Re: Artist of the Decade/singles/influence
The discussion here breaks down along the atomization of markets since the mid80s, so it makes sense to say that Gill, Dre, Malkmus (Pavement does make sense as the key 90s indie band, though only because they democratized Sonic Youth's late-80s innovations) and the Beasties (who, for various sentimental-social reasons, I actually would love to win the crown, but really can't) all rule different roosts. And the one figure I think transcends that is Cobain: Nirvana's breakthrough changed the music scene irrevocably by destroying the previous loyal opposition and thus altering the basic lines of battle that had stood since 1977, and pretty much everything that's happened on pop charts since has been a chain reaction from Smells Like... Cobain is also pretty much the sole zeitgeist-defining personality in 90s pop (I'm not sure there is a *single* such figure in hip-hop this decade, though there are some contenders, and in country, well, that's Garth - which is a whole other story). As well, Nirvana combined quality and commercial success at an incomparable level for the decade - if The Key had sold like a Garth Brooks album, Jon W's assertion would hold up better, methinks. (AOTD for the 80s by the way is, to my mind, unquestionably Prince.) A thread tie-in I meant to throw into the mix yesterday: Smells Like Teen Spirit is also, on a craft level, one of the few singles of the decade that seems to me to stand up on every level to anything in the afore-bandied-about Golden Age of Singles - throwing down a gauntlet that pretty much all of Nirvana's imitators were far too chickenshit to pick up. By the way, I assume the Cobain-jeerers are willing to discount every other overdose and/or suicide in rock history on the same knee-jerk moralism, right? Janis, Jimi, Ian Curtis, etc. etc., all useless whiners. Carl W. Terry Smith-esque P.S.: David C., altho you're basically right about Madonna, it seems to me the ground had already been created for her to stand on before she arrived - by Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde and others. (If I had my druthers I'd give all credit to Patti but I don't think we can get away with that...) Yep, Madonna would rank pretty high on the influence scale, but she seems to me more a visionary opportunist than a revolutionary. HOWEVER: Your question about whether Aretha rather than Joni was the key gender-revolutionary in sixties pop was already creeping into my head as I wrote that last post. I'd certainly *prefer* to say it was Aretha - but I wonder if she had the same women-can-be-auteurs impact? Perhaps, but this requires further thinking and historicization; I've just realized that maybe before deciding exactly whose gender-bar-breaking was the most definitive (and I do think this is, as Music Trivia games go, an important one), I should read one of those late-90s books about women-in-music that I've been semi-avoiding. Any recommendations for the best one?
Re: Artist of the Decade/singles/influence
At 05:00 PM 4/22/99 -0400, Carl wrote: HOWEVER: Your question about whether Aretha rather than Joni was the key gender-revolutionary in sixties pop was already creeping into my head as I wrote that last post. I'd certainly *prefer* to say it was Aretha - but I wonder if she had the same women-can-be-auteurs impact? Perhaps, but this requires further thinking and historicization; I've just realized that maybe before deciding exactly whose gender-bar-breaking was the most definitive (and I do think this is, as Music Trivia games go, an important one), I should read one of those late-90s books about women-in-music that I've been semi-avoiding. Any recommendations for the best one? I don't have a recommendation since I've been avoiding them too. I would recomend Dave marsh's liner notes essay to the Aretha box, however--it does a great job of portraying her as an artist in charge of her own art. Of course, you're probably right that Mithchell was percieved in more of an auteur sense, but this may say more about critical perception than actual fact, about the critical biases in favor of album acts over singles acts, of white women in favor of black women, of what's presented as all-by-myself art vs.collaborative art. --david cantwell
RE: Artist of the Decade/singles/influence
As well, Nirvana combined quality and commercial success at an incomparable level for the decade - if The Key had sold like a Garth Brooks album, Jon W's assertion would hold up better, methinks. If we're talking about the decade, I don't know that Nirvana's sold more albums than Gill; the RIAA database is down right now, but I'll report back. Gill's had a number of multi-platinum albums, though, and is clearly an immense commercial success (The Key is his poorest-selling album so far); he might not have sold as many albums, but though I think that commercial success is a useful criterion in figuring out an AOTD, I don't know that getting too far into the numbers is that productive. For the record, there are others who have combined quality and commercial success in this decade at, I would argue, a higher level than either Gill *or* Nirvana - George Strait, for one, Alan Jackson for another, per that best-seller list - but as big a fan as I am of both of them, Strait was huge well before the 90s, and Jackson doesn't, IMO, have the breadth of achievements that Gill does. He's great, but I don't think he's been as outward-acting as Gill, who's been visible in a number of important areas, like honoring Bill Monroe at the Grammys, reinvigorating the Opry, etc., nor has he been as active in working with others on their records. In any event, I think your point about the atomization of markets is well-taken, Carl. I don't know that there really is an AOTD, as opposed to AsOTD in various fields.
