…It’s all a matter of opinion, it’s all a matter of opinion…
Okay, so they took a sharp downturn during and after the Green Album, but the Blue Album and Pinkerton were classic stuff.
It’s also not what I said. My point is that every Verve song, hit or no, is in the same style. It’s perhaps not quite as extreme as Evanescence (who are running with one set of chords SFAICT), but there was no evolution between History and Bittersweet Symphony. Ashcroft’s solo career hasn’t altered the formula either; compare Brave New World with say, Velvet Morning. It’s not going to stop me slapping Urban Hymns on the stereo from time to time as the mood takes me,
Now, my Doper Sense is tingling and telling me that you’re going to make some defence around “that’s stupid, compare X to Y”. Don’t. If you’re going to do anything, then address the comparison; hit Soulseek and grab Four Chords That Made A Million, Shesmovedon, Hatesong and Feel So Low by the Porcupine Tree. You’ll hear more variety in those four tracks from one album than in all three Verve albums combined. Add in Phase IV from “Voyage” and you’ll hear even more, as they not only alter style but also genre.
OK. That’s how it sounded to me in your earlier post. Thanks for clarifying.
Eh. I hear a fair amount of difference between the three Verve albums. Enough that I believe that they weren’t stagnant or trying to redo the same album each time. I do agree that Urban Hymns and Northern Soul are somewhat similar, but I think that both are very different than A Storm In Heaven. Ashcroft does seem to be repeatedly rerecording Urban Hymns, only worse, in his solo work (which is why I don’t own those).
Anyways, I don’t really consider a band’s ability to move across styles as an indication of how good they are. Some bands develop a theme/style/sound and follow that for the entire album. Some like to move all over the map in a single work. I consider it more a part of the band’s personality.
I’ll see about downloading the Porcupine Tree tracks you recommend. I’m always up for something new.
And all I said was that they weren’t. They weren’t #1 before Cobain died (although they were near the top), and their success peaked not long after his death. A band that no longer exists can rarely compete with those that do, and by the end of the decade there were plenty of other groups more popular than Nirvana.
Well, if we’re judging which bands are “great”, I think it makes a little more sense to look at their work rather than their deaths. Pearl Jam couldn’t have written “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, nor could Nirvana have produced “Jeremy”. Either group might have come up with something similar on its own, but those particular songs (and videos) were original artistic works that couldn’t have been created by anyone else.
However, Eddie Vedder could have blown his head off if he’d wanted to. If he had beaten Cobain to the punch, Pearl Jam would have achieved all the morbid success that Nirvana did. While both men lived the two groups were largely considered to be equals, and I think it’s more than a little sick that people now treat Nirvana like the “winner” because Cobain commited suicide. He’s not the better musician just because he’s dead. He’s arguably the better musician because he was the better musician (I don’t agree, but there’s a case to be made), but I think it’s obvious that’s not the real reason why Nirvana regularly tops these kinds of lists. If the group had survived the decade, maybe they’d have earned to top spot on their own merits as artists and not because their singer became a rock and roll martyr.
I honestly don’t understand what you’re talking about.
Michael Jackson’s career is dead because he’s a repulsive nut case. Unless Dave Grohl moonlights I don’t see how Nirvana has anything to do with his career. It’s not as if pop music is dead, dying, or was even sick; pop music has done just fine every single year for the last forty years.
I’m sure it seems obvious to you, but you are more than a little biased.
It seems like you are saying “I like Pearl Jam better, therefore anyone who likes Nirvana better must have been won over by Kurt’s suicide”. That is ridiculous.
Pearl Jam are talented, but I don’t find myself listening to them often. My favorite album from them is Yield, and it has been six months since I’ve listened to that.
I still listen to In Utero, Bleach, Unplugged in NY, From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, and Incesticide regularly.
Why not just accept that people have different tastes and opinions?
Besides, the real reason that Pearl Jam lost some of its stature was that it alienated a lot of fans with its politics, and gained a reputation (deserved or not) as pretentious activists. Their music, while good, just wasn’t good enough to counter this reputation, and it kind of got overshadowed by their politics and business practices. That is what you should be arguing against (and I would agree with you), instead of arguing against Nirvana, which just looks petty.
NO NO NO. Im am offended that someone would say Weezer. Obviously they wouldnt have ever existed without good old Pavement.
