PICKIN’ ON THE BIG TEN: SPECIAL SEASON PREVIEW EDITION

Welcome to the Internet’s greatest sarcastic football prediction column, the award-winning Pickin’ on the Big Ten. The 2003 college football season starts one month from today, so it’s time to start coughing up these chicken scratchings again as we near yet another disappointing season for the Big Ten.

I say “disappointing” because there’s no way any Big Ten teams will contend for the national title this year, for reason we shall discuss anon. But before we look forward, let us look back on the season that was:

I guess Ohio State won some sort of survey or something. They keep calling it a “national title” but I can’t find any mention of a Division 1A football champion anywhere on the NCAA’s website. I think they’re just making it up to distract attention from Maurice Clarett and his continuing struggle against reality. The Big Ten went 5-2 in bowls last season, and wouldn’t you know it, my team was 1 of the 2. Still, the SEC went 3-3 in bowl games last year, exactly equaling their in-conference record against each other. Some “elite” conference they are if they can’t do any better than .500 against each other! And the Pac 10, as expected, went 2-5 once they had to start playing real teams.

So you can see there’s hardly anywhere to go but down for the Big Ten this season. Some doofus school like Florida or Boston College will probably go all the way undefeated and wind up running off with the #1 ranking in the Zogby Poll or Top 50 College Football Fan Sites.com or something equally meaningless. Personally, I say instead of watching Big Ten football this season, you just settle back, tune in PBS, and watch that dead guy with the Afro who paints “happy little trees.” But, since I know you won’t listen, I can give you a thousand words on Black Sabbath . . . er, the Big Ten in 2003.
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SLAIN BY BLISS

As per a reader’s request, here are ten bands whose careers were absolutely ended by Nirvana. I’m departing from my usual M.O. and listing these bands in ascending rather than descending order.

(For the record, “Smells like Teen Spirit” was released at the same time as the Nevermind album: Sept. 24, 1991. Nevermind hit the top of the Billboard charts on January 11, 1992. And these are ten bands whose careers were effectively over when it did.)

1. Guns N’ Roses. After absolutely owning the rock world in the late 80s, Gn’R released their epic but flawed 2-disc set Use Your Illusion the same month as Nevermind. The single “November Rain,” boosted by an old-school video, did well (it peaked at #3) and helped move the albums up the charts. But the Gunners never got above #55 on the Hot 100 again. Their next album was a quick punk-rock cash-in called The Spaghetti Incident?. It hit #4, and then everything dried up. This is not unlike the Beatles vanishing from the charts after the Rolling Stones showed up. It’s too soon to close the door on Gn’R–they may yet release Chinese Democracy, although I doubt it–but of all the careers Nirvana ended, none was more dramatic than this.

2. Wilson Phillips. I’ll pause a moment while you pick your jaw up from the floor. I’m serious. Three #1 hits in 1990-91, a couple minor successes in early 1992, then absolutely ding-dong nothing. A lot of that was due to weak material, but you can’t rule out the fact that Nirvana turned a significant portion of Wilson Phillips’ audience (college-age females) on to rock.

3. Bryan Adams. Yes, I know he had several hits in the 90s–with schmaltzy ballads, most of which were commissioned for movie soundtracks. Bear in mind that at one time, he was considered a rock artist. Maybe he just sold out, I don’t know, but I do know that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” described infinitely more Gen-X childhoods than “Kids Wanna Rock” or “Summer of ‘69″. (By the way, Bryan Adams was eight years old in the summer of ‘69, so throw away any thoughts of that song being autobiographical.)

4. Warrant. Another band rendered instantly old by Nirvana. Managed to hit #83 on the Hot 100 with a cover of “We Will Rock You” in ‘92; never saw any kind of charts again, except when visiting the eye doctor.

5. Damn Yankees. Ted Nugent’s hair-metal supergroup hit #3 with “High Enough” in ‘91; fizzled out completely by ‘93.

6. Van Halen. Stop it. It’s true. Their albums sold well, but their radio play vanished as rock stations began to embrace the “alternative” sound. The haven’t seen the Hot 100 since 1995; their last appearance in the top 10 (with the reprehensible “When It’s Love”) came in 1988. Numbers don’t lie.

7. Black Crowes. Oh, they kept releasing albums all through the 90s; it’s just that, after 1992, nobody really bought them, and the Crowes lost their status as the Next Big Thing. And in case you’re wondering, they never had a top 20 hit except on the irrelevant Mainstream Rock chart.

8. Midnight Oil. It wouldn’t be fair to name hair bands all day, even though they’re the ones who lost the most to Nirvana. Midnight Oil still had some Modern Rock hits in the mid-90s, but for the most part, Nirvana also ended their (US) career.

9. Concrete Blonde. Spare me your comments about the Cure–this is what “alternative” music meant to the mainstream in 1990. Concrete Blonde lost their fringe appeal, which was about the only appeal they had, so by 1995, they weren’t even a band anymore. More’s the pity.

10. The Pixies. Irony–the band Nirvana was most often compared to wound up being a victim of their doppelgangers’ success. Things were already coming apart by the time Nevermind was released; however, the Pixies went on hiatus after opening on U2’s 1992 Zoo TV tour and never returned.

A SIMPLE EXPERIMENT

Try this:

1. Go to your local Starbucks. (Don’t worry, if there isn’t one there yet, there will be soon.)

2. Purchase the beverage of your choice, maybe a little nosh if you’re so inclined.

3. Find a comfortable seat.

4. Whilst consuming your beverage and/or food, start tapping your foot along with the music.

5. Count how many songs go by that are exactly the same tempo.

6. See if you can beat my personal record, which is 11 songs in a row at about 114 beats per minute, set this morning at the Starbucks in West Bend, WI.

7. Ponder just how many songs James Taylor intends to write about going back to North Carolina.

8. And why he doesn’t just shut up and move there, already.