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<casioculture@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1103347680.965803.90550@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Simon Stanmore wrote:
>
> Fiercely anti-deconstructionist, aren't you?
I don't know. I think I'm just realistic.
> I might've also said that in 1992 Bill Clinton won the US elections on
> a compassionate agenda that promised to address the basic needs and
> social concerns of the American majority, thereby cementing the end of
> 12 years of the Reaganite Eighties that favoured the exuberant
> profligacy of the few (the British were characteristically sluggish in
> abandoning Thatcherism, but they did eventually and emphatically).
> Would it have been that these photographs did that too?
Nope.
> Kurt Cobain was certainly a great artist. To say that his greatness can
> be reduced to the riff of "teen spirit" is absurd,
Yes it would. I said that Nirvana's popularity and subsequently grunge's
rise into popular conciousceness can be reduced to the riff of Teen Spirit.
I stand by that. I'm not the only one with such a view...
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the song that brought Nirvana and grunge music
to the attention of teenagers around the world. While melodically and
harmonically simple, it featured a minimalistic, moody verse with stream of
consciousness lyrics rising to a ferocious chorus, and Kurt Cobain's voice
showing its range from tuneful melancholy to primal scream. It is vaguely
based around a riff using four power chords (F-Bb-Ab-Db) with more than a
passing similarity to a section of Boston's AOR classic "More Than a
Feeling", as well as Blue Öyster Cult's "Godzilla".
...from
http
/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smells_Like_Teen_Spirit
> especially that you
> should know there was nothing new about that riff, as it was a Pixies'
> riff, famous years prior, and Kurt Cobain said the whole song was a
> private attempt at writing a Pixies song that he was later persuaded to
> include in the album.
I knew about the Pixie's thing but I didn't know the riff was a direct
rip-off. Clapton took an Albert King riff and sped it up for Layla. This
reminds me of discussion I was having on cliche earlier in the thread with
Alan. See that reference above to the Boston & Oyster Cult pieces too. How
Cobain got that riff is irrelevant to the fact that it's the riff that
carried Nirvana and grunge to the masses.
> Yet it remains a decidedly Nirvana song, sharing
> much with the others, though perhaps my least favourite. The hallmark
> of his greatness is how consistently fine, in an artistic sense, his
> work was. I think a more representative Nirvana song from the same
> Nevermind album would be "Drain You". Other songs of Nirvana I prefer
> are "Lithium", "radio friendly unit shifter", "milk it", "in Bloom" and
> almost all the rest! Many one-hit-wonders have come and gone, yet over
> a decade later his legacy as a whole remains one of the best in popular
> music. His songs were the essence of poetry.
>
> What do the photographs have to do with Kurt Cobain or his music?
>
> Corinne Day's experience was not much different from that of Cobain's;
> both were equally troubled in origin, and equally disaffected. Remember
> that when these photographs came out the prevalent taste was that of
> cosmetic excess and capitalist fabrication. These photographs were a
> premonition of an emerging yet achingly estranged aesthetic of a
> libidinously-confused and reticently-confessional youth that sought the
> truth of itself and its world in all honesty however bleak it was. And
> it had to be truth because they lacked the means of cosmetic
> fabrication, and indeed, for its protagonists, who arrived ashamedly
> deprived of economic esteem in a world that highly valued it however
> constitutionally-innocent they were, it was bleak.
Do you really believe that? I believe that kids loved Nirvana because Teen
Spirit rocked, the cheerleaders in the vid were hot, and the fashion was
cheap. Almost every teen of every generation's an angst ridden little misery
at some stage.
As for the pic's, they have nothing to do with grunge music at all. Now I've
read a bit about Corinne Day on the Web I see I was right about the heroin
chic connection. The people that created and promoted that nasty little
fashion episode really have nothing to do with Seattles 90's music scene.
> Remember the cover image of the Nevermind Album?
>
>
http/tinypic.com/xd028
Now that's a good photograph - have always loved that shot. You know what,
if Dave Nitsche used people in his images I wouldn't be surprised if he came
up with something like this.
....I'm snipping the lyrics because this could end up real OT...
> All these were no ordinary songs; deservedly the 'voice' of a
> generation. Those were no ordinary photographs; deservedly the 'icons'
> of a generation. Albeit seemingly simple, and unabashedly 'ugly' for
> some, they were the epitome of perfection in beauty, and epiphany of
> prophecy in revelation. Judged objectively as art, and regardless of
> personal taste, they are as empathically effective as can be.
Yeah, but to me they're junk distasteful photo's. Most of 'their' generation
never saw these pic's and you can bet that most of those that did see them
soon forgot them. I've just a looked at some of the photographers other
stuff and remain hugely underwhelmed. Take a look at what Mario Testino did
with Kate Moss, that was good imagery
--
Simon
http/www.pbase.com/stanmore
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