the same context that you would like to."

I agree with him, because he's not necessarily saying that the discourse is a bad thing. Yes, it's tiring and it can be infuriating, but arguing for your viewpoint is worthwhile and can be insightful.

Good post.

I saw them live once, in 1990

Midnight Rambler: GalleyWench: "...it's just so old school to fight amongst your peers or people that are dealing with rock & roll, whether or not they're dealing with it in the same context that you would like to."

I agree with him, because he's not necessarily saying that the discourse is a bad thing. Yes, it's tiring and it can be infuriating, but arguing for your viewpoint is worthwhile and can be insightful.

Good post.

Thanks, there is a first time for everything. :)

"On a Plain" and "Drain You" are two of my favorite songs of all time.

Dialectic: the dude looks like my calculus professor in college. Getting old sucks balls.

BWAHAHAHA, I just looked at his picture. Man, if he starts earing glasses he's going to end up looking like my high school Government teacher. And that's not a good thing.

I, for one, personally found Cobain's suicide to be a mindblowing experience.

I am of the opinion that Failure should have been bigger than Nirvana. Actually, I'm of the opinion that Failure shoulda been big in the first place.

Having said that, everyone should have a copy of Future Perfect by Greg Edward's band Autolux. farking genius. Carla Azar is one of the best drummers working these days. She's a Female version of Steve Shelley.

/I black out just to keep it real.

shirtsbyeric 2009-03-11 09:48:21 PM
I saw them live once, in 1990

Was that when they toured with RHCP and Pearl Jam? I went to the show in Oregon. We drove all the way down from Tacoma to see them.

Liked Bleach the most, Nevermind was a close second.

Reading the comments on this story on the rollingstone site is pretty amusing.

"What about that time they played Al's BBQ back in '87?"

"Dude what about in 1989 that song when they opened up for ____ and then played that song we never heard again!"

C'mon guys...let it go. I am as big a Nirvana fan as they come but who wants to hear some shiatty version of some song they did when they were first starting out and were just playing local gigs like every other band on the planet? I'm sure the quality of those recordings are great enough to be mass produced and distributed on CD or mp3 for a profit. haha