from his latest reader mail.....

Q: Did you seriously just come out and publicly state that Pearl Jam or Smashing Pumpkins really could hold a candle to Nirvana? I know this is supposed to be about sports, but c'mon. You're way outta line. An "In Utero" follow-up wouldn't have been better than the 40-watt snooze powerhouse "No Code"? Or that "Infinite Sadness" crap? I haven't even finished the column yet, but I'm moved to respond. You're talking like Nirvana was J.R. Rider, when they were quite clearly Lenny Bias. (Maybe Biggie was Lenny Bias and Nirvana was Reggie Lewis. MAYBE.) Who would Pearl Jam be if we made the comparison now? Christian Laettner probably. And Smashing Pumpkins? Shawn Kemp.
– Evan Brown, Northampton, Mass.


SG: Hey, I'm with you on Nirvana. Not only were they the defining band of that decade, their ceiling was higher than anyone else's ceiling at the time. But that doesn't change the fact that Cobain's death was the best possible thing that could have happened to them. Looking back, Nirvana was a little like Lorne Michaels, who always gets credited for making sketch comedy popular on television. As John Landis pointed out in the recent SNL book, there were sketch comedy troupes flourishing all over the country at the time. Michaels was smart enough to realize that this format could translate to TV, and he was the first one to pull it off ... but it would have happened at some point. Yes, he deserves some credit; just not all of it.


Same goes for Nirvana and alternative rock. Too many people mistakenly credit Nirvana with launching the grunge genre in 1991, when the reality was that dozens of grunge/alternative bands were thriving in Seattle and Los Angeles at the time they broke through, stemming back to Jane's Addiction's success in the late '80s. For instance, Pearl Jam released "Ten" (their first album) on Aug. 27, 1991, four weeks before "Nevermind" (Nirvana's breakout album), and yet most people mistakenly believe that Pearl Jam piggybacked Nirvana's sound and rode their coattails.

College radio stations started playing Nirvana's album right away because they had credibility from their first two albums, but Pearl Jam's album took nearly six months to gain any momentum. When it finally did, "Ten" was just as big as "Nevermind," with the big difference being that "Ten" was rollicking and enjoyable, whereas "Nevermind" felt like a grander achievement, like something had happened. Nirvana was like John McEnroe; Pearl Jam was Jimmy Connors. That's the best way I can describe it. Connors was great, but he was no McEnroe.

(As for the Pumpkins, they released "Siamese Dream" in July of 1993, one of the best albums of that entire decade and something that still holds up 12 years later. Just a kick-butt album. Their big mistake happened two years later, when they released "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" as a two-disc album when it had maybe nine good songs on it; if that had been 12 songs and one disc, everyone would have loved it. Whatever. I've written this before, but the best career move Billy Corgan ever could have made was blowing his brains out like Cobain did. Instead, he became a raving self-parody and it affected the way people remembered his music. I still remember seeing the "1979" video and thinking, "Uh-oh, we're in trouble ... ")

Anyway, Pearl Jam released "Vs." (their second album) in October, 1993, one month before Nirvana released "In Utero" ... and absolutely crushed Nirvana with it. Look, I was there. People were disappointed in "In Utero" at the time; everyone loved "Vs.," which sold more records, received superior reviews and had twice as many good songs. By any criteria you can come up with, Pearl Jam was the biggest rock band in the world in 1993 and 1994. Meanwhile, Nirvana was teetering along because Cobain was slowly going crazy – because of his destructive relationship with Courtney Love, his drug problem, his death wish, his aversion to fame – capped off by the mediocre "MTV Unplugged" album in December of '94, which actually made me sad when I watched it for the first time. It was like the end of an era.

The bottom line was that Cobain was slipping as a musician because of his personal problems; his songs were getting weirder and weirder; and if he had somehow managed to stay alive, he probably would have spent the next few years floating in and out of rehab centers and insane asylums. Since we don't know what would have happened next, we assume the best for him. Same goes for Lenny Bias – what if he had a drug problem but didn't die? What if he ended up like William Bedford or Chris Washburn, or even had one of those Bernard King-type careers and had to get traded a few times before he found himself? We don't know how it would have played out, so we assume he would have been fantastic. By dropping dead, he became immortal. Same with Cobain. Now Nirvana gets credited with launching an entire era of music that was already in place when they broke through. How does that make sense?

I agree with a lot of it.

I dont know who Bill Simmons is or 'SG'

I think its cool he give PJ props but I disagree with him on all counts. Nirvana didn't have 2 albums before Nevermind. I don't understand the Mellon Collie bashing...it was the best selling double album, has about 27 good songs and is excellent. Saying Billy Corgan should have killed himself is awful...I know Billy gets a lot of people on this bored excited with everything he has done since the pumpkins and will do. The guy sounds like an idiot to me. I am no huge nirvana fan, but how the hell was the unplugged shoe mediocre? I think its one of the best aside from the corny candles and flower arrangements, but music-wise...its great.

