Were Nirvana really bigger than Guns N' Roses?

Once MTV bumps "Smells Like Teen Spirit" up to prime time MTV hours in heavy rotation, all your talk of metal kids and Pixies fans and hardcore eyeliner wearing Cure fans goes out the window. The single hit number six on the pop charts. That happened because MTV played this pop flavored hit video heavily. It appealed to a lot of people. When you hit the top ten you are reaching more people than fringe groups. When MTV had the power to promote a pop music video, thanks to similar pop metal and punk sounds from GNR and Metallica that they just promoted heavily, all they have to do is play the video and people will respond in droves. I don't understand your concept of "winning over metal fans" and how that applies here. They won over the majority of the MTV viewing audience, which goes far beyond metal kids.

 

It seemed that you were denying that labels had any importance and trying to say that Metallica paved the way for Nirvana; if not, mea culpa, carry on...

 

H.P. Poppycock

 

I'm one of the metal fans they "won over". Never watched MTV. Used to listen quite heavily to Metallica (yes even the Black album) and GnR. However the Seattle bands, led by Nirvana, hit me over the head when they broke. It was a new and fresh sound which spoke to me in a way that metal and hair bands didn't. It somehow felt more honest and less derivative. I felt like rock fans of my generation finally had our own music. And to me it was nothing like GnR or Metallica - other than being guitar-driven rock music.

To me GnR were a very good rock band but really nothing new. Big hair, squealed vocals, misogynistic lyrics, rock star poses, standard pentatonic riffs and long guitar solos. Nirvana were completely different.

Now do you understand?

 

Both bands have videos with heavy riffs and heavy drums. It would be a stretch for the average MTV viewer interested in pop music to draw class distinctions between these two bands who just released new videos on MTV.

 

If you ignore or don't care about MTV's promotional power in 1991, you might as well not even post in this thread. It's about why Nirvana and GNR were popular in that time frame.

 

I'm not ignoring it. I'm telling you that you're wrong and explaining what you said you don't understand. You know...educating you. Perhaps you should re-read my post.

 

Nirvana and GNR didn't reach the masses by promoting themselves on Edison cylinder, they reached most people with their new material on MTV first and foremost. Glad to know that you didn't watch too much MTV back in the day, but you clearly did not partake in the primary means to promote these bands. If you want to know why a band is popular, look at the primary promotional materials that drives that popularity.

 

If you think it's a stretch, then you admit that you weren't there or weren't paying attention. Metallica and Nirvana blew up catering to different consistencies and while MTV was important in the bands achieving that success and crossover, it wasn't the whole story where they were supposedly selling the same product to the same audience. It certainly wasn't hard to find people in 1992-93 who were totally into the new Metallica but had no use for Nirvana, and vice-versa.

 

I've never gotten the sense anyone thought Nirvana was bigger than Guns & Roses. But then I was alive when both bands peaked as are most of my friends, and we experienced it first hand. I could see how someone who's too young to remember that era might get the impression that Nirvana were bigger based on today's perspective. But back in the day Guns & Roses were massive.

 

What exactly are you arguing here? All bands that were popular in the 80s and 90s were the same because of MTV? They must have all rode the coat-tails of Michael Jackson and Madonna as they were among the first stars of the MTV generation. That's it, right?

Honestly, what is your point, Mr. Honeybunch?

 

What a surreal thread.
I ignore Purple Jim's shtick (literally) but now I see Sugar Pie getting in to it with his forum friends.

S.P. Honeybunch, do you honestly believe everything you post?

 

Someone spiked the water here....

 

To this day I've never met anyone into Guns & Roses. They were laughed at by everyone I knew at the time. I knew a few people who were into Nirvana. So by that simple logic, I reckon Nirvana was the bigger band of the two, certainly in this neck of the woods.

As if it matters in the slightest (outside of the school playground).

 

Well, apparently it is a stretch for you. The statement that kids and young adults treated all videos "with heavy riffs and heavy drums" the same could only be made by someone who forgot what junior high, high school and college were like, or was home-schooled.

 

Axl Rose is bigger than any musician I can think of, except for perhaps Stevie Wonder.

 

In terms of his weight?

 

jokes are no fun if you have to explain them.

 

MTV debuted Enter Sandman in July of 91, and for the most part the summer of '91 for MTV constantly played Enter Sandman, Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff's Summertime, Gun's N' Roses You Could Be Mine, and Brian Adams Every Thing I do.. I was 14 at the time and I binge watched MTV since I was out of school that summer. Fall of '91 was when the grunge hammer came down and MTV pretty much changed jumped on the bandwagon. I would say by January of 1992 was when videos by Pearl Jam (Alive/Evenflow), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Give it Away/Under the Bridge) and Nirvana were put into heavy video rotation.

 

I became older, more cynical and was ready for a change.
Plus I started dating a girl that was part of the post punk scene.
Because of Nirvana, I was introduced to the Melvins,Soundgarden etc..
They were influenced by Bands I loved in the 70's and 80's.
It was a natural progression for me at the time.

 

In my book they were.

 

Yes, Nerve an a, was bigger than Guns and neurosis.

 

Guns n' Roses king of peaked in that couple year span between the Appetite album and the Illusions albums. Every single song off Appetite got massive radio play on rock radio stations over the Summer of '88 fueled by the single "Sweet Child O' Mine." There is no question that during GnR's popularity once the Appetite album took off and later, when the single "Patience" was huge. Between '88 - '91, they were the biggest rock band on the planet.

Nirvana's popularity kind of dove-tailed into and over GnRs popularity at the beginning of '92 as fans were getting kind of turned off by the Axl Rose soap opera during the Illusions tour and the general over-exposure they had been getting by that time. Up until the single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" became a massive hit, Nirvana was basically a cult band that suddenly became a standard bearer for the newly christened "Alternative Rock" label/genre. IMO, Guns n' Roses was easily the overall "bigger" band during their respective period of mass popularity vs Nirvana who while huge during '92, really lost a lot of mainstream appeal with the "In Utero" album (which I personally like to this day a *lot* more than Nevermind). There is no question both bands attracted a different dedicated type of fan. GnR was able to capture the hard rock/metalhead/party types that was by far the biggest genre of music in the late 80's while Nirvana's core audience grew from the more introspective, anti-establishment types into underground bands and music which really grew as a dominant demographic in large part to Nirvana's success as well as other "alternative" bands peaking at that time like Jane's Addiction and Sonic Youth.

I liked both bands a lot but the MTV exposure, the radio airplay, the media coverage, the album sales, the overall appeal between the two bands unquestionably favored Guns n' Roses as the "bigger" band. It just has to be understood that GnR hit their peak of popularity a couple years before Nirvana did.

 

Nirvana's impact at the time is vastly blown out of proportion after the fact and this is coming from a huge Nirvana fan. Usually people who think this are under 30 years old today and there entire perspective is though all of the hype years after Cobain killed himself. The fact is Pearl Jam was actually a bigger band at the time let alone Guns 'N Roses who were vastly more popular than Nirvana ever was.

The fact is Nirvana got huge after Cobain killed himself. It's well documented that all Nirvana albums started selling like crazy after his suicide. Don't get me wrong, Nevermind was big at the time but Cobain's suicide really push the band in a level of success that it probably never would have come close to obtaining. Guns N Roses was like a modern day Rolling Stones in the early 90's. They were really bigger than anything.

 

This mostly matches my recollection. I remember seeing the "Evenflow" video in early 1992, though I didn't buy the Pearl Jam debut until I got a Music Plus store gift certificate in September 1992. "Under the Bridge" was a big MTV video in early 1992. I don't remember seeing "Give It Away" on "prime time" MTV before "Under the Bridge".