Nirvana and Kurt Cobain

[Snard]

I feel I will get very heated and passionate during this discussion if one starts.

I love Kurt Cobain, and Nirvana. It is the band that holds the most meaning to me. I don't really have much to say currently, but I would like to know what you guys think.

http://www.gotcats.org/Kurtkitten.jpg

R.I.P

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think I was 13 or so when they hit big so yeah, I really like them and then quickly and fashionably disliked them and then was indifferent and now I can like them on a couple of different levels: of being a good example of passionate and angst-ful pop music, a band that synthesized a lot of what was interesting about (u.s. Punk) rock music at that point; and some nostalgia, though I hate to admit it.

What I really don't like is some of the tortured-artist mythologizing that's developed... And was always part of the way they were marketed and always seemed at odds with their projected personas in interviews where they always seemed to wear their influences on their sleeves and acted humble. The tortured artist trope takes away what was impressive to 12 year olds about them beyond the songs in of themselves: that it's really simple, normal guys, losers, can make music, can do more than make fast food. Same with a lot of hip hop at that same time: sorry hair metal and mc hammer, you're replaced by people in t-shirts playing 3 chords and rappers who just talk and gesture at the camera.

I was in art class where they let us play the radio when it was announced that Kurt cobain was dead. A lot of tears got in goatees and on overalls that afternoon. I laughed, people told me to shut up and not be an asshole.

[Sasha]

I saw them live... Was very cool.

[Snard]

It was said often that they didn't want that image. The music was meant to be a way for them to find peace, but it instead did the exact opposite. The music industry constantly disapproved of how they did things and controlled them, and tried to force them to be big name douchebags.

I don't se why t-shirts matter. If people like to make music, then let them make music the way they want. Nirvana sure as hell wasn't always a 3 chord band. I think if you are going to say things like that you should at least know more about what you're saying those things about. But, if you did know more then you wouldn't be saying those things in the first place. I recommend you read his journals and you'll see that it wasn't an act - it was how he really was.

[Zukunftsmusik]

I saw them live... Was very cool.

My girlfriend did too... kinda. Her mother was pregnant with her when she saw them on Roskilde. I'm jealous. I really liked them in my early teens, have listened to them once in a while since then, kind of rediscovering them now lately.

[Snard]

My girlfriend did too... kinda. Her mother was pregnant with her when she saw them on Roskilde. I'm jealous. I really liked them in my early teens, have listened to them once in a while since then, kind of rediscovering them now lately.

The Roskilde show was kind of a big one. I'm jealous too.

[Five Year Plan]

They were an incredibly talented group. Like most pop-cultural phenomena, their music is best judged now that the hype around them has long since become nostalgia. In my view, the sheer quality of their songwriting tips the scales of judgment decisively to 'timeless.'

[Zukunftsmusik]

It was said often that they didn't want that image.

Yet the ultra fans are often the worst at idoloising him. I agree with Jimmie about the "tortured artist trope", but there is no reason to laugh at his suicide, though. Suicide's always a pretty sad thing, idols doing it or not.

Bleach was their best album, with In Utero on a very close second. Unplugged made them soft and enjoyable for anyone, something you listen to together with your parents, but I shamelessly love that album nonetheless.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't se why t-shirts matter. If people like to make music, then let them make music the way they want. Nirvana sure as hell wasn't always a 3 chord band. I think if you are going to say things like that you should at least know more about what you're saying those things about. But, if you did know more then you wouldn't be saying those things in the first place. I recommend you read his journals and you'll see that it wasn't an act - it was how he really was.am I being trolled?

I think there are examples every once in a while of a noticeable and sudden shift in pop culture and that's what I was getting at. One minute hip hop in the mainstream is mc hammer and white people rapping bad run-dmc style flows in ads for used trucks, then it's nwa and public enemy. One minute rock in the mainstream were these super-fabricated people in glam costumes driving expensive cars and singing some sexist soul-dead song with empty guitar pyrotechnics by "rock god" geniuses... Then the next day you turn on mtv and all the bands look like one guy might be your bus driver, one woman who works at the coffee shop and is kinda grouchy, and another could be the annoying guy from the college who runs the poetry open mic. And they are playing passionate direct music without the empty virtuosity and they were singing or rapping about relateable shit. If you were the right age, those were impressive shifts.

