killdozzer
Major Contributor
Nirvana is a good example to point out all of this is the myth of the golden age. OP today puts Nirvana with Led Zeppelin. In 90' old rockers infatuated with, for example, Rolling Stones would probably tell the OP he's still wet behind the ears and he needs to learn something about music.Music evolves just like everything else, to think that something has reached some kind of "apex" is very human, but arbitrary and ultimately wrong in the grand scheme of things.
I dislike many new genres, but I know is about my personal taste. Even talking about "absolute quality" is delusional, for instance Nirvana were making songs with a couple of chords, eons away from the sophisticated Nine Inch Nails productions or the amazing skills of Nils Frahm, but in a way all of them are among the greatest, so… what is "quality" if not a pseudo-rationalized version of taste?
By the way, Kirby Ferguson has made a very interesting series about the topic, which I hope would contribute to the conversation:
Most important thing, it obviously shifted. Crying about the myth of the golden age in 90' didn't include Nirvana and in fact ostracized Nirvana for the fact that one of their albums got released with an obvious mistake a member made while playing. Rockers were determined; sure we like rock, but this is bellow acceptable, you can't publish an album with an obvious mistake. (I don't care for that argument, but when thinking of the genious of the Zeppelin drummer, one might think these don't belong together).
So it shifted to include Nirvana and it will shift again. It will bring with Zeppelin, for sure, but The Band?? Come on. This used to be as obligatory as it gets in every record collector. Today kids couldn't give a flying for this: