In the 70s it was much easier for bands to become that huge and iconic. For one, if the radio is playing it that is all you hear. Everything else is a by chance affair.
It isn't the same today. Don't like what is on the radio? Put the iPod on. Want to hear similar music to what you like? There are any number of places to find it. Get on myspace and you will have bands begging to be your friend, some of them might even be good.
Compared to then there are just so many ways to take in media it is hard to get a bunch of people all on the same page.
And the music market is much different. Look how many different types of music are out there now. Even in Rock music there are so many variations on a theme that sound so much different it is hard for one to rise above the fray. People are stuck either liking rock or not liking it, they can find one small type of it they like.
As for Nirvana, sadly they are already overplayed. Radio stations really ran them into the ground in a hurry. Especially the majority of the Nevermind cd. If you can listen to it with fresh ears, it would really seem very good. Especially for the time it came out. In 1991, we had just put up with a decade of hair bands and bands trying to be bigger and more bombastic singing about Girls Girls Girls. Then you get 3 guys from Seattle with a very punk sound and it is pretty refreshing.
I, personally, think that Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were better bands from the era, but Nirvana was the one that was pushed by MTV when they still played videos. And at the time, if you were experiencing a little teen angst,
this is going to speak to you. And let's face it, a lot of kids experience that rage and here was someone else seemingly feeling it too. And he sounded intense about it. Interesting trivia, the kids going wild actually happened by accident as they were tired of being seated the entire afternoon watching them replay the song.
I always thought Alice In Chains was the best band from the grunge era, even though AIC was more metal to me than ‘grunge’, which is sort of hard to define.
They were one of the few bands who could harmonize very well.
Actually, Mother Love Bone
would have been the best band of the era had Andrew Wood not ODed.. I've often suspected "grunge" was the music industry's reaction to the fact that "headbangers" were largely pro-Reagan.
Good points about the options available today. The fact is modern communications (hundreds of TV stations, the 'net, etc.) has fragmented and diversified the culture. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially since it represents liberty and capitalism in action.
One thing it does do is makes "cultural conservatism" a losing proposition from the start, politically speaking.
-Eric