Originally posted by drjayphdYeah, but the thing is, who killed off hair metal? Nirvana had a more dramatic impact than AiC did, or at least will ever get credit. AiC was certainly one of the more interesting bands to come out of those four, if not the most. 'Tis a shame how far he fell.
First of all Nirvana did not "kill" Hair Metal... Hair Metal killed itself.
Second that's exactly what made AiC better than Nirvana. They managed to combine the so-called "Seattle Sound" with metal and proved that the two can co-exist.
Third while the Hair Metal bands may have been laughable, musically they and the normal eighties metal bands (Dio, Iron Maiden, Metallica etc.) represented the epitome of musicality and technical proficiency in the realm of hard rock music. The death of Hair Metal was not a bad thing in and of itself, but unfortunately the serious old school and NWOBHM style metal bands got dragged down with them... and that's the reason I hate Nirvana (see the thread on that very topic.)
Everything's cool when you're Yun [point] Cheol [point] Su [point]
Look, it's not Nirvana or Kurt (or anyone else's) fault that your favorite bands didn't have the guts to keep on keepin' on in the wake of the changing face of mainstream music in the early 90s. If they said "hey, the kids are diggin' simpler music, so we're gonna cut out all the 'widdly-widdly-rowr' licks and five minute drum fills so we can stay hip and in touch" then that's their own fault so you should be pissed at them. And if you're mad because MTV doesn't play three hour blocks of Nelson (or whatever you'd apparently like to see) anymore, then apparently you've never read Abby Terkhule's (an MTV exec) comments about MTV's programming decisions being based on what brings in the best advertising revenue and not necessarily what does the best to advance the art of music. Mainstream music popularity changes; you can either whine because Yngwie isn't on the radio or deal with it and listen to the albums at your own leisure. The best example of this is Sammy Hagar; he's stated in interviews that he'd like to make music like Nirvana, etc. but he can't for whatever reasons, so he doesn't. Instead he just keeps on writing the same mundane rock music with the same mundane teeny-bopper lyrics and he's happy with it. For the record, so am I; because while there is nothing I want to hear less than Hagar's "Mas Tequila" monstrosity, that's far better than seeing Eddie Van Halen with his hair cut off and spiked up, sporting a goatee and a flannel shirt like he's Chris Cornell or something in that insipid Van Halen video from the mid-90s. So quit yer freakin' bitchin'.
Alice In Chains is still one of my favorite bands, and when I read that Layne died I had two thoughts.. 'OH NO!!' and 'Wow..he managed to stay alive much longer than I thought!!'
The fact (as has been mentioned) that the rest of the band moved on was a good indicator they wouldnt do anything anymore, though they never officially split up. Also, on the later albums, Jerry took over alot of the singing...
Now that both Layne and Shannon Hoon are dead, the only person remaining alive that I expected to die from an OD is Scott Weiland, but he seems to be able to pull through if barely.
As for music; Pearl Jam once said it, early in the Grunge rage..there is no Grunge..there is no bandwagon. Listen to the various bands and listen to the diversity. Nirvana imo made music punkrock for the most part, and was somehow elected to be the posterboys.. AIC used some nice metal influences..they ruled.
"...And I use that to fuck them some place fairly uncomfortable." "What, like the back of a volkswagen ?" -Mallrats