Customer Reviews

1991:The Year Punk Broke(DVD)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've grown up watching this video. It spurred on my love for Sonic Youth. I thought the film makers did a great job showing what these bands were really like. I like how it isn't glamourized, and trying too hard to make them seem more exciting than they are. It's nice to see them in the down to earth environment that all the bands are shown in, it really shows some insight into them.
It doesn't show much footage of Nirvana, but that wasn't a disappointment for me, because it's main focus was Sonic Youth, so if you are looking for a concert DVD about Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr, this isn't it, although they do have some stellar performances from Dinosaur.
The backstage clips were great too! I actually laughed throughout the movie, which is good :)
I LOVE this movie, and would recommend it to anyone.

Watching this video I see a generation stuck in neutral - no place to go, no reason to get there. The part about Thurston searching for used record stores that don't exist pretty much sums it up. Also, why doesn't Freak Scene and Teenage Riot share the stage with Smells Like Teen Spirit as the anthem of the times? They were released first and are even spliced with a hint of optimism.

Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr., Babes in Toyland...bands that mass (misdirected) media tried to co-opt into a fabricated category called "grunge," demeaning the bands' roots and artistic vision...to purists, though, their music was punk. This video excellently captures that crazy time when distortion, feedback, and unusual tunings were appreciated and accepted as standard musical conventions. My personal highlights include Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore playing slide guitar with a drumstick and Nirvana generally trashing sets. Long live punk rock! DGC, release this on DVD!

The BEST tour/concert film I've seen! Excellent music, funny backstage boredom. Why isn't this on DVD yet?!?! It's not even available on DVD in Europe. What's the deal?

This is defianantly the best music oreinted video i have seen. It completely captures the 90s grunge/punk era. Everybody was in this video....Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Dinosaur jr., babes in toyland, gumball, bob mould, the ramones, iggy pop, and courtney love. It also shows the hardcore grunge/punk fans....very cool.

incredible document not of a band or a tour or a tour of bands but an entire musical movement that i am proud to say was and still is the bedrock of my record collection....... enough justin timberlake, 1991 should be watched by every skool kid in the world, they should be examined on it!!

The name "The Year Punk Broke" was a sly response to the commercialization of underground music and how ridiculous it was that this music was in fact becoming the mainstream stuff that everyone could get their hands on. All they had to do was turn on the TV or open a magazine. This was a time when everything was fresh for music. Doors were opening for all kinds of music. Everytime you turned around some new band was being popularized. Being in college at the time, it was crazy how much music I was being exposed to. I could watch this movie a lot, but I generally don't listen to a lot of music that came out during this period. Not because it isn't good music, it's just that it's a bit dated and I guess I feel a bit old. However, watching this video is a good piece of nostalgia. Most of the bands on this video have not made a decent album in some time (some of them for obvious reasons), but then, I was at the record store the other day and saw a new album by J. Mascis, the mastermind behind Dinosaur Jr. He once said that the reason he plays music is because it's something to do besides watching TV. I wonder if he watched this?

Sonic Youth rules.
Thurston Moore has punk in his marrow.
Now that the band is in their mid-forties, this footage provides a look back at their approach to songwriting, the music industry, their fans, their live shows, at a time when the record industry was daring bands to sell the farm. And now, 10 years later, Sonic Youth have proven to be one of the few acts to survive this marketing blitz with any sort of integrity in tact.

The music is great, especially the performances by Babes in Toyland, Nirvana, and SY itself. However, the director seemed to have trouble filling the gaps. Or maybe he was too messed up on whatever Thurston was on to really pay attention to his narrative arc.

To fill the sizeable gaps the director allows Thurston Moore to dominate almost every non-music segment. Moore's ironic ramblings and painfully forced spazz-outs get really old really fast. He was so haughty and obnoxious that it tainted their blistering live performances. Good job, Thurston. Thurston did almost all the talking. Too much Thurston talking. Too much precious Thurston. Isn't he precocious? Barf.

Plus, Kim Gordon is completely silent. She hides behind a mask of detached, snobby idifference and aloof style. She, too, comes across very poor. She could've/should've said something, right? Am I wrong here? Mebbe Kim Gordon could've talked AT ALL. Instead she just looked cool.

Ultimately there are many angles the director didn't explore/many interviews he could've conducted but didn't. Nirvana provides an air of laid-back zaniness in what really seems to be an exercise in Sonic Youth self-aggrandizing and myth-making.

Again, the music was great. Well worth the very low sticker price. Sonic Youth fans beware: they really seem like egomaniacal dorks. The less refined groups like Babes in Toyland, Dinosaur Jr. and Nirvana are great, though: there should've been more off-stage footage of these acts, and less SY camera-mugging. Kurt Cobain's attempts at flirting with Kim Gordon are pretty sweet, though....

Well when i bought this video a couple weeks ago, I relize I'd been jipped cuz' the person I bought it from left out almost half the video. That totally p**sed me off. I came in about 10 min.s before Babes In Toyland. But of what I saw, it was pretty entertaining. It was truthful. It includes Courtney Love trying to get her shot of fame, and that's cool, a Babes in Toyland "Dust cAke boy" thing, and great stuff from nirvana and sonic youth.