... And the laughing thing, I don't know why I had that reaction, I wasn't trying to make light of suicide it was just what happened. Something about hearing that on the radio and everyone going silent. I laughed.

[Snard]

They were an incredibly talented group. Like most pop-cultural phenomena, their music is best judged now that the hype around them has long since become nostalgia. In my view, the sheer quality of their songwriting tips the scales of judgment decisively to 'timeless.'

It's interesting as they were all very indie cultured, especially Cobain, yet they were the biggest band of the early 90's. This of course led to the psychological torment of Kurt as well, since he never wanted the spotlight.

[Snard]

am I being trolled?

I think there are examples every once in a while of a noticeable and sudden shift in pop culture and that's what I was getting at. One minute hip hop in the mainstream is mc hammer and white people rapping bad run-dmc style flows in ads for used trucks, then it's nwa and public enemy. One minute rock in the mainstream were these super-fabricated people in glam costumes driving expensive cars and singing some sexist soul-dead song with empty guitar pyrotechnics by "rock god" geniuses... Then the next day you turn on mtv and all the bands look like one guy might be your bus driver, one woman who works at the coffee shop and is kinda grouchy, and another could be the annoying guy from the college who runs the poetry open mic. If you were the right age, those were impressive shifts.

I apologize. I obviously misunderstood you.

[Bostana]

My favorite band without question

[Jimmie Higgins]

I apologize. I obviously misunderstood you.
No problem:)

[Jimmie Higgins]

My girlfriend did too... kinda. Her mother was pregnant with her when she saw them on Roskilde. I'm jealous. I really liked them in my early teens, have listened to them once in a while since then, kind of rediscovering them now lately.lol, thanks for making me feel old:lol:

[blake 3:17]

I saw them live... Was very cool.

Wish I had...

I was kinda snotty about them while Kurt was going -- we were into the Pixies and Fugazi and thought Nirvana were a kind of rip off... Omg sooo stupid. Love In Utero and Unplugged the most but Nevermind is pretty awwwwwwwwwwwesommmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeee


Best thing I ever read on them was in Wingnut magazine about Nirvana as 'chimp rock' -- being small & kinda scared & sounding scared while still rocking out. Very great.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Still one of my favorite bands. I was in my early 20s when they became a thing.

[blake 3:17]

There was a fun thing here in Toronto a few years back where Smells Like Teen Spirit was played all night long by 60 or 70 bands in a theatre and it was free and everytime I tried to leave I'd hear the opening chords and be all "I can't leave, it's that great song!" & had to remind myself that it was going for hours longer.

Very very cool.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I used to love them as a kid.....then grew to despise them after I hit my twenties.....now I like and appreciate them for what they were and what they represented.

Cobain may not have been the most talented guitar player, but he was definitely a talented songwriter. He was a pretty good artist as well. The cover art of Incesticide is his work.

My main problem with Nirvana was always with how they 'ruined' rock music for the rest of the 90s. This is, of course, completely unfair to both Nirvana and Cobain himself...as Kurt Cobain was a pretty big fan of alot of my favorite 70s bands (he loved KISS, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, etc.), as well as a lot of prog rock. And Dave Grohl was a big metal fan from way back. But Nirvana's success almost killed the American heavy metal scene, and alot of metal fans (me included) are still kind of bitter about it.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I used to love them as a kid.....
"As a kid"? Screw you for making me feel old! :lol:

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I like 'em. One of the many great bands my parents introduced me to as a kid. I vaguely remember my dad being speechless when he found out Cobain died. At the time I didn't know who he was, so my dad busted out 'dem cassettes to show me.


I'm gonna go listen to Unplugged now.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I like a few songs, but for the most part they're pretty flavorless and uninteresting to me. There are a lot of moment's were Cobain's voice is just terrible imo.
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The voice he's using in the chorus of this was the beginning of all the pearl jam/stone temple pilots/puddle of mudd/nickelback/creed thing.

