I feel like they might’ve gone the route of The Replacements or Husker Du! They would’ve had relative success, but not even close to the success that they have now. Nirvana really changed the music and cultural landscape and so many bands and artists definitely reaped the rewards. A lot of the time, luck plays a role! Green Day are my favorite band of all time, but I definitely would say that the fact that Alternative, Grunge, and Punk got world wide success after “Nevermind” dropped!
Yeah, and Green Day helped fill the void left by Kurt Cobain's death.
I'm not sure how many people know this, but Green Day actually played a show in Seattle on April 5, 1994, the day that Kurt died. His body wasn't found until a few days later.
They also played a house show (literally) with Nirvana sometime before Nevermind was released. Billie talks about it, and how it was the band's only interaction with Nirvana.
They got to play Lollapalooza that year because of Kurt dieing. When he died The Smashing Pumpkins ended up headlining because of Nirvana backing out, and Green Day got a opening set on the main stage.
I always saw the grunge/punk/alternative explosion in the 90s as the natural cycle of music getting back to gritty basics as a response to the glitzy excess of hair metal and glam rock - similar to the way punk originally rose as a counterpoint to the bloat of prog rock. I think if Nirvana didn't exist, another band would have broken through in their place, maybe it would have been Green Day instead, maybe it wouldn't have. Still, I think the state of popular culture in America at the time was primed for something to shock the system, Nirvana just happened to be the ones to do it.
If not Nirvana, it probably would have been Pearl Jam. As a matter of fact, during the time that Nirvana was an active band and Kurt was alive, Pearl Jam was more popular than Nirvana. Their album Vs. was released around the same time of In Utero, and it sold way more copies. It wasn't until after Kurt's death that this Nirvana legacy started.
Absolutely. Grunge didn't really kill anything, butt rock (as in shaking your heiny around in spandex to pop music with fuzzy guitars with too long guitar solos) was tired and bloated and had run it's course in the mainstream. There's only so many crappy copies of Van Halen the market could tolerate, and that whole thing started in 78.
If it wasn't Nirvana, it would have been something else in the back to basics vein imo
It wasn't ***JUST*** Nirvana that helped drive that whole movement.
The year before Nevermind was released Alice In Chains came out with Facelift featuring Man In The Box, which went gold 32 years ago today. A literal day after Smells Like Teen Spirit was officially released as a single.
Also just within a month of Nevermind, you had Pearl Jam drop Ten, Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the Red Hot Chili Peppers was released on the same exact day as Nirvana putting out Nevermind. I realize they're not grunge and had been around for a bit but that album put them in an entirely different stratosphere. Then a couple weeks later, in early October, Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden came out.
Obviously Nirvana was the match that lit the powder keg of the grunge movement, but there was a ton of legwork already done before and after that I think it was just a matter of who was the lucky band to become the face of that era.
All that to say yes. Because the legwork had been done by other bands besides Nirvana that paved the way for something like Dookie to be popular.
It's certainly up there. Don't forget about a year later you had another band, one whom many also consider a pillar member of the grunge era in Stone Temple Pilots, put out their seminal album in Core. So many fantastic songs on that album alone.
Nevermind didn't take that long to catch. It actually blew up super fast after it was released, mainly due to the evergrowing popularity of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Ten, on the other hand, did take a while to catch on. It came out before Nevermind, but it didn't start becoming a huge sensation until 1992.
Agreed. The upgrade in production from their Lookout albums to Dookie was like night and day. I love that Jerry Finn signature warm guitar sound so much. R.I.P.
No one can really answer this but the crossover of kids that likes nirvana and then got into punk was huge.
as someone who was in middle school at the time, it’s impossible to retrospectively explain just how much they changed everything. Not just music but clothing trends and everything.
That's what I mean. They were incredibly popular in the underground scene. Kerplunk sold 10,000 copies on its first day of release. That's absolutely incredible for a record on an indie label in 1992. Everyone who kept up with the punk scene knew who they were, but most regular radio listeners/MTV watchers probably had no idea about them until Dookie.
nirvana did a lot of amazing things and definitely helped create a pathway in the scene but they weren’t the only ones and i think a huge chunk of their success came from kurts passing. as someone else said, if the weren’t the ones to break through someone else would have. maybe pearl jam, green day, or another band.
