Yeah, well, count me as one looking back at that stuff with plenty of "condescention and resentment", as you put it, form not quite allied to function -- though I agree the lyrics are minimal to perfection. I guess that, contrary to you, my long time in the 60's and 70's offered me a different perspective on where Rock might go after the poncy 80's and it wasn't in this direction -- nor that offered by Nirvana's would-be successors such as Oasis. On the shoulders of giants, to be sure, but my God, whatever happened to the art of songwriting? It was sent packing, and apart from the noble exception of Radiohead, never seen since. For better or worse, as you say. Rock R.I.P. Nothing, especially musical genius, lasts forever.
With all due respect, I think this is a somewhat muddled perspective. "The noble exception of Radiohead", as you put it, would hardly have been possible without the likes of Nirvana, which fed Radiohead precisely in the same way as the rockabilly of the 1950s fed the Beatles, or the punk rock of the 1970s fed all the giants of New Wave. So it was precisely this direction that was responsible for rock music's last gasp of glory.
And I don't think Nirvana are to be blamed for the decline of the art of songwriting - unlike their followers on the grunge bandwagon, they always cared for the integrity and resonance of their melodies. I'm no Mr. Grunge Guy at all, but the melodies of "Bleach" and "Nevermind" have always stayed with me from the point I actually took the effort to listen to them.
I don't think I situated the demise of the art of songwriting with Nirvana, but with their successors, Oasis only being the most flagrantly culpable. I agree that Nirvana still had the kind of melodic invention at the heart of rock music, though its recycling of Punk postures made it difficult for some of us to take seriously a second time in a mere 15 years.
Well, even if we agree that Oasis made inherently bad music (debatable, but possible), it's also an unbreakable law of history that everything good inevitably turns into something bad, and it is our duty (or at least our pleasure) to separate the noble and inspiring beginnings from the stale and talentless endings. We're not blaming Tchaikovsky for Mantovani, or the Beatles for the Osmonds, or Genesis for Kansas; why should we blame Nirvana for Oasis - when we could instead praise them for Radiohead? As for the recycling of Punk postures, I indicated briefly in the text about what I think made that "recycling" stand out on its own without blindly parroting the predecessors. It's more an issue with the next and last wave of recycling in the "neo-garage" explosion of the early 2000s (Strokes, etc.), where it becomes genuinely hard to tell whether there is any substance to this music or not.
Ouch, you have a soft spot for Oasis. I'm living dangerously! But from what i've gleaned (I'm no expert on this part of Rock music), Oasis were first and foremost inspired by the Beatles -- hence the title of their album Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. I don't have a clue whether they were inspired by Nirvana, probaly inevitably. But since the Gallagher brothers wanted us to take their supposed affinity with the Beatles (which they didn't bother to hide), they have to be held accountable for their mostly dirge-like music. At least Kurt Cobain, a great admirer of John Lennon especially, didn't feel the need to go overboard with the flattery, focusing on the spirit.
Also, I want to take issue with the idea that somehow 90s rock left songwriting packing. I've always noticed people take issue with some 80s and 90s on the basis they broke away from 60s and 70s standards of melody-making, but why is that the only metric by which we judge songwriting? Songwriting can be a lot of different things including the form and sonic texture as well, and sometimes I think it is worth to not invest everything into pure melodic construction if you are trying to focus more on form and sonic texture. Completely forgoing making memorable melodies is what I think is a valid complaint, but not every band has to be like the Beatles and Kinks. And actually, Nirvana was one of the few bands that actually retained the old way of doing things: unless you are extraordinarily biased, Nevermind is entirely filled with memorable melodies (though George claimed in his review the second half is not memorable, which I totally disagree with: how could songs as catchy as Stay Away and On A Plain not be instantly memorable) that are based in 60s and 70s values of vocal hooks. This perspective (which this is not the first place I've seen it, some critics literally claim sometimes there were no great records in the 90s because of these same reasons!) just doesn't make any sense to me.