Yeah Bill hit it on the head.

Bill Simmons is a writer on ESPN's website.

Wow, a lot of that makes sense.

I agree with a lot of it, too. I know a lot about Pearl Jam and a fair amount about Nirvana. I don't know a whole lot about Smashing Pumpkins, though.

SG = sports guy

I think that was pretty much right on. I think he assigns a bit too much credence to popularity and record sales, but in general, I think he got the right point across.

I also remember thinking in 1995 that Mellon Collie could have been one of the greatest single disc albums ever if Corgan had allowed himself to have an editor. In listening to the album recently, I think there are more good songs on there than just one disc could hold, but man, the filler on that album makes Vitalogy look like a lean beefsteak.

I don't like this guy.

I think whether or not Kurt killed himself or not, NIRVANA the band was dead. at the most i could see one more album from them, i just dont think Cobain had it in him anymore to be in the band... so I think if he was still alive today there would still be a greater body of PJ work than Nirvans, and I think PJ would be held in higher terms...

I also think Nirvana, while revolutionary to a degree and an amazing band, does get way too much credit for launching the genre and when people talk about their place in history they are considering that more than their actual music or lyrics....

Nirvana=Vince Carter
Pearl Jam=Karl Malone

Nirvana=Randy Moss
Pearl Jam=Steve Largent

Nirvana=Deion Sanders
Pearl Jam=Rickey Henderson

Nirvana=Sergei Fedorov
Pearl Jam=Luc Robitaille

Got it?

I don't agree that Nirvana would have started a downhill slide. Cobain's mental health would have caused problems, but some of the greatest musicians have done their greatest works when high and or crazy. Remember, he still had the Grohl/Novestelic filter. They could easily have served as an anchor.

Sorry if this drags the thread into "Other Bands."

I dont thing IF they stayed togetehr the music would have gone downhill, but if Kurt stayed alive I dont believe he would have stayed IN the band. from all Ive read concerning his last few months it just seems like he was ready to quit the band or do something on his own if anything...

I agree with almost everything he said. This coming from someone who used to be a die hard nirvana fan. The unplugged comment was way off the mark. One can't deny the fact that Nirvana was important to the whole 90's music scene. They were at the crest of a wave full of great artists. Their popularity helped bring about a cultural shift in popular music. They may not have invented it, but they rose a lot higher than most of their contemporaries (PJ excluded) and in doing so, injected some life into a stagnating art form. I think a handful of bands would have made it big regardless of Nirvana's popularity, but most would have probably remained as obscure northwest bands.




Man i listened to Mellon Collie the other day, and i still think it should have been a single album with a few great B-sides. I love 3/4 of it. The rest ive been skipping over for the past 9 years. There really is waaaaaaaaaay too much filler there.

Didn't members of Pearl Jam feel that way during the Vitalogy/No Code era?

In regard to Mellon Collie, I love everything on there to varying degrees, and I don't think a single album would have done justice to the wealth of material Billy was writing at the time.

I can understand why some people find a lot of it to be filler, some people will love it and some people won't, it's only natural. But Billy is often criticized for not being able to edit himself, and I don't think that's necessarily the case with Mellon Collie. There are something like 22 original b-sides on the 5 singles from that album, plus another 25-50 songs that weren't released at all in addition to the 28 songs on the album.

nirvana = shit
pumpkins = gold
pearl jam = diamond

"By dropping dead, he became immortal." that's the key sentence to me. i remember Kurt saying he wondered about what would happen to Nirvana, he expected something like what happened to the Beatles, going from "yeah, yeah, yeah" to Sgt. Pepper's. too high hopes, IMHO. i don't think Kurt was as lyrically and musically gifted as Ed. if he had lived, if he had stayed in the band, if he had stayed out of madhouses, Nirvana would be riding Pearl Jam coattails for the last decade. but he died, we'll never know. he now belongs with the ones who died young, the fireworks that blazed fast, forever in neverland. i’d rather watch Ed grow wrinkles, his hair grow white and him dying on stage at 150 years-old. i’ve said that before…

i've always stated for years that it shoulda been a single disc. since i have a little too much free time ive broken the disc down into two sets, 1 of the good stuff, the other, the filler....and it adds up like this

mellon collie and the infinite sadness
tonight tonight
jelly belly
zero
here is no why
bullet with butterfly wings
to forgive
fuck you
love
muzzle
where boys fear to tread
bodies
thirty three
in the arms of sleep
1979
tales of a scorched earth
thru the eyes of ruby
stumbleine
XYU

total running time: 1:20:47 (thats about 1 song too much for a single disc)
the remaining songs clock in at 40:53

man that would be one start-to-finish kickass CD!!

That's cool, but of the songs you didn't include, I would never consider these filler:

galapogos
porcelina of the vast oceans
beautiful
by starlight
farewell and goodnight