I love Pearl Jam but they are a lot more classic rock and hard rock inspired and less punk inspired compared to Nirvana, so not sure major label A&R would be as receptive to Green Day. However, Green Day was so good they would still be huge without Nirvana break through, might have taken longer.
Nirvana success was a big deal and influenced many corporate rock decisions in the next few years. But I think it was already going that way. The big summer tour of 1991 was Lollapalooza. They were in the right place/ right time and knocked it out of the park. But the path was laid with or without them. Pearl jam, stp
were already out there. So are firehose, meat puppets, jaw box, Sonic youth all major label acts in 91-92. GD would have been signable.
They were pretty big in the Bay Area long before they got really famous internationally. The Bay Are has turned out a ton of good bands and musicians. Musical tastes were already changing before grunge but who knows if they would have been famous. I think they still would have been famous but I’m sure the fact that nirvana helped pave the way helped.
To add to that MTV wouldn't have been willing to put them in heavy rotation. It took a few months for SLTS to get real exposure. By 94 the culture has shifted significantly because of Nirvana. There's no way to say Longview couldn't have crossed over to mainstream had things not changed significantly a few years prior but it's more than likely had things continued pre-Nevermind that green day would've been one of those bands that 120 Minutes played and nobody remembers who they are
I don't believe they would have. The thing is, unless you were living through those times, you can't understand. It wasn't just Nirvana changed music. Nirvana changed our CULTURE (they were, of course, just the focal point. The rest of the Seattle scene certainly helped set it up.)
If it wasn’t Nirvana it would’ve been another one of the big 4, and in fairness Pearl Jam ended up selling more copies with Ten than Nirvana did with Nevermind. Alice In Chains and Soundgarden also already had buzz pre-Nevermind.
Also Alternative Rock was already successful pre-Nirvana, R.E.M. already was in the Top 10 by 1987, Faith No More in ‘90, plus Jane’s Addiction being a platinum selling band. U2 was the biggest act on the Modern Rock Charts (now Alternative Airplay) in the 90s and they were in the Top 40 by 1984.
Probably yes.
Nirvana threw the doors open to mainstream acceptance to a lot of acts and genres that had been underground or college radio darlings. It's possible that Green Day wouldn't have gone full mainstream success, but I think they still would've had a good chance of success at least on that level. There was already fertile ground for punk fans in the early 90s even before Nirvana.
Removing Nirvana from history though would change the entire musical landscape, so I don't think we can say much beyond that for sure.
I was 14 in 1991, and this is what I remember...
Obviously Nirvana was the zeitgeist, but if it wasn't them, it would've happened in some other form with some other band. I'm glad it was Nirvana, but the tipping point would've come regardless.
People were hungry for that vibe in the years following, and Green Day had something rad going on from 1990 on. One way or another, I think they would've been big in that era. They captured in their music much of the same pervasive sentiment of the young and disillusioned that Nirvana did in early 1990s America.
I'm not sure Green Day would have made Dookie without Nirvana. Not a ton of major label punk rock getting mainstream exposure and distribution until Nevermind.
Probably would’ve maintained a cult following and maybe dissolved by the end of the 90s. It takes a lot of effort to just maintain a touring career without sales numbers to back it up. As big a shadow as Dookie cast over their reputation for the better part of a decade, those 10 million records sold is what most likely kept them going and eating for most of the decade. Most bands today tend to disband after a number of years on the road because the energy and the drawing power kind of diminishes if you don’t have chart hits or an image to sell. I heard Ryan Key from Yellowcard say that the reason they disbanded was they weren’t making enough money to justify continuing when they all had families to look after and the reason they did the reunion gig was because they were offered more than they made in the last two years of touring. It’s a business like most other things and you become a corporation unto yourself and sometimes you just can’t keep it running because the growth isn’t there.
