Major Magazine | Page 22

Blind Melon:

Most Underrated band of the 90's?

The 1990’s produced a lot of influential bands. The first one that should come to everyone’s mind is Nirvana. Nirvana was composed of three members, Kurt Cobain, vocalist and guitarist, and, Krist Novoselic, bassist. The band went through multiple drummers before landing on their final drummer, Dave Grohl. Nirvana released their first album, ‘Bleach’ in 1989 and continued releasing albums in 1991 with ‘Nevermind’, in 1993 with ‘In Utero’ and finally their last album was in 1994 with their ‘Unplugged’ set recorded in New York in front of a live audience. Shortly after their final album was recorded lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain died from and overdose. His late death rocked the music community and the world.

As we look back on music trends throughout history it is easy to see who has had the biggest influences music as well as culture. Throughout the 80’s rock music was shifting from the blues, hard, psychedelic, folk sound produced by bands like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones to, more poppy, stadium rock sound dubbed, ‘hair metal’ or ‘glam metal’. Bands like Mötley Crüe, Van Helen and Bon Jovi all found great success with this sound. While I do occasionally enjoy a good stadium rock anthem and I do enjoy the bands I previously listed, it was starting to become clear by the beginning of the 1990’s people were getting old of the repetitive lyrics and glam rock sound accompanied by massive hair and tight leathers. Due to this by the time 1994 came around and, Nirvana released their album ‘Nevermind’, people were ready to fully embrace this new ‘grunge sound’. Nirvana’s fame started off slow as they released their first album, ‘Bleach’ which initially sold 40,000 copies upon release and sparked Nirvana to go on their first National tour. However, the band didn’t see global fame until 1994 when they released ‘Nevermind’, and MTV played their song ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ constantly throughout the day. This launched the band into stardom. Nirvana is generally credited with bringing ‘grunge rock’ into the mainstream and most music enthusiasts including myself would agree. With Nirvana and grunge music in the limelight it is only natural that other bands of this genre will follow in their wake. Great bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden arose from this new movement and found great commercial success.

By: Stephen Herman