I've recently been hearing lots of praise for Nirvana as if it were the best band that ever existed. I've always tought it was way overrated, but then again, maybe I just haven't listened to enough of it. What are the opinions around here? I haven't noticed them being mentioned a lot on this forum.

you obviously didn't use the search or look through the giant ass nirvana threads that popped up every year or so. i suppose it's been about 2 years since the last one so we were due.

basically it boils down to this - there are 2 ways to look at the band. 1 - three guys who played sloppy power chord rock. 2 - the last really big thing to shake up the mainstream before the internet changed how people directly related to music.

if you stick with comparing their songs to other band's songs then yeah they're going to come off as overrated. from a technical standpoint they weren't that great. while they were all talented none were virtuosos.

on the other hand nirvana as a cultural influence was massive. whether you like their music or not shouldn't be a factor in recognizing this.

best band ever? - hardly
the last really significant band to happen to rock music? - absolutely.

I like 'em fine.

As panbient says, they were no virtousos on their instruments but they were pretty talented.
Yes the myth that was created after Kurt Cobain's death, have made on them to grow on popularity on big proportions, but besides that, their released records were pretty solid.

So Nirvana are overrated? Hard to say, and it also depends on which other artist you are comparing with.

Best band ever? Not even close, but I would say it's also impossible to generalize which band has been the best of all time.

I'm not so sure about that, I would have come with Radiohead instead.

radiohead never really reshaped the market though. they're definitely standouts and they'll likely go down as the first big band to really get a good grasp of how to use the net to handle their music the best. but i still think nirvana had a bigger impact.

Impact-wise it's hard to think of any band in the recent 30 years with more impact, at least on the rock scene. Add to that they went out with a bang (sorry) at exactly the right moment. I've even heard that last year Kobain surpassed Elvis in terms of sold posters from dead rock legends.

Musically I like a few songs, but IMO they had alot of filler going.

As far as the poll goes...hot? Not hot? The songs I like are hot. But the rest? Hard to tell.

They definitely had major impact to society. Why that would be is beyond me. The fashion? Let's all look like we live on the street.

Music prior to Nirvana was emphasizing knowledge of music...it was also emphasizing a lot of negative things like surface over substance with the presentation and all of that. So when Nirvana, Guns N Roses and Metallica chopped down the negative aspects of the 'music of the time' they also killed that 'know thy instrument' movement to a degree.

The way of the road man...now get these piss jugs out of here.

Don't really see what GnR and Metallica have to do with Nirvana's impact on the scene.

Metallica's success was somewhat of a surprise, but only to a certain degree. The label had assigned Bob Rock to produce them since they finally wanted to make some money with that band. Metallica were the (by far) heaviest band to hit platinum in America by then, but other than that they had no ideology.

GnR was basically 80s Glam without the mega-production and without a shredder on guitar, which was rather rare then (but nothing new). And not quite as much make-up and teased hair. Still Glam, although it was labeled Sleaze. Their lyrics usually weren't about parties, but violence and obscenity. That's about all. Still, by and large a '86 Sunset Strip band. Some even claim they're just a Hanoi Rocks rip-off.

While I agree Nirvana were a major reason which lead to the demise of "The Lead Guitarist" aspect of bands....I am not sure what the other two had to do with that.