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practical_romantic  2yr ago (text post)   3449 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 21, 2022

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I was left thinking - what would be the latest song that one could propose as a contender without it feeling immediately facile? Is Seven Nation Army too gimmicky? Is Last Nite by Strokes recognizable enough outside of a certain age bracket/cultural context?

The post-punk revival was rock's last breath. 7NA is big enough that random people know the riff, and The Hardest Button to Button got a great treatment on The Simpsons. The other three Big Thes have faded away, though, and post-2007 landfill indie is for people who want to listen to more stuff that reminds them of their youth, the modern equivalent of AOR.

IMHO, Smells Like Teen Spirit is the last one. That's the latest point at which Rock existed as a unified fandom, and every Rock fan tuned into or at least recognized the same band as great, more or less. After that, the splintering of Rock and its loss of dominance in popular music makes the impact of the songs just not the same. It's the difference between Jazz as a vital musical force when Kind of Blue came out, and Jazz as something I watch with a bunch of old people in a symphony hall when great albums come out today. Musically, the latter may be 'just as good' but it's not the same historical force at work.

I'm not a big Nirvana fan, I find them musically facile and boring, but that's just the way it is, Kurt Cobain was the last true rockstar. Also one of the weirdest conspiracy takes I ever heard: Cobain was killed by the CIA, along with Easy-E, to try to stop their youth movement from taking over the west coast. Bonkers.

I would guess grunge is too hard for the OP's definition.

If it isn't, some other good picks might include Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden) and Rooster (Alice in Chains).

Probably fails the BttF audience test. But I'd still use Cobain's suicide as the death of mainstream rock music in straight line descent from Howlin' Wolf and friends.

I would peg G'n'R as the last really big classic rock band to break, and Nirvana etc. as another (though obviously related) thing.

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