That’s not what I’m saying at all. Plenty of people liked Nirvana better all along. However, plenty more at least never bothered to buy any of their albums until Cobain was dead. And for good or ill, Nirvana’s body of work suddenly seemed more significant because of Cobain’s suicide. This is understandable from a human interest perspective, but if we’re going to pretend that were’s making serious aesthetic judgements here we can’t award bonus points for a tragic and untimely death.
If people prefer Nirvana, that’s fair enough. It’s a respectable opinion even if it’s one I don’t share. There’s a good case to be made that they were the best band of their era. But they aren’t the clear #1 in this contest. Judged on musical merit there are many other groups who could reasonably be considered just as high-quality. If we make things into a mere popularity contest then the numbers show that other groups moved more units. Cobain died before the decade was half-over, so there were also other groups that had longer-lasting impact throughout the decade as composers and performers rather than as the subjects of nostalgia or macabe fascination.
This last reason is why I think Nirvana can’t be the best act of the 1990s. It’s not just because I have another favorite. “Best” is open to interpretation, but Nirvana just didn’t last long enough to be contendors for “of the 1990s”. The best act of the early '90s I could see. I might even agree despite my personal preference for Pearl Jam. Yet although Nirvana was very big and very influential in their time I don’t think they were big or influential enough to make up for the fact that for the greater part of the decade they weren’t around at all. They don’t get credit for what might have been. Why even make the discussion about the 1990s if you’re going to ignore the latter half altogether?
You’re just repeating what you already said: “I can’t believe someone would prefer Nirvana when I don’t, so it must be that they are awarding them bonus points”.
You need to allow for the possibility that others may have different tastes and opinions. No bonus points necessary.
For instance, I could say “You only put Pearl Jam at #1 because you are indignant at how much of the public misunderstood their politics, business practices, and activism, and started believing they were pretentious and uncool”.
But that would be wrong, because it is entirely possible that you simply think they are better.
You must have a hard time choosing a “best of the century”. 
It’s “best of the 1990s”, not “best who lasted all the way through the 1990s”.
The latter would be an interesting list, but would not be as good a representation of a decade due to the bands who would be disqualified.
That’s all right. Anyone who doesn’t can be safely ignored.
I can easily believe that some people genuinely prefer Nirvana. I have said as much multiple times already. It was clear enough before Cobain’s death that Nirvana was the favorite band of many people, and they had their share of critics on their side as well. Why can’t you believe that there might actually be some who would put them at #1 for reasons other than artistic merit? Do you seriously believe that Cobain’s suicide had no impact on the way people thought about Nirvana?
I’m sure many would want to crown Nirvana best band of the 1990s if Cobain had lived but decided to break up the band in 1994. They’d be even stronger contenders for the title if they’d lasted a few more years, barring really awful later albums. I just don’t think they’d be considered the “safe choice” had Cobain’s death not both made him a rock martyr and stopped the clock on the band before they even had the chance to release really awful later albums. I doubt Cobain was thinking of “best band” lists when he penned his suicide note, but if you want people to remember you fondly it is better to burn out than to fade away…or to hang around embarassing yourself long past your sell-by date. To take an extreme example, if Michael Jackson had died tragically just after Bad was released I’m sure he’d be thought of much more favorably now.
Well, I suppose you can take the phrase to mean “best band who existed for some portion of the 1990s”, but the inclusion of other bands has already been questioned because their most important work was released in the previous decade. If the actual span of the artist’s career doesn’t matter, I think U2 and R.E.M. are more deserving of the title “best of the 1990s” than anyone else. I’m not a particular fan of either group, but they had plenty of hits in the '90s, they had plenty of fans, and I think their influence on the world of popular music in the 1990s was greater than that of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or most of the other bands mentioned here already.
But if we’re going to play loose with definitions, you could try to declare Nirvana the best band of the 1980s instead. After all, they formed in the '80s, and Bleach came out in '89.
There’s no way I’m asserting that Sloan had more mainstream popularity than the Tragically Hip. But come on, by that line of arguing, Celine Dion and Roch Voisine and hundreds of other talentless hacks are better than Sloan simply because they sold more albums.
I’ll agree with your assessment Fully Completely - it’s my favorite Tragically Hip album, and in my opinion their strongest effort from start to finish. Day for Night has some incredible highs, like “Nautical Disaster” and “Grace, Too,” but I find it uneven overall. And I probably will have to revoke my Canadian membership card for this, but I’ve never sat down and listened to Road Apples all the way through so I can’t comment on it. But I’ll match Twice Removed, One Chord to Another and Navy Blues up with those three any day.
