Ap 100 Grunge

The NPR 100 is a list of 100 songs from the twentieth century. To start the process, they asked the people within their NPR community. They asked people who do the commentaries all the way to the people who produce music for their shows. They requested for them to send songs from all over the musical spectrum. From the staff, they gathered around three hundred songs to put on the ballot. NPR then conducted a ballot that allowed listeners to vote. They also gathered a panel of musicians from a wide array of musical genres. It was important to have musicians to vote on the songs too because they have a different perspective on music than the listeners do. The listeners and the musicians had extremely similar results. When the song was very close …show more content…
At the forefront of this wild movement was a band named Nirvana. Around the time the band was formed popular music was losing that synthesized sound that had dominated the music industry for many years. Before grunge, many rock subcategories were deemed one-dimensional. This a completely changed with the popularization of grunge. The song, “Smells like Teen Spirit” starts off with a chord progression that gets stuck within the listener’s head. From there, it leads into the verse which has a dreamlike kind of vibe. The bridge then produces this raw, powerful, tension filled rhythm that caused the listeners ears to perk up in suspense. Finally, the song progresses into the chorus leaving the audience in awe at what they are hearing, knowing it is a monumental song. “Smells like Teen Spirit”, was not meant to be a hit by any means. It was almost the exact opposite of the type of music playing on the radio in 1991. It was a song that was embraced by the younger generation; moreover, many adults seemed to dislike the song. It was loud, the lyrics can barely be deciphered and, it gave off a rebellious vibe. The most ironic part is that the song almost mocks the generation that was embracing it. Kurt Cobain, the bands lead singer, makes fun of his generation for being over-bored. This is clearly portrayed when he shouts “Hear we are now, entertain us”, in the refrain. The song was embraced by every teenager filled …show more content…
The Ramones have an upbeat, fast tempo, and fun style. While Nirvana is the complete opposite, they favor slow, suspense filled songs that leave listeners in anguish to find out is going to happen next. Also, a listener might be able to tell that The Ramones enjoyed being famous and wanted to preform for the audience. While Nirvana portrayed this anti-corporate outlook on their music. While Nirvana loved to perform, they never wrote songs with the intention to become highly famous. They seem to have nothing in common, but, that is not the case by any means. Both the Ramones and Nirvana paved paths for rock music to become what it has today. The Ramones broke barriers by bringing back rock and roll from the dead in the mid-1970s. Nirvana proved that rock could be an intricate musical experience that didn’t need to be type casted. While they obviously both play extremely different styles of rock, they both are were very important to the music we have today. They both seemed to be favored by young kids who liked their songs because of their relatable messages. The Ramones and Nirvana both changed what was played on the radio. While they faced some protest by the older generations, they were the pioneers to new music genres. Without the Ramones, it would have extremely hard for