Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: North Platte, NE
Posts: 735
Re: I'd smash this pumpkin...
I think we should thank grunge if we are fans of 80s/early 90s music. Why? Becasue it helped the cream rise to the top. Look, Satch, Vai, Gilbert, Petrucci all have relased albums recently. Sometimes on their own label. The have total creative control, are releasing amazing music (and I don't think these albums were influenced by Nirvana). So we didn't lose anything from these guys.
What did we lose? Bullet Boys, Britny Fox, Warrant, Firehouse... you see where I'm going with this. If grunge had never happened would those bands still be around? (Would we want them to be?) The good ones from that era still are- you can still go see Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and lots of others.
And since the radio was brought up, I'd bet you have abetter chance of hearing Def Leppard there than Soundgarden these days. Of course it's on the classic rock channel now, but hey-- it was 20 years ago.
And that is just how pop culture works. 80s hair/shred rock had a good run- they got their years in the spotlight. They made fans of us all and gave great careers to many worthy musicians (as mentioned, careers that are still going strong in some cases). But just like all the British Invasion bands didn't last forever neither would the hair metal bands. If Grunge didn't come next something else would have... maybe something worse.
I am now nostalgic for all of it. But that is because I am old (31) by popular culture standards and that's the way it goes. Soon enough my kids will be old enought for me to tell them how their music sucked compared to mine and the cycle will continue. Who knows- maybe melodic shred rock will be big again by then. Someone sing "Circle Of Life" for me (now there's something that sucks)!