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Classic Album Discussion Thread: The Kinks-Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Pt. 1 (1 Viewer)

MAC_32 said:
Here's the thing - without the chaos that came with them they aren't anything like they were in the first place.  When I hear the lyric 'it's better to burn out than fade away' in Hey Hey, My My this band is a perfect fit.  They were meant to both explode and quickly burn out.  If they don't then they don't have the impact that they did.
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I tend to agree with this. And as I noted in my album review, it’s remarkable how Appetite keeps moving up the ladder on all the great album lists. In the 80s, it’s not considered. In the 90s, it’s listed somewhere in the low hundreds. Ten years ago it’s made it to the top 50. Now it’s somewhere right outside of top 10. 

Theres no official list obviously; I’m just generalizing based on what I read. But I can’t think of another album that matches this trajectory. Usually a “classic album” falls into one of two patterns: either it is regarded as great almost immediately, or it is reassessed at some point years after it was released, and that reassessment stays constant. There are probably exceptions to this, but I don’t know of any besides this one. 

 
MAC_32 said:
Here's the thing - without the chaos that came with them they aren't anything like they were in the first place.  When I hear the lyric 'it's better to burn out than fade away' in Hey Hey, My My this band is a perfect fit.  They were meant to both explode and quickly burn out.  If they don't then they don't have the impact that they did.
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As much of a doosh as he seemed to be, it also seemed like Axel was the one of the group that seemed to give a crap about the music.  

 
KarmaPolice said:
As much of a doosh as he seemed to be, it also seemed like Axel was the one of the group that seemed to give a crap about the music.  
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That level of give-a-damn was his motivation for writing Mr. Brownstone.  But if he's not surrounded by his band of misfits and drug addicts then the motivation isn't there in the first place.  Funny, huh.

 
They all cared. They just cared about different kinds of music.

This rift is completely obvious in November Rain. The first half is Axl and the second half is Slash.

It's similar to what happened to Van Halen & DLR. Roth liked the big band sound and Eddie liked synthesizers.

 
timschochet said:
I tend to agree with this. And as I noted in my album review, it’s remarkable how Appetite keeps moving up the ladder on all the great album lists. In the 80s, it’s not considered. In the 90s, it’s listed somewhere in the low hundreds. Ten years ago it’s made it to the top 50. Now it’s somewhere right outside of top 10. 

Theres no official list obviously; I’m just generalizing based on what I read. But I can’t think of another album that matches this trajectory. Usually a “classic album” falls into one of two patterns: either it is regarded as great almost immediately, or it is reassessed at some point years after it was released, and that reassessment stays constant. There are probably exceptions to this, but I don’t know of any besides this one. 
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I think that's just generational churn among the critics who are creating the lists.  They're all BS anyway.

 
Eephus said:
I think that's just generational churn among the critics who are creating the lists.  They're all BS anyway.
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Generational Churn was the name of my one-man show on singles bars. Critics said, "If you must see a show where a big ol' Vermont curmudgeon weighs in on mating calls across the ages, you really need a frikkin' life".

 
timschochet said:
I tend to agree with this. And as I noted in my album review, it’s remarkable how Appetite keeps moving up the ladder on all the great album lists. In the 80s, it’s not considered. In the 90s, it’s listed somewhere in the low hundreds. Ten years ago it’s made it to the top 50. Now it’s somewhere right outside of top 10. 

Theres no official list obviously; I’m just generalizing based on what I read. But I can’t think of another album that matches this trajectory. Usually a “classic album” falls into one of two patterns: either it is regarded as great almost immediately, or it is reassessed at some point years after it was released, and that reassessment stays constant. There are probably exceptions to this, but I don’t know of any besides this one. 
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On "all-time" lists you usually see older albums get preference to the newer stuff because it has stood the test of time. That's likely what's happening here.

 
simey said:
. GnR came on a little after 11 p.m.  I remember a lot of very wasted people being there. Women were taking off their shirts and bras, and throwing them towards the stage. There were people fist fighting. It kinda felt like I was at a redneck convention with live entertainment. 
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Sounds like a kid rock concert, but with much better music.

