There’s a common urban legend that hairspray, neon and the excesses of the 80s died in the autumn of 1991 when Cobain came to the scene, however a lot of videos on YouTube of old malls I have seen from 1992-93 still have a strong late 80s appearance to them. Mall hair, hot colors and old school hip hop influenced clothing galore. Not only that Guns n Roses, The Cure and quite a few other 80s bands were still quite popular when Nirvana were racking up hits and still made similar music to what they made in the 80s.
I’d also argue that yuppiedom and “greed is good” capitalism did not die along with the 80s but rather became progressively more intensified in the 90s, 00s and 10s. Not only that but it spread to the rest of the world from the late 80s onwards with the fall of the USSR and opening up of China. I guess by the end of the 80s materialism had become the norm to the extent that many people resented it and a backlash was apparent but I see no evidence that the 90s and subsequent decades are less materialistic than the 80s.
I’d say the main difference between 80s culture and the culture of the 1/4 century since that decade ended is the rise of hip hop and digital technology, which happened gradually between 1985-1995 and really had nothing to do with anything coming out of Seattle (aside from Microsoft, of course ).
What we think of as stereotypically “80s” pop culture was already well on the wane by the time Nirvana broke on a national level. Bush Sr. never had the same charm as the “gipper” did. A stock-market crash and a recession put an end to yuppie culture. The Crack and AIDS epidemics had lead to too many deaths to be swept under the rug anymore. Hair metal was always considered a massive joke, even at the height of its popularity. As early as 1988, the whole “greed is good, style over substance, everything to excess” demi-monde had become tired and there was a surge in neo-hippie nostalgia for a less cynical time period. Suddenly all the keyboards and synths gave way to earnest folk rock acts like 10,000 Maniacs and Tracy Chapman.
Even before Nirvana, there were a few bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More that were playing stripped down, harder-edged ‘(but still pop’) rock music. There was a definite desire to get away from the bombastic MTV style music. IMO, Nirvana (and really all of Seattle grunge) didn’t really ‘kill’ the 80s. It was the other way around - they came along at the right time when people were hungry for something new. So, no, Nirvana did not “kill” the 80s, so much as the nasty hangover aftermath set the scene up for Nirvana to arrive.
And yes there were still a lot of lingering ‘80s-ish’ things lingering in pop culture even after Nirvana hit it big, but stereotypes die hard. By comparison, just look at all the 70s era cop shows that were depicting hippie communes as late as 1976. Once a pop culture sensation takes root, it doesn’t fade away from movies, TV or pop music as quickly as it does in the real world. (I predict that even well into the 2020s, we’ll be seeing sitcoms depicting long-bearded hipsters though there will probably very few around.)
Bear in mind that a lot of music that came out in the first three years of the 80’s was seventies music, so its not really surprising that 80’s music carried on into the early nineties. At the end of the decade, every genre was more or less tired in the eyes of kids coming into their own, music speaks differently to every generation, albeit with common themes.
There is a picture on pinterest, that I kinda agree with. What people thought we wore, cue the flashdance ladies and the leg warmers, and what we really wore and cue the picture of the breakfast club.
Grunge and hiphop did not kill 80’s music, it succeeded it.
I’ve never heard it claimed that Nirvana singlehandedly killed off everything that was popular from the '80s, and anyone who says that is either using hyperbole or doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I doubt many hip hop fans of the era gave a damn about Nirvana, and hip hop obviously survived as a genre. Grunge did not. FWIW it’s my recollection that grunge peaked in popularity about 1993 or '94, although I lived in a not-very-big city in the South so we weren’t really on the cutting edge of things. But most of the US isn’t on the cutting edge of things either.
As thelurkinghorror says, grunge is often credited with killing off hair metal, but the whole big hair and spandex look was already in decline at that point and I don’t remember that any established metal fans abandoned their favorite bands in favor of newer grunge and alt rock groups overnight. It’s my recollection that most metal fans didn’t stop being metal fans at all, they just accepted the harder grunge songs as being worthy of listening to as well. Actually, I think a big reason grunge became so popular was that it was influenced by metal AND punk AND college/alternative rock, so fans of all these genres could find something to like about grunge.
Speaking as someone who was an adolescent at the time, I’ll also say that Nirvana wasn’t as popular as you might think. They were certainly a very popular band, but only a few people I knew considered them a favorite. Among kids who listened to rock music Nirvana was generally considered to be at least okay, but plenty of people preferred other styles of music. Take a look at Wikipedia’s lists of biggest hit singles for 1991, 1992, and 1993 to see what kind of music was really popular at the time.
Nirvana’s Nevermind was released in 1991, but didn’t really enter the mainstream until 1994. It usually takes a few years for the mainstream to recognize a new entity. A lot of people didn’t listen to Nirvana until after Cobain died and became a rock icon.
1994? I don’t know where you’re getting your info from. Nevermind was a huge selling album. It was released in late 1991 and was #1 in January of 1992. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” reached #6 on the Singles chart. Nirvana was very successful before Cobain’s death. You must not be old enough to remember.
Well, all their albums were released 1987-91 so they were ahead of Nirvana.
I just looked it up and Trompe le Monde was released one day before Nevermind.
There is a deep misconception that one can draw a hard-and-fast line which says “Everything up to this point is (one thing), everything past this point is (the next thing).” There are defining moments in culture and zeitgeist, but the mass of humanity is a slow-changing beast, so distinctive “markers” of one era will always persist into the next.
Nirvana were the first to say that they were trying to follow what the Pixies had been doing.
As for the OP - as time passes, and whole clumps of music trends are simplified and tied together, then yeah, I can see where the basic line is “hair metal was huge until Nirvana broke - Nirvana’s success represents the shift to indie music going mainstream.”
All of that is grossly oversimplified, but there ya go.
Is it true? Well, clearly the massive success of Nirvana led to music labels looking for me-too success. Beyond that, indie music had been bubbling up and getting bigger by the year - Nirvana’s success is just a clear signpost along the way.
The best book I have read about the years leading up to Nirvana in the world of indie music is Michael Azzerad’s Our Band Could Be Your LIfe - really good book covering a big handful of indie bands.
You apparently disagree that it takes a hit album at least a couple years to sink into the mainstream culture that one sees at a shopping mall or the like. I noted that Nevermind was released in 1991. You must not be old enough to read.
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