If your music doesn't get widespread commercial airplay but instead inspires scores of other artists to write and play great music, then you're ON the playing field. Hell, you ARE the playing field, whether Rolling Stone knows it or not.

I had to vote this down. If you think the Melvins are just a footnote in the Nirvana story, then you don't understand just how influential they are. THIS is the band that invented Grunge, not Nirvana. Buzz is one of the most revered legendary musicians in all of heavy rock.