Yeah, well, count me as one looking back at that stuff with plenty of "condescention and resentment", as you put it, form not quite allied to function -- though I agree the lyrics are minimal to perfection. I guess that, contrary to you, my long time in the 60's and 70's offered me a different perspective on where Rock might go after the poncy 80's and it wasn't in this direction -- nor that offered by Nirvana's would-be successors such as Oasis. On the shoulders of giants, to be sure, but my God, whatever happened to the art of songwriting? It was sent packing, and apart from the noble exception of Radiohead, never seen since. For better or worse, as you say. Rock R.I.P. Nothing, especially musical genius, lasts forever.
With all due respect, I think this is a somewhat muddled perspective. "The noble exception of Radiohead", as you put it, would hardly have been possible without the likes of Nirvana, which fed Radiohead precisely in the same way as the rockabilly of the 1950s fed the Beatles, or the punk rock of the 1970s fed all the giants of New Wave. So it was precisely this direction that was responsible for rock music's last gasp of glory.
And I don't think Nirvana are to be blamed for the decline of the art of songwriting - unlike their followers on the grunge bandwagon, they always cared for the integrity and resonance of their melodies. I'm no Mr. Grunge Guy at all, but the melodies of "Bleach" and "Nevermind" have always stayed with me from the point I actually took the effort to listen to them.
I don't think I situated the demise of the art of songwriting with Nirvana, but with their successors, Oasis only being the most flagrantly culpable. I agree that Nirvana still had the kind of melodic invention at the heart of rock music, though its recycling of Punk postures made it difficult for some of us to take seriously a second time in a mere 15 years.
Well, even if we agree that Oasis made inherently bad music (debatable, but possible), it's also an unbreakable law of history that everything good inevitably turns into something bad, and it is our duty (or at least our pleasure) to separate the noble and inspiring beginnings from the stale and talentless endings. We're not blaming Tchaikovsky for Mantovani, or the Beatles for the Osmonds, or Genesis for Kansas; why should we blame Nirvana for Oasis - when we could instead praise them for Radiohead? As for the recycling of Punk postures, I indicated briefly in the text about what I think made that "recycling" stand out on its own without blindly parroting the predecessors. It's more an issue with the next and last wave of recycling in the "neo-garage" explosion of the early 2000s (Strokes, etc.), where it becomes genuinely hard to tell whether there is any substance to this music or not.
Ouch, you have a soft spot for Oasis. I'm living dangerously! But from what i've gleaned (I'm no expert on this part of Rock music), Oasis were first and foremost inspired by the Beatles -- hence the title of their album Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. I don't have a clue whether they were inspired by Nirvana, probaly inevitably. But since the Gallagher brothers wanted us to take their supposed affinity with the Beatles (which they didn't bother to hide), they have to be held accountable for their mostly dirge-like music. At least Kurt Cobain, a great admirer of John Lennon especially, didn't feel the need to go overboard with the flattery, focusing on the spirit.
Also, I want to take issue with the idea that somehow 90s rock left songwriting packing. I've always noticed people take issue with some 80s and 90s on the basis they broke away from 60s and 70s standards of melody-making, but why is that the only metric by which we judge songwriting? Songwriting can be a lot of different things including the form and sonic texture as well, and sometimes I think it is worth to not invest everything into pure melodic construction if you are trying to focus more on form and sonic texture. Completely forgoing making memorable melodies is what I think is a valid complaint, but not every band has to be like the Beatles and Kinks. And actually, Nirvana was one of the few bands that actually retained the old way of doing things: unless you are extraordinarily biased, Nevermind is entirely filled with memorable melodies (though George claimed in his review the second half is not memorable, which I totally disagree with: how could songs as catchy as Stay Away and On A Plain not be instantly memorable) that are based in 60s and 70s values of vocal hooks. This perspective (which this is not the first place I've seen it, some critics literally claim sometimes there were no great records in the 90s because of these same reasons!) just doesn't make any sense to me.