Suedehead
I Will Survive
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2023
- Messages
- 2,164
Agreed.Definitely see the Nirvana parallels, albeit on a much smaller scale.
This came up in pub conversation not long ago, but for all the wealth of solo icons that America has given us from Elvis onwards, they have seemingly never given us a band close to the same level as the Beatles in terms of impact, influence, sales and legacy. Not one! All of the megabands that come close - Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, The Who - are British.
Metallica and Nirvana are/were very genre specific. Aerosmith didn't have the same critical love, Guns n Roses likewise and seemingly lasted 5 minutes. ACDC and U2.... not American. Fleetwood Mac, mostly British, doesn't count.
Nothing post-Nirvana even qualifies because megabands just don't exist anymore. Maybe Coldplay, and they're British! Still not in the same league though.
The only ones I could think of are The Eagles and The Beach Boys, but they had something Beatles didn't have to worry about - diminishing returns. In fact on that note maybe it's the Rolling Stones that deserve the greatest credit, for being able to remain relevant for 60 years, even if they did have patchy periods (who doesn't)...
They've certainly had big bands in recent years in terms of stadium rock - i.e. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Foo Fighters etc. but not really had the impact.
R.E.M. feel quite forgotten now even though they were huge in the '90s, which is a shame as I feel they should be more revered. I think there's some homophobia there with the retrospective press because they didn't fit the mould anymore once Stipe properly came out.
I think that's why grunge was such a big deal in the early '90s - it was meant to be a return to rock'n'roll and a big fuck-you to the teen pop sound but it was more important for the Americans because it was American.
We seemed to turn our nose up at the Seattle thing at the time in the UK, and Britpop was supposed to be an antidote but it really turned out to be just as 'laddish' (if not even worse) and the nuance that the likes of Suede wanted to bring in was swallowed up by Oasis shite.
Anyway - I think in retrospect, grunge is still super influential and important and I know many people don't agree with me but that's okay.
Oh, and Nirvana fans are also just as annoying as Beatles fans!