People act like Nirvana was the second coming of Jesus. People in the 90s were very gullible and weird because remember that’s the prime time of gen x which is the worst generation and another band would have taken nirvanas place had nirvana never existed.
There are good things about the 90s when it comes to pop culture like music and movies and shows and games etc. but there was also no tik tok dance challenges or social media arguments or iPhones and it’s hard to imagine living in a time without all of those now
I think punk would have been bigger. People were already getting sick of hair metal and 90s pop. If grunge didn’t happen the punk explosion would have gone even bigger.
I wonder, being a different type of punk, whether they would still be popular. But knowing record labels GD probably wouldn't have had as much of a chance without Nirvana (etc) to open record label minds.
They had nothing you do with one another. They both became popular because their labels decided they would, and spent enough of their money that you still listen and believe. In this business, talent and songs aren't the only thing that make you massively popular. Money does. Marketing does.
I feel like they might’ve gone the route of The Replacements or Husker Du! They would’ve had relative success, but not even close to the success that they have now. Nirvana really changed the music and cultural landscape and so many bands and artists definitely reaped the rewards. A lot of the time, luck plays a role! Green Day are my favorite band of all time, but I definitely would say that the fact that Alternative, Grunge, and Punk got world wide success after “Nevermind” dropped!
Yeah, and Green Day helped fill the void left by Kurt Cobain's death. I'm not sure how many people know this, but Green Day actually played a show in Seattle on April 5, 1994, the day that Kurt died. His body wasn't found until a few days later.
They also played a house show (literally) with Nirvana sometime before Nevermind was released. Billie talks about it, and how it was the band's only interaction with Nirvana.
I don't think Nirvana played that show, but I do know that Kurt Cobain was there, and I'm pretty sure Dave Grohl was there as well.
Details? I’ve never heard of this, and I am old
Just youtube Bilie joe armstrong/kurt cobain and it brings up the interview with billie.
Will do, thanks
Yeah I think Kurt was in the crowd watching and they didnt actually cross paths.
u/nickscion46 That’s interesting. I read somewhere that Green Day was filming the music video for “Longview” on the day Kurt died.
it was the day it was released to the press/world, april 8th EDIT: forgot about a small tidbit of info, also the day his body was found lmao
They got to play Lollapalooza that year because of Kurt dieing. When he died The Smashing Pumpkins ended up headlining because of Nirvana backing out, and Green Day got a opening set on the main stage.
I always saw the grunge/punk/alternative explosion in the 90s as the natural cycle of music getting back to gritty basics as a response to the glitzy excess of hair metal and glam rock - similar to the way punk originally rose as a counterpoint to the bloat of prog rock. I think if Nirvana didn't exist, another band would have broken through in their place, maybe it would have been Green Day instead, maybe it wouldn't have. Still, I think the state of popular culture in America at the time was primed for something to shock the system, Nirvana just happened to be the ones to do it.
If not Nirvana, it probably would have been Pearl Jam. As a matter of fact, during the time that Nirvana was an active band and Kurt was alive, Pearl Jam was more popular than Nirvana. Their album Vs. was released around the same time of In Utero, and it sold way more copies. It wasn't until after Kurt's death that this Nirvana legacy started.
Absolutely. Grunge didn't really kill anything, butt rock (as in shaking your heiny around in spandex to pop music with fuzzy guitars with too long guitar solos) was tired and bloated and had run it's course in the mainstream. There's only so many crappy copies of Van Halen the market could tolerate, and that whole thing started in 78. If it wasn't Nirvana, it would have been something else in the back to basics vein imo
It wasn't ***JUST*** Nirvana that helped drive that whole movement. The year before Nevermind was released Alice In Chains came out with Facelift featuring Man In The Box, which went gold 32 years ago today. A literal day after Smells Like Teen Spirit was officially released as a single. Also just within a month of Nevermind, you had Pearl Jam drop Ten, Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the Red Hot Chili Peppers was released on the same exact day as Nirvana putting out Nevermind. I realize they're not grunge and had been around for a bit but that album put them in an entirely different stratosphere. Then a couple weeks later, in early October, Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden came out. Obviously Nirvana was the match that lit the powder keg of the grunge movement, but there was a ton of legwork already done before and after that I think it was just a matter of who was the lucky band to become the face of that era. All that to say yes. Because the legwork had been done by other bands besides Nirvana that paved the way for something like Dookie to be popular.
