I know I’ll probably be eaten alive by all Nirvana fans for saying this, but “The Man Who Sold The World” is in the top of my list of best things Nirvana did. Also, since I don’t want to angry two fan groups in a single post, I’ll mention that this song was originally written by David Bowie, and not Nirvana. Nirvana just popularized it quite a bit in alternative rock crowd.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSuqxijVdr8]
Matthew Sidney Long brings up an interesting point with a challange:
Please name me a band over the past 10 years who has come close to Nirvana in sheer impact and talent since Kurt put shotgun to mouth above garage in 1994? (and, I’m not talking about some indie band that hardly anyone listens to or some ring-tone fueled, Top-40 creation who no one will remember in 6 months. I’m talking IMPACT here, people. Combining art AND commerce. Both big AND authentic. Dig?).
My pick would be Rammstein, of course. That’s the band that made an impact. I don’t know if it was as strong as Nirvana’s or not, but I think it was pretty close. As always, I very biased and subjective.
While I was trying to come up with the band, I had a thought about the strength of an impact. And, as much as I love Nirvana, I have to admit that it was nowhere near the scale of Elvis and Beatles. There were a few others in between that were larger than Nirvana too.
If Rammstein isn’t as big of an impact as Nirvana, maybe it has to something to do with my theory of sources. Back in the days of Elvis and Beatles, there were much less sourcse of music available to an average listener, than it was in the days of Nirvana. Think number of albums, songs, bands, radio stations, television, top-X lists and hit parades, music awards, DJs, Internet, peer-to-peer, mp3s, music shops, etc. So, each band had a chance of producing a bigger impact back then. In the last 14 years, since Nirvana, the number of sources only grew. So, each band these days has even less of a chance to impact the world.
Either that, or the music industry is broken. Or both.