I simply think Sloan are better than The Hip not because of radio play or gate receipts or even nebulous terms like “impact” or “influence”, but because (a) they have mastered the art of the non-cloying three-minute pop rock song, which given the pablum on radio today is no minor achievement, and (b) I think Sloan’s four songwriters are better than Downie, the popularly-acclaimed poet laureate of Canada, who writes two or three incredible songs per album and then becomes frustratingly vague and abstruse the rest of the way.
[sub]Do I get some sort of award for constructing a reasonably clear ninety-word sentence?[/sub]
I see your point, Lamia, but at the same time I don’t think it is fair to disqualify Nirvana just because they didn’t have the chance to release bad albums. I doubt they would have anyway, but we’ll never know, and speculation on the subject is not relevant.
That is why I don’t agree with you. We don’t know what could have happened. Maybe Nirvana would have released their greatest album later on. Very possible, considering their last album was their best.
Maybe their body of work looks better because it lacks a later bad album.
Maybe it looks worse because it lacks a later stunning album.
Nobody knows. So I guess we just have to go by what we have, and if that gives them an advantage, which it just might, then who cares? It’s not that important.
I keep meaning to check out the Mekons, but needless to say, they’re pretty obscure these days. But I love alt-country (Neko Case) and “cowpunk” (Mike Ness), so would I like them? What album would you recommend as a good Mekons introduction?
As for me, I’ll list my FAVORITE bands of the '90s, some of whom are more influencial than others:
Portishead
Morphine
Ben Folds Five
Moxy Fruvous
Garbage
Royal Crown Revue
Less Than Jake
Weezer
Brian Setzer Orchestra
Sublime
G. Love and Special Sauce
And (I can see the flaming starting already), I was never a huge fan of Nirvana OR Radiohead. 
You are correct. Soul Coughing is the best band of the 90s. They’re criminally underrated.
I don’t think of the Pixies as a 90s band, but even if they were, and even though I like their stuff a little better than Soul Coughing, I’d still say Soul Coughing is the best band of the 90s. That’s because SC took more chances, was more innovative, and had much more imaginative lyrics.
Sublime
Rage Against the Machine
At the Drive-In
Pearl Jam
I’m so sick of people post-humously sucking Cobain’s dick! I hate that man. He made it “cool” to be depressed and self-absorbed and have a pretension against anyone who wasn’t like him and his pathetic worshipers (whom he would probably dismiss as being fake for worshipping him.) Sure Nirvana had some good songs, but get real, they weren’t gods of rock. Just an average grunge band that got too big for its own good, and has been idolized since its demise. I’ll take Pearl Jam (Ten -> Yield) over Nirvana any day.
From this thread, it seems clear that it did have an impact - a lot of people hate them now.
Admittedly, even I like them less because of it. If they had just stopped making records, I would probably consider them the best band of the 90s. My feelings on the suicide and everything surrounding it are the reason I think of Radiohead at the best of the 90s instead.
The Pixies released their last album in 1990, so they were techincally present in the decade, though their big contributions were behind them. Too bad that popular culture isn’t perfectly packed in ten year-cycles. 
I find both Radiohead, Pearl Jam and Nirvana overrated, as is. But I would have to let the music from the 90’s sink deeper into me before I can give a good call, for now… it just feels dated.
I could imagine putting up EPMD or St. Etienne on the list though, I find them very charming.
Why are we talking about it at all, then? I’m aware that '90s pop culture isn’t going to cure cancer or anything. However, if we’re going to have a thread here then we must at least act like it’s important enough to merit discussion! If you don’t feel like such topics are worthy of your attention then that’s your call, but I’d recommend staying out of Cafe Society altogether then.
A lot of people hated them before. There was never a time when Nirvana was beloved by all, and people were much more open about this when it wasn’t speaking ill of the dead to say so.
Now, I do like to think that some of the people who went from “Nirvana sucks!” to “Kurt is my hero!” as soon as the body was cold (and these people did exist – I knew them) eventually grew up and realized that suicide isn’t cool. But it wasn’t just some freaky coincidence that Nirvana sales suddenly spiked just after Cobain’s death, and there’s no way the band would have become the subject of the same level of idolatry if they hadn’t gone out in such a shocking and dramatic fashion.
Just an FYI:
Bossanova was released 8/14/1990
Trompe Le Monde was released 10/8/1991