Nirvana - Negative Creep - Apotheosis Of Rock And Roll

Rock and Roll! It's not supposed to just roll up on you and make you feel good. It should be a bursting dam of emotional mayhem. The full intention was: this shit is not like what has gone before.

That goal was not easy to attain.

Fifties Rock acts, by economic necessity, had to cleave pretty closely to societal norms. Tin Pan Alley was still the paradigm of recent memory. "Bicycle Built for Two," "In Your Easter Bonnet." Stuff like that. Rhyme was king; accessibility came in a close second.

Fifties/ Sixties popular Rock and Roll came in the Brill Building format. Built in 1931 at 1619 Broadway at 49th Street, just north of the original Tin Pan Alley, the Brill Building turned out hits written by Neil Sedaka and Carol King. A sub-genre of 1960s Teen Idol pop music.

For Tin Pan Alley, think "Moon . . . Spoon . . . June."

For the Brill Building, or the Beatles, think, "MICHELLE, my BELLE, these are words that go together WELL, my MICHELLE . . ." (Or the ever popular "moon, spoon, June.")

Rock and Roll was supposed to be different.

But that took a while. There were singers and bands that did admirable work to push the boundaries, but to keep matters simple let's just say that by the time of "Negative Creep," bands like Nirvana, and artists like Curt Cobain, were finally putting "PAID" to the paradigm of Tin Pan Alley. The mayhem had finally arrived.

"Easter Bonnet" my ass!