 
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A great album that still gets in my rotation, especially in the summer. Like someone above said, this album killed off the hair metal posers and set the stage for the grunge takeover.

I saw the Metallica/GNR tour in 92 at the Pontiac silverdome to mixed results. Metallica kicked a** as usual but due to the terrible acoustics the vocals were often drowned out by the echoes of bass and drums. After Metallica finished it was almost 90 minutes before GNR finally decided to play. Luckily there was lots of pop-topping and fist-fights to keep me entertained during the long wait. When they performed they actually sounded pretty good despite being in a dome. The big problem was flow- they took long breaks between songs and played You Could Be Mine twice with a guitar and then drum solo separating them and then a piano solo into November Rain. Was glad I saw them but had no desire to see them again. Metallica was about to start their downward spiral and still blew them away.

 
Nirvana- Nevermind (1991)

Smells Like Teen Spirit

In Bloom

Come As You Are

Breed

Lithium

Polly

Territorial Pissings

Drain You

Lounge Act

Stay Away

On a Plain

Something In the Way

Endless, Nameless

When this album first became known nationally I really disliked it. I disliked the sound, I disliked the entire movement, I REALLY disliked the album cover, I was annoyed by Kurt Cobain who struck me as a present day Jim Morrison, with the same pretentious- and then sure enough he died soon after. Everything about them annoyed me. I was closing in on 30, already feeling my age, missing the music of my youth.  Soon enough on the radio there was nothing but hip hop and grunge. Yuck.

Over time my feelings have softened. A turning point for me was finally watching the MTV Unplugged show on video, and their performance of "The Man Who Sold the World", always one of my favorite Bowie songs. And I began to appreciate some of grunge music...a little. I'll never be a huge fan. But damn this album sure did affect a whole lot of people, and all kinds of rock "experts" think highly of it, so here it is.

 
I think Nirvana deservedly gets credit for who they were as a influential trendsetter, but not necessarily for what they did in terms of musical output. I don't think Nevermind or their other material is overly special, but their place in music history is forever assured.

ETA: Not the popular opinion, but I do think they got more credit because of the way Cobain went out as a member of the 27 Club.

 
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I agree with Zambonis take. It's like the comments people were just making on gnr. It's better to blow up huge, than to slowly face away. Pearl jam has continued to make music for 25+ years and save for one thread on this board, I don't think they are held in the same Pantheon as Nirvana. 

Personally, I was still buying into the idea of musical rivalries when grunge broke. I was a Pearl jam fan, so I couldn't be a Nirvana fan too.  Long term looking back I still think Pearl jam has a better library, but I can't discount how my world changed the minute I first saw smells like teen spirit on mtv.

 
Bull Dozier said:
I agree with Zambonis take. It's like the comments people were just making on gnr. It's better to blow up huge, than to slowly face away. Pearl jam has continued to make music for 25+ years and save for one thread on this board, I don't think they are held in the same Pantheon as Nirvana. 

Personally, I was still buying into the idea of musical rivalries when grunge broke. I was a Pearl jam fan, so I couldn't be a Nirvana fan too.  Long term looking back I still think Pearl jam has a better library, but I can't discount how my world changed the minute I first saw smells like teen spirit on mtv.
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A lot of people say that and I respect it. I guess I was born too much of skeptic, as I probably said something along the lines of "interesting tune and video - cool".

 
Bull Dozier said:
I agree with Zambonis take. It's like the comments people were just making on gnr. It's better to blow up huge, than to slowly face away. Pearl jam has continued to make music for 25+ years and save for one thread on this board, I don't think they are held in the same Pantheon as Nirvana. 

Personally, I was still buying into the idea of musical rivalries when grunge broke. I was a Pearl jam fan, so I couldn't be a Nirvana fan too.  Long term looking back I still think Pearl jam has a better library, but I can't discount how my world changed the minute I first saw smells like teen spirit on mtv.
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I am certainly no big Pearl Jam fan, but some of their songs, like "Better Man" and "Jeremy", were for me a thousand times better than anything I ever heard from Nirvana. 

 
zamboni said:
A lot of people say that and I respect it. I guess I was born too much of skeptic, as I probably said something along the lines of "interesting tune and video - cool".
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I said, "this sucks." And I remember that after the Weird Al parody came out I got the lyrics confused with the original song. 

 
Being old (middle-aged, really) and paying much more attention to life than media when they came out, i was introduced to both Nirvana & Radiohead by videos on music channels. But i knew enough to see that the world had changed for those who cared immediately upon viewing.

ETA: Looks like a few of us were thinking the same thing @ the same time.....

 
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timschochet said:
I am certainly no big Pearl Jam fan, but some of their songs, like "Better Man" and "Jeremy", were for me a thousand times better than anything I ever heard from Nirvana. 
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I do think that "Jeremy" had a bigger impact on me than "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as a song. Part of it was certainly the shock value of the video, but I also thought it was a very well-crafted tune that sounded just as unique and fresh as Spirit did.

 
I was always a bigger Pearl Jam fan but Nirvana was a great band and deserves the more legendary status. Kurt just had that certain something special as a front man and then ofcourse dying early, it just all clicked so perfectly with the zeitgeist of the time. 

 
wikkidpissah said:
Being old (middle-aged, really) and paying much more attention to life than media when they came out, i was introduced to both Nirvana & Radiohead by videos on music channels. But i knew enough to see that the world had changed for those who cared immediately upon viewing.

ETA: Looks like a few of us were thinking the same thing @ the same time.....
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We'll get into Radiohead sometime later on, but my reaction to them was 180 degrees different from my reaction to Nirvana. 

 
Ilov80s said:
 Kurt just had that certain something special as a front man and then ofcourse dying early, it just all clicked so perfectly with the zeitgeist of the time. 
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You could probably replace Jim Morrison with Kurt and it would fit. Definitely some parallels beyond being fellow members of the 27 Club.

 
I like/liked a lot of Nirvana's music. Still play their first two discs semi regularly. 

First time I heard "Smells like teen spirit" was on SNL. Loved it immediately. For all I know it had been out a while and I'd missed it, can't really remember. Just remember how amazed I was when I heard it on SNL.

 
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zamboni said:
I do think that "Jeremy" had a bigger impact on me than "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as a song. Part of it was certainly the shock value of the video, but I also thought it was a very well-crafted tune that sounded just as unique and fresh as Spirit did.
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That's it exactly. Pearl Jam had some music craft, a sense of melody. If Nirvana had that, I never heard it. 

 
Ranethe said:
First time I heard "Smells like teen spirit" was on SNL. Loved it immediately. For all I know it had been out a while and I'd missed it, can't really remember. Just remember how amazed I was when I saw it on SNL.
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Was that when Krist Novoselic pulled an E-7 with his pop-fly bass?

ETA: Never mind (pun unintended), that was one of the MTV Award shows.

 
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timschochet said:
We'll get into Radiohead sometime later on, but my reaction to them was 180 degrees different from my reaction to Nirvana. 
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Yeah, i'm more than a decade older than you so i lumped them together as bands which broke well past my Age of Enthusiasm that i immediately glommed onto as a thang. You and most other FFAppers were of the age i was with my 60s/70s crap when these guys broke, so i'm naturally processing them differently while appreciating the new elements they brang.

 
zamboni said:
I think Nirvana deservedly gets credit for who they were as a influential trendsetter, but not necessarily for what they did in terms of musical output. I don't think Nevermind or their other material is overly special, but their place in music history is forever assured.

ETA: Not the popular opinion, but I do think they got more credit because of the way Cobain went out as a member of the 27 Club.
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Never hurts to go out young. I believe Neil Young said it even better.

 
zamboni said:
A lot of people say that and I respect it. I guess I was born too much of skeptic, as I probably said something along the lines of "interesting tune and video - cool".
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I was probably combining an actually period of time into one moment. MTV was talking about something happening in Seattle for a while then put this video on high rotation. I was hooked, having left metal and hair bands looking for something new.  This just scratched an itch, but Pearl jam made an even stronger connection with me. 

