About a B(r)and

In 1991, Nirvana’s Nevermind not only launched grunge and alternative rock into the mainstream but also helped launch the DGC imprint of Geffen Records. Following Nirvana singer/songwriter Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994, Nirvana’s recordings, and Cobain’s previously unreleased solo recordings, have continued to be a lucrative asset for Geffen and their corporate parent, Universal. They have regularly released and reissued Nirvana material, often with the promise of new songs and other bonuses. This chapter surveys Geffen/Universal’s strategies in packaging and marketing Nirvana, with a focus on the band’s posthumous releases. Geffen initially followed Cobain’s lead, striking a balance between underground credibility and mainstream promotion. However, Universal has increasingly lost that balance, raising questions about Nirvana’s and Cobain’s long-term marketability. This case study demonstrates the complex negotiation of industrial forces, legal concerns, fan demand, and artistic integrity involved in marketing a paradigm-shifting act.

Egy dalszöveg a pedagógiai nyelvészet szolgálatában : Quimby: Magam adom

The paper offers an analysis of the lyrics of Magam adom ’I’m giving myself ’ produced by the Hungarian alternative rock band Quimby, arguing that the text can be fruitfully exploited by pedagogical linguistics. Drawing on but also taking issue with previous interpretations of the song by other linguists, the author highlights the following aspects of the tightly woven lyrics of Magam adom: (i) the demonstration of how Hungarian verbs can act as finite clauses by themselves, expressing highly complex meanings, (ii) the intricate network of phonological, semantic and morphological connections, which lends itself to analysis in Bybee’s morphological theory, and (iii) the interaction of various constructions derived from ad ’give’ that motivate a rich, emotionally ambiguous discursive meaning of the pattern megadom magam.

Challenging the presumptive link between musical preference and aggression

The present study sought to examine the relationship between musical preference and aspects of aggression in a United States of America community sample. A total of 400 adults ( M age = 34.14; 50.3% female) completed the Short Test of Musical Preference, Revised (STOMP-R), the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., DSM-5) Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure, and several aggression questionnaires aimed at assessing normative beliefs about aggression and prior history of aggressive behaviors. Results of correlational analyses revealed significant relationships between all examined musical genres and psychopathology. Results of regression analyses revealed the presence of psychopathology as the main contributor to scores across aggression measures, with age and gender variables also varying in their significance. Importantly, preference for intense and rebellious musical genres (i.e., alternative, rock, punk, and heavy metal) was a nonsignificant predictor across all aggression questionnaires. As such, the current results do not support a correlational nor causal link between intense and/or rebellious musical preference and aggressive behaviors.

Chapel Hill

During the 1990s, record companies were looking for the next big alternative rock breakout and focused a lot of attention on Chapel Hill, where bands like Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, and Polvo resided. Two Chapel Hill bands would hit it big, but they were the last two anyone would have expected -- the hot-jazz band Squirrel Nut Zippers and piano-pop trio Ben Folds Five.

Y’alternative

In the shadow of alternative rock, another generation went back to country music with a punk edge. In the 1990s it was called alternative country, and North Carolina had the highest and best concentration of such bands in America -- from old-timers like Red Clay Ramblers and Southern Culture on the Skids to newcomers like Backsliders and 6 String Drag. That has persisted into the present-day Americana age with bands including Hiss Golden Messenger, American Aquarium and Mandolin Orange.

Enhanced Weathering and related element fluxes – a cropland mesocosm approach

The weathering of silicates is a major control on atmospheric CO2 at geologic timescales. It was proposed to enhance this process to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. While there are some studies that propose and theoretically analyze the application of rock powder to agricultural land, results from field experiments are still scarce. In order to evaluate the efficiency and side effects of Enhanced Weathering (EW), a mesocosm experiment was set up and agricultural soil from Belgium was amended with olivine-bearing dunite ground to two different grain sizes, while distinguishing setups with and without crops. Based on measurements of Mg, Si, pH, and DIC, the additional weathering effect of olivine could be confirmed. Calculated weathering rates are up to 3 orders of magnitude lower than found in other studies. The calculated CO2 consumption by weathering based on the outlet water of the mesocosm systems was low with 2.3–4.9 tCO2km-2a-1 if compared with previous theoretical estimates. Suspected causes were the removal or dilution of Mg as a weathering product by processes like adsorption, mineralization, plant uptake, evapotranspiration, and/or preferential flow, not specifically addressed in previous EW experiments for CO2 consumption. The observation that Mg concentrations in the upper soil layers were about 1 order of magnitude higher than in the outlet water indicates that a careful tracking of weathering indicators like Mg in the field is essential for a precise estimate of the CO2 consumption potential of EW, specifically under global deployment scenarios with a high diversity of ecosystem settings. Porewater Mg∕Si molar ratios suggest that dissolved Si is reprecipitating, forming a cation-depleted Si layer on the reactive mineral surface of freshly ground rocks. The release of potentially harmful trace elements is an acknowledged side effect of EW. Primarily Ni and Cr are elevated in the soil solution, while Ni concentrations exceed the limits of drinking water quality. The use of olivine, rich in Ni and Cr, is not recommended, and alternative rock sources are suggested for the application.