Originally Posted by: LeedoggAlot of people (in our circle) hate nirvana for killing the whole "hair band" "guitar hero" thing. But when you look back on the rock scene of 1990 and early '91 there really wasn't much to left to kill. It had kinda burnt itself out already. And any guitar heroes still around deserve to be because their success (as limited in scope as it might be compared to marketed trash) is attributable to staying power and fan bases.[/QUOTE]

I'd say that the whole hair band era was pretty lame to begin with. It basically summarized the whole problem with the 80s; excess in excess and flash over substance. A local radio station has a "Hair Band Hour", and it makes me feel ill listening to some of these songs. Basically these songs were all vehicles for extended guitar solos, which, in theory, sounds great, but which were generally poorly executed. When the lead guitarist wasn't fiddling away at some neoclassical riff at 345435 nps, the singer was screeching like his life depended on it.

Was anything revolutionary or novel done in that musical era? Nope. At least, not in the rock genre. Personally, I'm glad that Nirvana came along and destroyed the hair band scene; put it out of its misery. They came and brought music back to what it really was about; the songs, not the solos. Call it blasphemy, but a wicked solo can't save a crappy song, whereas a great song can live without a solo. And a mindblowing solo will just exponentially increase the value of a great song (e.g. Stairway). Nirvana spoke for a generation that was fed up with all the stupid solos and showing off, and showed that people really wanted to hear great rock music, not some wanker noodling on a guitar for 5 mins of a 5:15 song.

However, I don't like the music that has since been spawned in Nirvana's wake. I think it's been taken too far in the other direction, where mainstream rockers are now afraid to do anything inventive with their instruments and satisfy themselves with 6 drop-D power chord songs with every dial on their Boss MT-2 turned to 11.

--end rant--


[QUOTE=Axl_Rose]I think Nirvana would have been considerably LESS famous if kurt hadnt died.