Re: Artist of the Decade/singles/influence
Now that's an erudite summation. But I still can't get my head around Cobain as artist of the decade. His creative achievement, though jarring and influential, doesn't compare to that of the other serious contenders. Besides, the eight year old who runs my house, his seventeen year old babysitter and all her friends, the kids at the sub shop down the road, my ex-girlfriend's 14 year old son and my eighteen year-old sister's boyfriend are all white kids whose primary musical touchstones are rap and new jack, even if they own a couple of Garth Brooks records. These same kids know (but don't neccessarily love)The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Bowie, U2 and Prince - all artists of lasting influence whose catalogs are continually discovered by successive waves of college freshman. I asked my babysitter if she liked Nirvana and she said "didn't they have that song with the cheerleaders in the video?". The eight year old looked at me blankly when queried. And my sister's boyfriend was like "that's the guy who killed himself, right?" Before y'all kill me on anecdotal evidence charges, realize that I'm trying to illustrate that the only people listening to Nirvana are critics and white folks between 28 and 40. Unless someone can convince me that teenagers 20 years from now will find Nirvana's music revelatory for themselves (like Abbey Road kicked my ass in 1987, or like my babysitter really getting into Bowie now) I cannot accept his coronation. It's more likely he'll be remembered for being Rolling Stone's Artist of the Decade than he will be for his music. The discussion here breaks down along the atomization of markets since the mid80s, so it makes sense to say that Gill, Dre, Malkmus (Pavement does make sense as the key 90s indie band, though only because they democratized Sonic Youth's late-80s innovations) and the Beasties (who, for various sentimental-social reasons, I actually would love to win the crown, but really can't) all rule different roosts. And the one figure I think transcends that is Cobain: Nirvana's breakthrough changed the music scene irrevocably by destroying the previous loyal opposition and thus altering the basic lines of battle that had stood since 1977, and pretty much everything that's happened on pop charts since has been a chain reaction from Smells Like... Cobain is also pretty much the sole zeitgeist-defining personality in 90s pop (I'm not sure there is a *single* such figure in hip-hop this decade, though there are some contenders, and in country, well, that's Garth - which is a whole other story). As well, Nirvana combined quality and commercial success at an incomparable level for the decade - if The Key had sold like a Garth Brooks album, Jon W's assertion would hold up better, methinks. (AOTD for the 80s by the way is, to my mind, unquestionably Prince.) A thread tie-in I meant to throw into the mix yesterday: Smells Like Teen Spirit is also, on a craft level, one of the few singles of the decade that seems to me to stand up on every level to anything in the afore-bandied-about Golden Age of Singles - throwing down a gauntlet that pretty much all of Nirvana's imitators were far too chickenshit to pick up. By the way, I assume the Cobain-jeerers are willing to discount every other overdose and/or suicide in rock history on the same knee-jerk moralism, right? Janis, Jimi, Ian Curtis, etc. etc., all useless whiners. Carl W. Terry Smith-esque P.S.: David C., altho you're basically right about Madonna, it seems to me the ground had already been created for her to stand on before she arrived - by Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde and others. (If I had my druthers I'd give all credit to Patti but I don't think we can get away with that...) Yep, Madonna would rank pretty high on the influence scale, but she seems to me more a visionary opportunist than a revolutionary. HOWEVER: Your question about whether Aretha rather than Joni was the key gender-revolutionary in sixties pop was already creeping into my head as I wrote that last post. I'd certainly *prefer* to say it was Aretha - but I wonder if she had the same women-can-be-auteurs impact? Perhaps, but this requires further thinking and historicization; I've just realized that maybe before deciding exactly whose gender-bar-breaking was the most definitive (and I do think this is, as Music Trivia games go, an important one), I should read one of those late-90s books about women-in-music that I've been semi-avoiding. Any recommendations for the best one?
RE: Artist of the Decade/singles/influence
I wrote: If we're talking about the decade, I don't know that Nirvana's sold more albums than Gill; the RIAA database is down right now, but I'll report back. And though the database is still down (wake up over there!), on taking another look at the best-sellers list, I see that Nirvana clocks in at 23 million units (a million less than AJ, which I find surprising), whereas Gill must be somewhere under 20 million. Still, as I went on to say: Gill's had a number of multi-platinum albums, though, and is clearly an immense commercial success... And just to quantify that, he's got 6 of them, which is immense commercial success in my book g. Jon Weisberger, Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger
Re: Artist of the Decade/singles/influence
and just to really blow everyone's mind, please note that last month Steve Earle earned his "GOLD" status for Guitar Town!! That came out in 1986 and has only sold 500,000 copies. What the heck is goin' on Kate (happy to have contributed to the 500k) [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I wrote: If we're talking about the decade, I don't know that Nirvana's sold more albums than Gill; the RIAA database is down right now, but I'll report back. And though the database is still down (wake up over there!), on taking another look at the best-sellers list, I see that Nirvana clocks in at 23 million units (a million less than AJ, which I find surprising), whereas Gill must be somewhere under 20 million. Still, as I went on to say: Gill's had a number of multi-platinum albums, though, and is clearly an immense commercial success... And just to quantify that, he's got 6 of them, which is immense commercial success in my book g.
Re: Artist of the Decade/singles/influence
Excerpts from internet.listserv.postcard2: 22-Apr-99 Re: Artist of the Decade/si.. by JP [EMAIL PROTECTED] Before y'all kill me on anecdotal evidence charges, realize that I'm trying to illustrate that the only people listening to Nirvana are critics and white folks between 28 and 40. Uh, as someone who has taught several hundred teenagers over the past four years, I can safely refute that statement. Carl Z.
