I never knew I wasn't allowed to like both at the time. I also always thought Alice in Chains had the potential to be the best of them all, stupid heroin. Soundgarden also went off that same Lollapallooza day we've been talking about.
kurt had a dislike for pearl jam i dont remember the exact reasons for it but there are some interviews where he ***** on them
I was into rock and country at the time and HATED Nirvana then; largely because of a kid I knew, who copied Cobain's look down to the unwashed hair, and complained to all that would listen when they hit it big and "sold out." I can clearly remember driving down the road late one morning and cranking Pearl Jam for the very first time on my car stereo. I can't remember the song, just that it was from Ten and I liked it a lot. I'm pretty sure they were playing on Z Rock.
Line-up (7) Pearl Jam Ice Cube Lush Ministry Red Hot Chili Peppers Soundgarden The Jesus and Mary Chain
When I was in College I covered both of these immensely. I still recall watching Alive on MTV and knowing it was going to be huge. I definitely prefer Pearl Jam's library of music, but of all the songs I still love to cover at an open mic, this is the one.
Cobain was more of a punk/indie guy - if you go back and look at his 50 favorite albums, you will find stuff by Daniel Johnston, the Pixies (duh), the Breeders and the Vaselines among others (the Shaggs, Beat Happening, etc.) and some punkish stuff like Fear, Flipper, Iggy Pop, and more post punk like Gang of Four, Public Image Ltd, and one of my favorites in the Wipers. Pearl Jam really didn't have those type of influences so Cobain didn't think much of them as a punk-inspired band. He felt that they were more of a "classic rock" band wrapped in flannel and capitalizing on the grunge phenomenon. There was also an intense rivalry amongst the Seattle bands and it supposedly bothered Cobain a lot that PJ was the first Seattle band to really become a mainstream success which is ironic in that Cobain never strove to be popular and that is one of the reasons he committed suicide. But after he had been trashing PJ and Eddie Vedder for awhile, he finally eased up on it as he admitted that he liked Vedder and he didn't "want to go there" anymore. Supposedly when Vedder heard about Cobain's death, he completely trashed his hotel room and admitted a deep sorrow for his passing. So they were rivals and there was dislike on who their influences were and of course the popularity but in the end, Cobain was okay with PJ.
You nailed the top-2. Ice Cube was just awesomely fun. I'd go Ministry, Soundgarden/RHCP after that. I didn't remember Lush being there, and I'm still not sure I know who they are. Jesus and Mary Chain were just out of place, and they acted like they didn't want to be there.
I always considered Alice in Chains an also ran when talking about the big 4 in grunge (Nirvana, PJ, Soundgarden, and AIC) but my God, I was really wrong about them. Dirt has become one of my favorite albums of all-time in the last year and Facelift was pretty solid as well. To me, AIC 2 best albums were better than PJ and close to Nirvana. Now Soundgarden had 2 masterpieces in Badmotorfinger and Superunknown but their earlier stuff was so uneven. But yea if the drugs hadn't caused so many problems, who knows just how great Alice in Chains could have really been.
Now I will tell you a rivalry - Faith No More and to a degree, the side project, the highly experimental Mr. Bungle vs the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Reading about the fights that Mike Patton had with Anthony Kiedis over the years is downright hilarious. Apparently Kiedis felt that Patton stole his "shtick" with the singing/rapping and of course Patton didn't like being accused of that. When Mr. Bungle was performing, RHCP and Kiedis did everything they could to make sure that they couldn't be on the same shows with them and just were overall dicks to them. Bungle responded by playing sets where they mocked RHCP by playing covers of their songs (usually badly on purpose) and going below the belt with such stunts as having the ghost of original RHCP guitarist Slovak being injected with heroin. This is from the wikipedia page on Anthony Kiedis: Feud with Mike Patton[edit] For over 30 years, Kiedis and Faith No More/Mr. Bungle singer Mike Patton have been involved in an ongoing feud.[125] Prior to that feud, Faith No More (then fronted by Chuck Mosley) and The Red Hot Chili Peppers had toured together. However, things turned ugly between the two bands in 1989 when Kiedis accused Mosley's replacement, Patton, of imitating his style on stage and in their music video for their biggest hit, "Epic".[125][126] The two took shots at each other in the media throughout 1990.[126] The relationship was thought to have improved in the ensuing years,[125] with Kiedis and Patton having face-to-face encounters in the 1990s that were described as friendly.[127][128] The feud between the two was unexpectedly reignited in 1999. Mr. Bungle was scheduled to release their album California on June 8, 1999, but Warner Bros. Records pushed the release back a week so as not to coincide with the Chili Peppers' similarly titled album, Californication.[126] Following the album release date clash, Mr. Bungle claimed that Kiedis had them removed from a series of summer festivals in Europe.[128][129][130] Mr. Bungle's guitarist, Trey Spruance, added that the manager of the Chili Peppers apologized and blamed Kiedis for the removals.[131] In retaliation, Mr. Bungle parodied the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Pontiac, Michigan, on Halloween of 1999.[125] They covered several of the band's songs, with Patton deliberately using incorrect lyrics, such as "Sometimes I feel like a ****ing junkie" on "Under the Bridge".[132] In the middle of the concert, bassist Trevor Dunn (dressed as Flea) walked up to guitarist Spruance (dressed as the ghost of Hillel Slovak) and simulated injecting him with heroin. Patton (dressed as Kiedis) interrupted this by shouting, "You can't shoot up a ghost".[132] Kiedis responded by having them removed from the 2000 Big Day Out festival in Australia and New Zealand. Kiedis said of the festival shows, "I would not have given two ****s if they played there with us. But after I heard about [the] Halloween show where they mocked us, **** him and **** the whole band." Mr. Bungle ceased being active a year after the controversy with Kiedis.[133] Patton continued to mock Kiedis in the media with his new band Fantômas, calling him a "noodle dick" in a 2001 television interview.[134] Several publications, such as Complex and Phoenix New Times, have since listed the Kiedis-Patton feud as being one of the best beefs in the history of rock.[135][136][125] Others have labelled it as a "funk metal feud"[137] and "absurd."[138] In August 2016, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld injected himself into the feud, calling Faith No More "the greatest band in the universe", and taking shots at the Chili Peppers and Kiedis after Flea posted video of him and Koko the gorilla.[126][139] The only feud I find more entertaining than this one was Robert Smith of the Cure vs. Morrissey
I saw Pearl Jam in Nacogdoches of all places. I'd put them above STP, but not by much. Nevertheless, Eddie Vedder can sure be a pompous douche sometimes. Alice in Chains is my favorite closely followed by Soundgarden. Chris Cornell may not have been as good of a frontman, but his lyricist abilities, his vocals, and his abilities as a composing musician put him in a stratosphere where I think he's about the only lead singer that can be mentioned in the same sentence with Robert Plant.