 
I was in my music prime a few years before the grunge movement really exploded and so I never got into too much of it.  However, it was the big songs from this album (Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom, Come As You Are, and Lithium) that sort of made me aware of the genre.  I really like those, but find other tracks (Breed, Polly, Endless Nameless) make me not want to listen to this album much in its entirety.  

 
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timschochet said:
That's it exactly. Pearl Jam had some music craft, a sense of melody. If Nirvana had that, I never heard it. 
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Nirvana was playing punk, while Pearl jam was more inspired by classic rock. I'm no fan of punk, but I think that would explain PJs more melodic music (and maybe more relavence to this thread).

 
Was more a fan of PJ's Jeremy then Nirvana's Smells like teen spirit.  But over time I became more of a fan of Nirvana then PJ and actually now like SLTS.  Better songs on the album Lithium, Polly, Come as you are though and The unplugged album is amazing.  Not a huge fan, and like others above mentioned probably gets ranked higher for the cobain out early effect.  I agree they belong in their place in music history and had a huge impact.

Funny thing now I find myself listening to the Lithium channel on Sirus and not regular radio, loving Candlebox, Live, Hole, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden.... heck even a little Soul Asylum.  

Saw Soundgarden open for GnR in 1990, then again about 5 years ago on tour with Nine Inch Nails.  

 
MAC_32 said:
Here's the thing - without the chaos that came with them they aren't anything like they were in the first place.  When I hear the lyric 'it's better to burn out than fade away' in Hey Hey, My My this band is a perfect fit.  They were meant to both explode and quickly burn out.  If they don't then they don't have the impact that they did.
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As I was writing this earlier today Nirvana was also on my mind.  Nice timing.

 
Bull Dozier said:
I agree with Zambonis take. It's like the comments people were just making on gnr. It's better to blow up huge, than to slowly face away. Pearl jam has continued to make music for 25+ years and save for one thread on this board, I don't think they are held in the same Pantheon as Nirvana. 

Personally, I was still buying into the idea of musical rivalries when grunge broke. I was a Pearl jam fan, so I couldn't be a Nirvana fan too.  Long term looking back I still think Pearl jam has a better library, but I can't discount how my world changed the minute I first saw smells like teen spirit on mtv.
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I am not a rivalry guy (musically... #### the Patriots and Red Sox though) so I liked them all but at the time (and still now) favored Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains all over Nirvana but Nirvana did kick the door open and were great.

I was 21 at this time so the whole grunge movement was in my wheelhouse and it seemed like a pretty special time to be alive musically - almost like a modern "British Invasion" in that a small region produced a sound and a bunch of bands that were taking the music world by storm. I still listen to all of it from time to time but the love has faded to some degree. The memories are good though.

 
Leroy Hoard said:
Never hurts to go out young. I believe Neil Young said it even better.
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Also from the Seattle scene, it's too bad that Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone, which of course spawned Pearl Jam, hasn't received the same level of accolades. MLB was just too a bit too early to the mainstream grunge scene. 

 
Leroy Hoard said:
Never hurts to go out young. I believe Neil Young said it even better.
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Also from the Seattle scene, it's too bad that Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone, which of course spawned Pearl Jam, hasn't received the same level of accolades. MLB was just too a bit too early to the mainstream grunge scene. 

 
Raging weasel said:
A great album that still gets in my rotation, especially in the summer. Like someone above said, this album killed off the hair metal posers and set the stage for the grunge takeover.
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I felt that way as well. Hair Metal started off decently with Def Leppard, Crue, and Ozzy, but once we got to Poison, that was enough. imho, Guns and Roses definitely was the bridge between hair metal and the "back to basics" grunge sound. 

 
I was huge into metal (heavy metal, hair metal, whatever you wanna call it) and heavy rock (Jazz, 60's rock and a lot of other music) and I actually kind of liked Nirvana and Peal Jam, it was played A LOT on the radio back then so I was never really one to buy anything that was played a lot on the radio.  So I was in the "it's very good but. . ." category until I heard Stone Temple Pilots, they changed my mind more than anything.  They got some airplay but I bought STP's albums, I was impressed all to hell and back with them, I think that's when I thought "wow, this is damn good, I think I'm in the I like grunge category now."

 
jwb said:
I felt that way as well. Hair Metal started off decently with Def Leppard, Crue, and Ozzy, but once we got to Poison, that was enough. imho, Guns and Roses definitely was the bridge between hair metal and the "back to basics" grunge sound. 
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Exactly.  ACDC and Van Halen (to me) bridged the gap between Zeppelin to that point and Def Leppard, Crue, Ozzy picked it up from there but I agree, when you got crap like White Lion, Poison, those Nelson sisters, etc. that was the train went off the track.  GNR was like auto-correct for rock music, they deleted the hair and sissy outfits, replaced stale, repetitive music with excellent, well played, loud, in your face music and pretty much lead the charge to wipe out the #### show that metal had turned into.

 
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Bull Dozier said:
I agree with Zambonis take. It's like the comments people were just making on gnr. It's better to blow up huge, than to slowly face away. Pearl jam has continued to make music for 25+ years and save for one thread on this board, I don't think they are held in the same Pantheon as Nirvana. 
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Here's why Pearl Jam is still so big within their niche - musically they have just recently hit their peak.  Creativly their prime was two-three decades ago, when their songs were first being crafted and their style was developing.  But they didn't become a great sounding band until the last 10 years or so.  While everyone else from that era crashed and burned at their own paces they rode the waves and came out better than they went in.  

But believe me, I get where you're coming from.  Up until a few years ago I thought the same thing.  Then I saw them.  I get it now.

 
I was into my late 20's when grunge got big, and was predictably a bit removed from newer music. That said, I liked grunge for its noisy sound. I preferred PJ to Nirvana  (still do).   

 
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Galileo said:
I was in my music prime a few years before the grunge movement really exploded and so I never got into too much of it.  However, it was the big songs from this album (Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom, Come As You Are, and Lithium) that sort of made me aware of the genre.  I really like those, but find other tracks (Breed, Polly, Endless Nameless) make me not want to listen to this album much in its entirety.  
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This is what's so great about music - two people can listen to the exact same thing and come away with completely different conclusions.  If I'm in the right mood I won't turn Spirit off, but I couldn't tell you the last time I listened to the album versions of any of their other hits off Nevermind.  But Breed, Drain You, Stay Away, Lounge Act, and On a Plain probably hit my ears > once per week.  Along with Frances Farmer, Very Ape, Tourette's, and most of Unplugged - especially Where Did You Sleep Last Night.  Radio friendly Nirvana didn't stand the test of time with me, but the rest did.

 
zamboni said:
I think Nirvana deservedly gets credit for who they were as a influential trendsetter, but not necessarily for what they did in terms of musical output. I don't think Nevermind or their other material is overly special, but their place in music history is forever assured.

ETA: Not the popular opinion, but I do think they got more credit because of the way Cobain went out as a member of the 27 Club.
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Ofcourse. This is always true. Mariyln Monroe and Jame Dean were beautful and unique at the time, but if they don't die young, I doubt they end up as the 2 most eternally famous and inconic movie stars of the past. The slow aging, putting out of less quality less edgey work, becoming uncool- it just eats away as one's legacy. 

 
MAC_32 said:
Here's why Pearl Jam is still so big within their niche - musically they have just recently hit their peak.  Creativly their prime was two-three decades ago, when their songs were first being crafted and their style was developing.  But they didn't become a great sounding band until the last 10 years or so.  While everyone else from that era crashed and burned at their own paces they rode the waves and came out better than they went in.  

But believe me, I get where you're coming from.  Up until a few years ago I thought the same thing.  Then I saw them.  I get it now.
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I think you misunderstood me a little. I definitely this Pearl jam is still putting out great music. I'm shelling out a fortune to see them in Seattle in a couple days. 

 
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