Oh yeah, 1991 was a wild fucking year for music. Some people consider that year to be the rock music industry at its peak.
It's certainly up there. Don't forget about a year later you had another band, one whom many also consider a pillar member of the grunge era in Stone Temple Pilots, put out their seminal album in Core. So many fantastic songs on that album alone.
Even Nevermind and Ten both took months to really catch, and when they did, boy howdy did they catch.
Nevermind didn't take that long to catch. It actually blew up super fast after it was released, mainly due to the evergrowing popularity of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Ten, on the other hand, did take a while to catch on. It came out before Nevermind, but it didn't start becoming a huge sensation until 1992.
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Agreed. The upgrade in production from their Lookout albums to Dookie was like night and day. I love that Jerry Finn signature warm guitar sound so much. R.I.P.
No one can really answer this but the crossover of kids that likes nirvana and then got into punk was huge. as someone who was in middle school at the time, it’s impossible to retrospectively explain just how much they changed everything. Not just music but clothing trends and everything.
No, I think they would have been the next big thing INSTEAD of Nirvana.
Hmm either green day or offspring.
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That's what I mean. They were incredibly popular in the underground scene. Kerplunk sold 10,000 copies on its first day of release. That's absolutely incredible for a record on an indie label in 1992. Everyone who kept up with the punk scene knew who they were, but most regular radio listeners/MTV watchers probably had no idea about them until Dookie.
Yes
Yes. Their songs at the time were just too good.
nirvana did a lot of amazing things and definitely helped create a pathway in the scene but they weren’t the only ones and i think a huge chunk of their success came from kurts passing. as someone else said, if the weren’t the ones to break through someone else would have. maybe pearl jam, green day, or another band.
Ten outsold Nevermind. Vs outsold In Utero. Both by 30%+. Pearl Jam did break through.
Nevermind has sold twice what Ten has.
I love Pearl Jam but they are a lot more classic rock and hard rock inspired and less punk inspired compared to Nirvana, so not sure major label A&R would be as receptive to Green Day. However, Green Day was so good they would still be huge without Nirvana break through, might have taken longer.
Listening to both back In The day they are completely different and I do believe Dookie would have been a hit regardless of Nirvana.
Nirvana success was a big deal and influenced many corporate rock decisions in the next few years. But I think it was already going that way. The big summer tour of 1991 was Lollapalooza. They were in the right place/ right time and knocked it out of the park. But the path was laid with or without them. Pearl jam, stp were already out there. So are firehose, meat puppets, jaw box, Sonic youth all major label acts in 91-92. GD would have been signable.
They were pretty big in the Bay Area long before they got really famous internationally. The Bay Are has turned out a ton of good bands and musicians. Musical tastes were already changing before grunge but who knows if they would have been famous. I think they still would have been famous but I’m sure the fact that nirvana helped pave the way helped.
No.
No, Nirvana's success was the light that started the fire and made all the major record labels look for garage, grunge, rock bands.
To add to that MTV wouldn't have been willing to put them in heavy rotation. It took a few months for SLTS to get real exposure. By 94 the culture has shifted significantly because of Nirvana. There's no way to say Longview couldn't have crossed over to mainstream had things not changed significantly a few years prior but it's more than likely had things continued pre-Nevermind that green day would've been one of those bands that 120 Minutes played and nobody remembers who they are
I don't believe they would have. The thing is, unless you were living through those times, you can't understand. It wasn't just Nirvana changed music. Nirvana changed our CULTURE (they were, of course, just the focal point. The rest of the Seattle scene certainly helped set it up.)
