Hello esteemed forum. Lots of threads on Nirvana with the recent anniversary of Cobain's death. So why not add another? In another thread (about the popularity of Nirvana vs. Guns 'N Roses), a member said (paraphrasing) that "grunge started burying 80's metal bands, and Nirvana was the final nail in the coffin." If that's the case (and I wasn't a fan of either at the time, was into hip-hop, but I recall playing Smells Like Teen Spirit at a friend's house over and over again), can we make an accurate list of which bands didn't "survive" the grunge/Nirvana era? Or maybe, which bands "survived" but came out "weaker". Going by my limited memory and knowledge, I think of bands like Poison, Nelson, Cinderella, Warrant, etc. that couldn't weather the storm and remain relevant. I cite these bands as my own example because, again, I wasn't into hair metal at the time, but I was aware of the bands and when they released new material. And maybe there are other genres besides hair metal which were impacted by grunge? Hopefully this isn't a dumb topic. But I've heard enough variations on the "grunge killed metal" theme that I thought this thread would be valid. Thanks.
It was definitely lights out for the hair metal bands. I'm not sure it helped Prince much, either. For a fascinating snapshot of pop culture moments before Grunge took off, check out Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey from July, 1991. The music in it seems laughably bad now.
Queensryche weathered the grunge storm. Their 1990 album Empire produced hits through 1991. The follow up album, Promised Land, from 1992 was their highest charting album to date according to Wikipedia.
I forgot the big one, Michael Jackson's Dangerous. Zillions of teens traded in their copies for Nevermind.
Slaughter, Winger, Faith No More are just some of the bands listed on the Wikipedia page for the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey soundtrack. I may have to check it out!
Mtv flips a switch and bands withered. By the late 90's the station nearly stopped all rock vids and the genre lost its dominance. Weird. So grateful for the Internet.
When I think of 1992, I remember "Let's Get Rocked"-era Def Leppard and Ugly Kid Joe alongside Nirvana on MTV. It's not like September 1991 hit and Bret Michaels suddenly had to go get a job at IHOP. As '91 and '92 happened, the metal bands were losing members and generally falling apart, generally through their own excess (Motley Crue, Warrant, Ratt, Cinderella, Poison). Bon Jovi put out "Keep the Faith" and while it didn't sell at the level of its predecessors, it was a hit and I wonder if other similar bands could've survived just by staying active through the era. But now, I can't put on VH1 Classic without seeing Vince Neil, it seems.
Grunge is such a meaningless term, like classic rock, I wish everyone would just stop using it. Poison, Nelson, and Warrant were so bad that they weren't going to last a few years anyway - Nirvana had nothing to do with it.
Sure. Personally, I think "Get a Grip" was horrible but they were smart enough to use MTV and stay active. I guess they did have a heritage, though, that groups like L.A. Guns did not.
I distinctly remember being age 12 in 1992/93, hearing an MTV VJ say something like "and coming up, we have a new one from Poison. Boy, haven't heard from them in a while!" with something of a smirk across their faces. Then they played the video, and even though it was a new song, and we were only 4-5 years removed from 1988...even to my 12yo ears, it seemed laughably dated and stuck very much in the '80s.
I think these 2 posts are spot on and have a connection. A band like Aerosmith had a heritage (great term, BadJack) that loyal fans and reputation could see them through. Whereas bands like Poison, Nelson, Warrant maybe just didn't have the legacy (or not around long enough) to have that foundation available to them. Great points.
Perhaps the greatest service provided by the "grunge/alternative" era was not in killing the hair metal bands which are largely irrelevant to me anyway, but in getting pretty much everyone to back away from the "80s" production style and get back to a more organic sound by the mid-90s, IMHO.
But those two bands (unlike Nirvana) are still alive and in case of Whitesnake...still going strong. Not "killed" in other words.
Going strong is too "strong" a word, IMO. The snake climbed out of the hibernation hole and resumed something of their old existence, largely based on the members legacy. I don't think they're necessarily relevant anymore. Nirvana and company were largely a market correction to the excesses of hair bands and big arena rock, both visually and aurally. Some bands with longer legacies survived or evolved, but the middle tier bands (The Wingers, White Lions, Warrant, et al) were just washed away in a matter of a year or two.
It killed a bunch of bands I didn't know much about. 1986 - 1991 was my dead period as far as music was concerned. Nirvana brought me back into the fold after I saw their SNL appearance.
I absolutely agree! Hair metal bands were already beginning to drop like proverbial flies as a result of their excesses in the 80s finally catching up with them, but I'm certainly happy to credit the alternative scene with triggering an overall move to less artificial production values. Similar to how many acts started going "back to basics" in the late 60s after psychedelia had enjoyed its brief peak, grunge influenced a lot of musicians to shun gated reverb and put away their DX7 synthesisers. For the next few years, guitars were THE prominent instrument once more, though I'm hearing them less and less again with contemporary acts. Do we need another revolutionary movement? (I'm certainly not against anything new, but even a moderately successful and short-lived trend is something I reckon a lot of executives may be crossing their fingers for, especially considering the industry's present situation...)
I think grunge gets entirely too much credit for this. Most hair metal fans weren't interested in a "cool" image--in fact a lot of them were casual listeners, if I remember correctly. I knew plenty of people into Poison et al, but none of them were music freaks. I think country killed hair metal. The former hair metal listeners I knew were way into Garth Brooks when Nirvana hit.
This is pretty accurate. Many things were swirling around together at the time, including gangsta rap and a huge R&B explosion (TLC, Boys II Men). What really makes this time special I think is it's the last time young people were all bonded together by a common music culture. This was pre-internet, and everyone still watched the same videos on MTV, whether it was Dr. Dre, Def Leppard or Metallica. With the dawn of the internet and ipods everyone begins to break off and go their separate ways, which isn't a bad thing, necessarily, just a huge culture shift.
