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Posts Tagged “nirvana”

anniversaries

Nirvana's Debut Single Turns 20


Happy anniversary this weekend to the Nirvana "Love Buzz"/"Big Cheese" 7" released as part of the Sub Pop Singles Club, in November of 1988. It's a little difficult for to get my head around the lasting legacy of Nirvana in our post-grunge musical culture (other than as a t-shirt fave for troubled youth in area malls), but at the very least, the idea that two decades have passed since the band's Shocking Blue cover hit the music world is strange and disconcerting. [Sub Pop]

1:30 PM on Fri Oct 31 2008
By Dan Gibson
138 views, 3 comments

Latest by sparkletone: I have a terrible, terrible quality copy of the Peel session version of Love Buzz. It remains one of my favorite Nirvana recordings. more »

When Slow News Days Attack The New York Daily News' gossip column would like to remind you that Kurt Cobain, now 14 years passed, didn't like Axl Rose. While this information isn't really all that new, the lede to the piece sets new standards of... something: "Fans of Kurt Cobain continue to mourn the Nirvana rocker. But Cobain's 1994 suicide did have one upside: he didn't have to listen to loathsome Axl Rose anymore." Uh, well, that makes it OK, then? [NYDN / Image via this message-board thread that rehashed the whole thing four years ago]

8 comments

songs we love to not love

Which Alt-Rock Classics Do We Hate Most?

Earlier today, the R&B blog SoulBounce came up with an idea we're kicking ourselves for not having come up with first: the editors' and their friends' (and their comments box's) choices for the "Universally-Adored Soul Classic That [They] Hate." (Funniest moment: site editor nOvaMatic's dis of Frankie Beverly and Maze's "Before I Let Go," one of two: "My god, is this song potato salad? Must it be at every Black gathering?" Funny it appears here so soon after they named it one of the all-time greatest soul songs, but then nOva didn't write that one.) We like this idea so much that we've decided to rip it off, using a different category. After the jump, we'll will pick our Universally Adored (or so it seems) Alt-Rock Classics We Hate. More »

5:15 PM on Wed Aug 13 2008
By Michaelangelo Matos
3,505 views, 100 comments

Latest by the rich girls are weeping: @MTS: Ok. The Wishing Chair is still a hell of a record, though. more »

lawsuit roundup

Every Popular Musician Will Show Up In Some Courtroom Somewhere Someday

• Simon & Schuster has sued both Foxy Brown and Lil Kim for not coming through on books, despite being paid advances. In 2006, Foxy was paid $75,000 in hopes that she'd write an autobiography, while Kim was given $40,000 in 2004 for a novel. (Fiction still gets no respect, even when it's penned by a famous-ish person.) [Bloomberg via ProHipHop] More »

9:30 AM on Fri Jul 25 2008
By Maura Johnston
318 views, Comment

knights in ads' service

Five Kiss Songs That Could Easily Be Turned Into Jingles

The "writing ad-ready songs for the enjoyment of viewers at home and the delight of network accounting departments" reality show Jingles has had its debut, which was scheduled for later this month, pushed back by CBS, but that isn't stopping the network from letting the world know that Kiss bassist and entrepreneur Gene Simmons is going to be one of the show's judges. (I'm guessing he's going to take the acid-tongued "Simon" spot on the panel.) This caused me to think about how Simmons' body of work could itself be employed for the purposes of selling crap that people don't really don't need, via the time-tested "out of context lyric used to shill for a slightly incongruous product" method that so many ads employ these days. Five possible examples of how you could hear Kiss songs during breaks in Law & Order reruns after the jump. More »

12:45 PM on Thu Jul 17 2008
By Maura Johnston
425 views, 5 comments

Latest by mike a: "God Gave Rock & Roll To You" - Cornerstone Festival more »

videodrone

Old Nirvana Footage Makes Us Feel Even Older


You know how we complain about all these people who are constantly snapping photos and filming videos at shows? It can be a nuisance, for sure, but sometimes it's a damn good thing those people are out there. Case in point: This video footage of Nirvana performing "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam," "Aneurysm," and "D-7" at the City Gardens in Trenton, N.J., back in 1991 may not be particularly good, but it's an "I was there!" moment that is actually impressive and interesting, especially when it's 17 years later, the singer is dead, and people who never got to see Nirvana have to settle for whatever they can get. It seems a bit charitable to refer to the camera work as "amateurish"—the camera drifts around and occasionally lingers on the ceiling or the back of people's heads—but it's a good simulation of being at a crowded gig where you can't really see, and every glimpse you get of the band is precious and exciting. [YouTube via Jon Solomon]

11:00 AM on Thu Jul 17 2008
By matthew perpetua
402 views, 5 comments

Latest by Jay-C: I'm always afraid of admitting I saw Nirvana, in case it makes me the oldest guy in the room... more »

corporate rock still sells

The Half-Year In Review: Dave Grohl Owns Alt-Rock Airwaves (What Else Is New?)

Many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock. To help figure out which is which, here's "Corporate Rock Still Sells," where Al "GovernmentNames" Shipley examines what's good, bad, and ugly in the world of rock and roll. This time around, he gives the year's rock charts a midway-mark overview. More »

10:00 AM on Thu Jul 17 2008
By Al Shipley
1,258 views, 19 comments

exercises in analytical timewasting

Argument Of The Day: Do People Actually Listen To Nirvana?

