I think they're lists are shit. They play to popular opinion and nothing more. Agree to disagree.
I don't see that. Their 500 Greatest Artists list is pretty damn legit if you ask me, do you disagree with groups like the Beatles and Bob Dylan being in the top ten?
I'll go ahead and say that Vedder was average on guitar. There is no way that Cobain was better than Gossard, you can argue that they were equal perhaps. That's me being generous.
Better guitarist in what way though? By sheer technical ability? Yeah you could name quite a few with better technical ability on the guitar than Kurt Cobain, sure. Like I said though, there's more to the guitar than how fast and well you can play it, like WHAT you play and HOW you play it that makes you special. You can sit there and riff all day on your guitar doing amazing solos etc at a 100 MPH, but if what you're playing isn't good, than it really doesn't matter. Not saying that Gossard didn't make good music because I'm a Pearl Jam fan as well, but Pearl Jam is a
much simpler band than Nirvana and a
far less experimental group. No one in the grunge scene was as experimental as Nirvana was, every one of their albums has a completely different sound, Bleach starts with the original sound of Seattle grunge/metal-punk in the late 80s, Nevermind takes that grunge and adds pop songwriting sensibility to create a masterpiece and one of the most popular albums of all time, In Utero sees Nirvana returning to their roots in progressive metal/punk before Cobain begins writing softer songs again and starts planning an album with Michael Stipe from REM before he eventually died. If you listen to some of the last recordings that Cobain made (from the With the Lights Out boxset) you can hear him continuing to evolve as a songwriter, branching Nirvana out into this much quieter, softer, oftentimes acoustic area. Nirvana were always experimenting with different styles and themes and motifs, and Cobain was behind all of that. So to me, there's no question that Cobain was a better guitarist than Stone Gossard based solely on comparing their body of work and their songwriting. Technical ability, sure, Gossard was probably better. That's not all that matters though.
WOW. Long rant. Sorry.
If you think those things apply to Gossard and not Cobain you're crazy X. At least what he played was more creative than Cobain. Obviously that's a matter of opinion and you'll disagree but Nirvana songs are twenty times simpleier and easy to play than either PJ or Soundgarden.
Actually what I was saying there Armbar was about Kim Thayil from Soundgarden, not Stone Gossard. Have you heard the early years of Soundgarden? Thayil was simply not a good songwriter during that period when it came to the guitar, he just meandered with generic metal riffing for awhile. When he did find his touch though he did become an excellent guitarist and songwriter along with Cornell and I love Soundgarden, and I wouldn't be opposed to you saying Thayill was better than Cobain technically on the guitar, but again, there's more to it than that man.
And I really disagree with you about Nirvana's songs being simpler and easier to play than Pearl Jam. Bullshit. Pearl Jam has made a career playing radio-friendly commercial-ready alternative rock by the book. Not taking anything away from Eddie Vedder as a songwriter because he's brilliant, but the vast majority of Pearl Jam's work is safe, easily accessible radio-friendly alt-rock that a thousand other similar bands were making at that same time (pick up a Screaming Trees album for example).
Nirvana were much more complex than Pearl Jam or Soundgarden. Pearl Jam stuck to the alt-rock radio friendly format and Soundgarden stuck to their mostly metal roots with heavy doses of grunge thrown in, while Nirvana continuously evolved from their first recording until their last. With Nirvana there was no filler on albums, everything had a purpose, the same absolutely cannot be said about PJ or Soundgarden or Alice in Chains or any other grunge band of the time.
Song structure? Nirvana songs are some of the simplist songs on Earth. How is that a good example? I also think that they had a shit knack for melody. They were very simply and easy melodies and not in the same way that say The Beatles wrote their songs. In no way am I a Beatles fanatic but that is what great melody is.
Shit knack for melody? How so? These are shit melodies?
Seriously? Those are shit melodies? How in God's name do you figure that?
As for Nirvana songs being "simple", no, not really. They certainly weren't the Ramones with their 3-chord riffs. But I bet you still have respect for the Ramones, right? But you're too cool for Nirvana. Gotcha.
Doyle from The Misfits also had a line of guitars made. Even being my favorite band, I can tell you that The Misfits were never known for being technicaly amazing as far as musicianship goes. The difference between them and Nirvana though is people say Nirvana is the greatest band of all time. I also believe that Tom Delonge of Blink 182 also has a custom guitar so...
You get why I was making these references though, don't you? To show you that although you have your opinion on Cobain and Nirvana, the majority of media on the topic of Cobain and Nirvana is overwhelmingly positive. You can't deny that much.
Krieger wasn't bad at all, but who talks about Krieger in terms of all time greats? Nobody. You have Morrison's face on the tshirts and in cheesy paintings. That shows you that he WAS The Doors, and he was a great poet with a good voice. Nothing more.
What point are you trying to make here? That Nirvana was solely about Kurt Cobain? Absolutely it was, he wrote just about every damn song they ever released. Cobain was a perfectionist as well, keeping them in the studio for hours at hard work going over a song again and again until it sounded JUST right. They were alot like a group like The Doors in that way, I agree. Not sure why this matters though.
WOW. Armbar. Damn you. Making me post that massive musical rant in the bar room while Lost is on. DAMN YOU! Lets just listen to teh Misfits and be on with it.