good stuff yall. its amazing how many of yall were at that lollapalloza 1992 out in sugar land (?). i was there too. didnt duck soup play on the 2nd stage? and then the next two years they did it out at that trashy race track in pasadena. im rethinking my original post and i would have to give the nod to pearl jam at their peak as a live act over STP. i only saw pearl jam at that lollapalooza, but based on video ive seen of STP i would have to say pearl jam put on a more intense show. ten was a game changer of an album, even though i preferred smashing pumpkins-gish and nevermind. its pretty incredible that those 3 albums and those 3 bands all broke within a month or so of each other. pearl jams career is interesting. they could have "sold out" and gone totally commercial...it would have been better for humanity as it would have served as a check against the band creed ever getting popular. anyway, just when they were ascending the peak of all-time biggest bands ever they pulled it all back. no videos, fighting ticketmaster, smaller tours, ect. they made enough on the front end of their career and built up enough of a dedicated fan-base that they have been able to do whatever they wanted for the last 25 years w/out any regard for commercial "success".
Stone Temple Pilots, they're elegant bachelors They're foxy to me, are they foxy to you? I will agree they deserve absolutely nothin' Nothin' more than me
I'm not a huge fan of either band. I wore out Ten like so many teenagers of the early 90s (jeez was it really 30 years ago) and thought their set at Lollapalooza 1992 (yes I was there too - more on this in a bit) was incendiary. I liked Vs when it came out (and I still think Rearview Mirror is a strong song), but by that point, I was being introduced by various college classmates to wilder and generally more interesting bands. By the time Vitalogy came out, I had lost interest entirely and never really gave them much of a listen past that point. The songs I've heard (plus various articles) seem to indicate that at some point, Vedder took control of the band's songwriting and lessened the input of Stone Gossard, who really was the architect (musically speaking) of that first album. So the cool riffs, instrumental interplay and (most importantly) dynamics were replaced by something more akin to a solo artist's backing tracks (simple cowboy chords and more predictable arrangements). Vedder has always been a strong lyricist (really, how many male songwriters can write about female characters the way he can), he doesn't have the melodic skills or vocal versatility to overcome boring backing tracks. Basically, he neutered the other guys and it brought him down as well. I have no love for the first STP album. When I started college, every douchebag with an acoustic guitar was playing "Plush" on the campus picnic benches as a pick-up strategy, and the rest of the songs were plodding heavy rock. I didn't take to the later albums either, but eventually, some of their singles (Interstate Love Song, Sour Girl, and several from Tiny Music) caught my ear. The music of the band was much more sophisticated than anything Pearl Jam did (though perhaps played a bit more mechanically) and the vocal melody hooks of their best songs are pure pop gold (especially on Tiny Music). Where they fall short is Weiland's lyrics - way too much of it is abstract nonsense that's neither clever nor evocative - and their penchant for filler on their albums. Neither band is in the same league as Nirvana, Soundgarden or AIC. It's like comparing Bad Company or Grand Funk Railroad to Led Zeppelin, the Who or Black Sabbath. That Lollapalooza show was one of the most exciting days of my life. I rode with one group of friends from Kingwood out to the Fort Bend Fairgrounds, but got separated from them almost immediately. I was right at the front of the stage for the first 4 bands and then (due to my ears finally screaming "UNCLE!!!!") watched (or more accurately, listened as I was sitting under some shade at that point and didn't have much of a view) the rest of the show from a distance. Fortunately, as things were wrapping up, I ran into a different set of friends and one of them offered me a ride home. 2 hours crouched in the back of a Honda Civic hatchback wasn't comfortable (I'm 6'1), but I survived (not sure if my ears did - I have bad tinnitus these days). It really was a great show - it seemed like every act was at its peak (maybe the J&MC the lone exception - they were pretty lame live).