Where to begin? Atlantic Monthly associate editor and blogger Matthew Yglesias posts a Nirvana video yesterday in the midst of his political coverage, mentioning that he doesn't think many people actually listen to the band, despite their influence. So, if you're an economic blogger for Portfolio, why not write out an extensive rebuttal to that assertion? More »

1:30 PM on Fri Jun 20 2008
By Dan Gibson
1,501 views, 29 comments

Along with his Foghat purchase, Michael Stipe revealed in his Death & Taxes interview that he still has a hard time listening to Nirvana albums following Kurt Cobain's suicide. "It was all written, it was all right there and it was so obvious where he was going, and then he didn't make it. I still have trouble—I can't listen to an entire Nirvana record." Can you? I'm not suggesting that less than regular play shows a lack of appreciation, but I'm curious if others find themselves less than likely to put Nevermind or In Utero on for entertainment, due to the nature of Cobain's passing or not. Has it been ages since you heard "On A Plain" or did "Heart Songs" inspire you to play the album with a baby on it who was naked on it?

29 comments

the last weeze

Is "Heart Songs" The Worst Weezer Song Yet?

My personal feeling about Weezer is that they made two of the best rock albums of the '90s, two good albums that traded lyrical coherence for good hooks, and Make Believe, a near-abortion that revealed how lucky we were to have Rivers Cuomo babble about hash pipes and dope noses instead of starkly announcing "We Are All On Drugs." "Pork And Beans" has a Blue Album-worthy chorus hook and distortion pedal push, but the lyrics are a pretty embarrassing attempt to seek sympathy for his "uncool" songs. Now "Heart Songs" offers a star's sequel to "In The Garage," name-dropping the artists who helped him throughout the gestative years of his career (before Nirvana changed his life) over a creepily tepid backdrop featuring acoustic guitar, strings and what sounds like a glockenspiel. More »

2:15 PM on Thu May 15 2008
By Anthony Miccio
5,451 views, 36 comments

Latest by Cor-REE-Nuh: WHOA WHOA WHOA; like some guy said up there. he is 34; his music is appealing to such a young age?amazing; right there; the new music isng going to last;sorry to say; this song is just to show you all the artists more »

smells like easy spirit

The Kurt Cobain Converse: For Those Days When Your Doc Martens Need To Be Aired Out

Because there aren't enough "Commodify Your Dissent" jokes out there, the Daily Swarm is reporting that Converse plans to release a line of Kurt Cobain-inspired sneakers as part of the company's 100th-anniversary celebration. Unlike the Doc Martens campaign from last year, this line of footwear is approved by Courtney Love, perhaps because Cobain loved One-Stars so much, he decided to die in them. I guess I could be all "blah blah blah capitalism" about this, but instead I'm trying to come up with a list of sneakers that would commemorate other important moments of the past 100 years. Teapot Dome Scandal Purple Chucks, anyone? [The Daily Swarm]

4:50 PM on Tue Mar 18 2008
By Maria T Sciarrino
1,330 views, 10 comments

Latest by Chris N.: As someone who's wearing Converse shoes right this second, that's good to know. more »

mark arm wept

Sub Pop Turns 20, Sends Zach Braff An FTD Bouquet

Venerable Seattle label Sub Pop is two decades old this year, and the Seattle Times has run down its storied history of weathering various industry calamities (from alt-rock's slow death to the record biz's slow death) while also managing the deft feat of continuing to expand its aesthetic remit by signing less-than-commercial acts like noize boys Wolf Eyes and sludge punks Pissed Jeans, a luxury in a troubled era that's perhaps made possible by the label's ten best-selling albums of all time. While the following list will probably not come as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with the label's last decade or so, it will probably make a few more labels wish they had signed Sam Beam or gotten a very public shout-out from a Scrubs cast member. More »

1:00 PM on Tue Jan 29 2008
By Jess Harvell
1,928 views, 24 comments

Latest by Al aka El Negro Magnifico: @Matos: No doubt. Probably followed by The Hardship Post's album. I, uh...kinda like that one. more »

Courtney Love sold Universal Pictures the rights to Charles Cross' Nirvana book Heavier Than Heaven and the Nirvana catalog as a package deal, so expect your favorite track by Kurt Cobain and Co. to be used in a sledgehammer-over-the-head way in the Love-produced Cobain biopic when it hits theaters next year. (Sorry, I'm still reeling from the way Control clumsily used "Love Will Tear Us Apart" to score a marital-spat scene. Oh really? It'll tear us apart? You don't say.) [NME]

7 comments

the new model

New Music Publishing Company Saves Industry By Destroying Souls

Apparently in the olden days musicians made a living by exchanging their product for money. But, as you may have heard, this is an outdated model rooted in pure evil, so the music business is looking to change the way money gets thrown around, and leading the way is Primary Wave Publishing, which aims to buy up artists' catalogs in order to stick your favorite songs in every last filthy corner of commercial media it can find. More »

4:20 PM on Fri Oct 26 2007
By Kate Richardson
1,410 views, 11 comments

Latest by gmort: NERD said: "Music publishing is one of the greatest legal scams in existence." I was hoping you could elaborate on your sentiments or at least provide some quality links for further reading on the subject. This area of the industry is more »

The Kurt Cobain Biopic: Does This Guy Know What He's In For?

14 comments

How Much Would You Pay For Kurt Cobain's Decade-Old Ass Sweat? Is a question posed by the NME as they run through "some of the strangest celebrity items to have been flogged online."

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teenage angst has paid off well dept.

Season Premiere Of "Cold Case" To Be Subtitled "I Loved The '90s"

If you have a sudden '90s-nostalgia jones that can only be cured by the promise of a scripted show about that storied time, you may want to catch the season premiere of the CBS procedural Cold Case, which will delve deep into the Nirvana catalog for an episode that's loosely based on the story of the West Memphis Three: More »

9:30 AM on Wed Sep 12 2007
By mjohnston
672 views, 6 comments

Coming to a TV near you (or your parents) this fall: "An episode of "Cold Case" will feature only Nirvana music." Hooray, Courtney Love can nourish herself once again! [Show Tracker]

11 comments