[kj] An Olive Branch for Olive-r

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

"Barfly grunge" was a description I read of Nirvana's music once.

And, yes, it did seem to be more like metal. Not to obsess about hair 
once again, but also when I first saw the band -- long hair, Kurt's 
goatee or soul patch or whatever he had -- Grohl's long hair in a pony 
tail -- and they were playing more like mid tempo metal riffs -- I just 
couldn't understand at all why the label "punk" got attached to them so 
fervidly. I know Kurt Cobain liked to name-drop bands like the Wipers 
and other old 80s punk bands every time he could get -- maybe that's 
why? Or maybe because 97% of music writers are idiots? I personally 
hated bands like Belly, The Spin Doctors, Candlebox, Screaming Trees, 
Crash Test Dummies, Stone Temple Pilots, and Jesus Jones, bands that 
seemed to congregate amass in that era like flies around shit.

A few years ago something called "New Rock" was supposedly the new 
punk/grunge/thing. What was New Rock? Rolling Stone said it was The 
White Stripes, The Hives, The Strokes, The Vines, and Jet.

And a year or two before that, it was Detroit-style girl rock & roll: 
The Donnas (who were good early on), Sahara Hotnights, The Eyeliners -- 
that was "the new thing." And this was a few years before (1999-2000), 
but -- who can forget Kittie? Ugh.

I think music writers are probably continually obsessed with trying to 
convince folks there's a groundbreaking NEW THING HAPPENING RIGHT NOW to 
sell their magazines/articles, to promote themselves, and the like, 
whether it's true or not.

-Oliver




GREG SLAWSON wrote:

>

> I'm struggling to find ANY influence of the Buzzcocks on Nirvana--the 

> latter sound like 70s or 80s commercial metal to me, and Soundgarden 

> sounds like AWFUL 70s/80s hard rock/metal. At least the Killers have a 

> sort of new-wavey, 80s sound. In a million years I can not see 

> anything likeable about Soundgarbage, but then again I also hate 

> Led Zepelin, Punk Floyd, and Aerosmith. 

>

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