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practical_romantic  1yr ago (text post)   2870 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 21, 2022

Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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IMHO, Smells Like Teen Spirit is the last one. That's the latest point at which Rock existed as a unified fandom, and every Rock fan tuned into or at least recognized the same band as great, more or less. After that, the splintering of Rock and its loss of dominance in popular music makes the impact of the songs just not the same. It's the difference between Jazz as a vital musical force when Kind of Blue came out, and Jazz as something I watch with a bunch of old people in a symphony hall when great albums come out today. Musically, the latter may be 'just as good' but it's not the same historical force at work.

I'm not a big Nirvana fan, I find them musically facile and boring, but that's just the way it is, Kurt Cobain was the last true rockstar. Also one of the weirdest conspiracy takes I ever heard: Cobain was killed by the CIA, along with Easy-E, to try to stop their youth movement from taking over the west coast. Bonkers.

I would guess grunge is too hard for the OP's definition.

If it isn't, some other good picks might include Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden) and Rooster (Alice in Chains).

Probably fails the BttF audience test. But I'd still use Cobain's suicide as the death of mainstream rock music in straight line descent from Howlin' Wolf and friends.

I would peg G'n'R as the last really big classic rock band to break, and Nirvana etc. as another (though obviously related) thing.

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