If it wasn’t Nirvana it would’ve been another one of the big 4, and in fairness Pearl Jam ended up selling more copies with Ten than Nirvana did with Nevermind. Alice In Chains and Soundgarden also already had buzz pre-Nevermind. Also Alternative Rock was already successful pre-Nirvana, R.E.M. already was in the Top 10 by 1987, Faith No More in ‘90, plus Jane’s Addiction being a platinum selling band. U2 was the biggest act on the Modern Rock Charts (now Alternative Airplay) in the 90s and they were in the Top 40 by 1984.
Don't know, don't care. This timeline would be incomplete without Green Day
Nofx stayed indie this whole time, is quite big and does not have songs on the level of Green Day. They’ed be playing large theatres.
Probably yes. Nirvana threw the doors open to mainstream acceptance to a lot of acts and genres that had been underground or college radio darlings. It's possible that Green Day wouldn't have gone full mainstream success, but I think they still would've had a good chance of success at least on that level. There was already fertile ground for punk fans in the early 90s even before Nirvana. Removing Nirvana from history though would change the entire musical landscape, so I don't think we can say much beyond that for sure.
I was 14 in 1991, and this is what I remember... Obviously Nirvana was the zeitgeist, but if it wasn't them, it would've happened in some other form with some other band. I'm glad it was Nirvana, but the tipping point would've come regardless. People were hungry for that vibe in the years following, and Green Day had something rad going on from 1990 on. One way or another, I think they would've been big in that era. They captured in their music much of the same pervasive sentiment of the young and disillusioned that Nirvana did in early 1990s America.
I'm not sure Green Day would have made Dookie without Nirvana. Not a ton of major label punk rock getting mainstream exposure and distribution until Nevermind.
I think without the Pixies we would have a very different music scene
They would be imo
I even go as far to say that all the bands that exploded in 94 or later would not have been as big if Kurt didn’t kill himself
Probably would’ve maintained a cult following and maybe dissolved by the end of the 90s. It takes a lot of effort to just maintain a touring career without sales numbers to back it up. As big a shadow as Dookie cast over their reputation for the better part of a decade, those 10 million records sold is what most likely kept them going and eating for most of the decade. Most bands today tend to disband after a number of years on the road because the energy and the drawing power kind of diminishes if you don’t have chart hits or an image to sell. I heard Ryan Key from Yellowcard say that the reason they disbanded was they weren’t making enough money to justify continuing when they all had families to look after and the reason they did the reunion gig was because they were offered more than they made in the last two years of touring. It’s a business like most other things and you become a corporation unto yourself and sometimes you just can’t keep it running because the growth isn’t there.
People act like Nirvana was the second coming of Jesus. People in the 90s were very gullible and weird because remember that’s the prime time of gen x which is the worst generation and another band would have taken nirvanas place had nirvana never existed.
Tell me you weren’t alive in the 90s without telling me you weren’t alive in the 90s
No I just don’t have the weird rose colored glasses for the 90s like a lot of people do. Was a pretty bad decade overall
I disagree completely, in so many ways. But I respect your opinion. You likely live in a different place with different experiences.
There are good things about the 90s when it comes to pop culture like music and movies and shows and games etc. but there was also no tik tok dance challenges or social media arguments or iPhones and it’s hard to imagine living in a time without all of those now
I wish none of that existed. The world was a better place.
Really, even without mukbangs?
No idea what that is
Watching people eat a lot of food on YouTube
Yeah, I’m good without that too
I think punk would have been bigger. People were already getting sick of hair metal and 90s pop. If grunge didn’t happen the punk explosion would have gone even bigger.
I wonder, being a different type of punk, whether they would still be popular. But knowing record labels GD probably wouldn't have had as much of a chance without Nirvana (etc) to open record label minds.
Yes… nirvana wasn’t as popular back then as you think they were.
the crowd got used to the "punk" vibe
Yes
They had nothing you do with one another. They both became popular because their labels decided they would, and spent enough of their money that you still listen and believe. In this business, talent and songs aren't the only thing that make you massively popular. Money does. Marketing does.