Were Nirvana really bigger than Guns N' Roses?

You'd think that from hearing/reading the way a lot of people talk about Nirvana and that whole period in music. I know it's a pretty common tactic (just like those people who pretend the whole punk thing was bigger and more important than it actually was) but it's kinda funny to see a band like Guns N' Roses lumped in with all these 80's acts that Nirvana supposedly killed off and made irrelevant because record sales and that massive worldwide tour they did don't really support that notion.

 

Guns N Roses killed themselves off by inactivity. If they had kept at it, they would have been one of the few bands unaffected by grunge.

 

Hard to say.....back in the day both Nevermind and the two Use Your Illusions were pretty ubiquitous.

 

They were/are not only bigger, but also much better, and i'm not even a big Nirvana fan.

 

Guns N' Roses sold more records but I don't think they had any long term effect on the evolution of music. They were just another rock/metal band although a very successful one. Nirvana sold a lot of records and had a huge impact.

The OP's side comment about punk music is off the wall.

 

I think among musicians, producers, and other artists Nirvana had more respect. Guns sold more albums because they toured their asses off, over and over.

 

I think that over a short period of time Nirvana blew G'N'R's out of the water....Well in fairness they blew most out of the water. Guns were about for longer so it's hard to compare.

One thing is for sure....Nirvana are talked about much more!! Guns music sounds dated today where as Nirvanas music sound relevant 20 odd years later. I loved Guns at the time though.

 

I don't think Guns sounded "dated" until the Use Your Illusion albums came out. Those had such a big, dense sound, with the drums pummeling the beat instead of swinging like Adler did. As soon as I heard Use Your Illusion, I knew they'd over-produced it and lost what made the band magic in the first place.

All that said, GNR at the height of Appetite For Destruction felt like a bigger movement than was Nirvana. But Nirvana had more effect on radio playlists and the like. What people forget, though, is that Nirvana was like the final brick in the wall that was the alternative revolution. In the year and a half prior, there were major successes by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, and the whole Lollapalooza festival that were what kicked the doors down for the next wave of bands.

 

Ah, yes, agreed. Ridiculous.

Yet another thread by Forum Stoker.

 

What's the point here? The OP's agenda couldn't be clearer.

 

Oh no.....Im not saying that it sounded dated at the time. I loved Guns and part of me still does. All I am saying is that if I listen to guns now they sound like what they were...An 80's/early 90's Rock band. When I listen to Nirvana they could be anything from the early 70's up until modern day. Many people will disagree with me but its just my opinion. Their music still sounds fresh to me.

 

Guns N’ Roses? Never heard of ’em.

 

I think the GNR fans can blame Nirvana for The Spaghetti Incident.

 

20+ years later and we are still missing finger gymnastics on the guitar....I would say Nirvana had a bigger impact overall. But in their active primes GNR clearly was "bigger"...I don't recall Nirvana needing speedways to play shows.

 

In South America, GNR were WAY bigger than Nirvana

Surely Nirvana got a lot of media, but GNR filled every stadium they played in South America

 

Yes, and I don't even like them that much, but they were way bigger than GnR.

 

I think there's some misremembering going on here. Guns were HUGE when the Illusions albums were released. I mean they toured the world 2 years straight, filled the biggest stadiums, had a hugely successful pay-per-view concert from Paris, double-billed with Metallica at the peak of their popularity... as popular as Nirvana were becoming, I don't think they ever reached those heights. They weren't really given a chance thanks to Cobain.

 

no, not at first.

but after kurt cobain died everything changed.

 

and for probably a year or so before he died

 

GnR were huge then...at least far more established than Nirvana at the time when both bands were a going concern. GnR even asked Nirvana to open shows on the UYI tour, but Kurt Cobain outright refused and instead fostered a beef with Axl Rose.

Since Kurt Cobain's death, Nirvana has attained a legendary sort of status that they definitely didn't have when KC was alive, and it has also eclipsed how big GnR were at their peak.

 

Guns'n'roses were the bigger band. they had bigger concerts and the hype around Use Your Illusion albums was HUGE.

Nirvana had a bigger cultural impact in that they pretty much ended a genre of music (hair metal) with one song. but the whole Nirvana thing didnt become legendary until after he died.

 

At the time, no. GnR was treated as a superstar band. Yes, after Cobain killed himself, and GnR went silent, Nirvana became much more. Culturally, while it seems as if Nirvana had a much bigger impact, I've heard it argued that without GnR providing such an anarchic, raw (Appetite, obviously) hard rock sound, Nirvana and Grunge would not have been able to gain the foothold to leap into the mainstream.

 

Yes. Though, not any more so than peteneatneat's (unprovoked) constant attacks on hard rock and metal. So this is the pot calling the kettle black. It's hilarious that he would be the one to do the eye-roll.

 

I was a teen in 1992 (the year both UYI1&2 and Nevermind had been out for a while) and in my class G'N R (as well as Metallica) was massive with a bunch of hits while Nirvana was a cool side-thing with one big hit that most people liked but not obsessed over. That's how I remember the moment of the releases. A couple of years later G N' R was no longer cool and Nirvana was the ultimate cool.