[Os Cangaceiros]

They did a few OK songs. I like Mudhoney better. I do think that a big part of Nirvana's appeal was the fact that a lot of people identified with Cobain as a human being, someone who grew up as kind of an awkward kid but found a great deal of solace in music.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Had a very 'Nirvana are the best and Kurt is a God' phase in my adolescence.

Now they're just a fucking great band that I wish I could have seen live just once (saw a brilliant cover band that my sisters then bf was in, but that hardly counts :()

[Jimmie Higgins]

My main problem with Nirvana was always with how they 'ruined' rock music for the rest of the 90s. really? I've heard this from punk-fans who lament them making parts of punk mainstream in the u.s. And for different but similar (mainstreaming) reasons from people who liked pre-nirvana college rock, so I guess I can see the metal angle too. But from my perspective, if seen for their mainstream influence (because they were just the band that "crossed over" not really originators inside the scenes they came out of) I really don't see how they or that moment ruined anything... Quite the opposite personally because I didn't like rock at all prior to them and they led me to punk and lo-fi etc.

I mean for their cultural effect, the rock they displaced was not underground punk or metal or college rock, but Meatloaf, hair metal, and tired acts from the 60s/70s. On the radio you'd hear scorpions, almond brothers, tom petty, and if the "avant guard" of rock was r.e.m. I never related to any of that so nirvana (and through them mainstream exposure to sonic youth, pixies, riot girl, punk, etc) was a breath of fresh air.

Even by like 92/3 the Seattle scene was done in and sucked dry and "alternative" became a marketing catch-all, but that's just how commodification interacts with scenes and music genres... You might get a year or two of creativity and diversity, but then the industry finds ways to reincorporate that and what made punk or gangster music appealing just becomes empty fashion. In terms of mainstream music, I think that period was much more interesting than the hair metal and Bryan Adams ballads that came before and the rage-rock and twee fake college bands that came after.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Folks may have seen this, but I think it illustrates Os's point pretty well.

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If this was an interview from someone in a contemporary band it would still seem like a novel breath of fresh air coming from a pop celeb. People should also watch the interview with the band on Headbanger's Ball from MTV. Cobain's in Sid Vicious mode here, but it's kind of a funny look back at pre-"alternative" rock when this was all new to people in the US.

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[Yuppie Grinder]

Kurt Cobain was a cool guy who knew a lot about and really loved rock music.

[Invader Zim]

They had some good songs. As a lot of people have said, I liked them as a teenager, but grew out of them by my late teens and early 20s. I still listen to some of their songs every now and again, but I think that they are like a lot of bands in that they appeal to most people when they are at a certain time of their lives. Once that time has passed then you move on.

[Art Vandelay]

Cobain certainly wasn't much of a guitar player, never been a big fan of the bassist either (minus the opening words he shouts at the begining of territorial pissings), but man could dave grohl hit the shit out of a drum kit. I always found the MTV unplugged videos to be funny cause it seems like it really takes a concerted effort from Grohl to play lightly. Overall, while I'm a fan of the band, they've certainly been placed on a pedestal. Whoever said bleach was their best album in this thread, was spot on, its a cool garage punk album.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Whoever said bleach was their best album in this thread, was spot on, its a cool garage punk album.

Thanks, but then how can you say that Novoselic isn't good? I mean 7J37mp0JJCE

[Niall]

Bleach is their best album and then in utero. Really liked them back in the day. Went off them but am beginning to like them again. Hard to believe its near 20 years since Kurt killed himself

[Quail]

When I was a teenager and discovering "real" music I got really into bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Hole, Pearl Jam... about 10 years too late, but I was born in 1990 :lol:

I still listen to them from time to time :)

[blake 3:17]

I was in the bar a couple of weeks back & a guy there was getting all offended by Nirvana video. "Guys don't wear dresses!"

I think Hole have been way under rated -- Live Through This and Celebrity Skin are pretty perfect.

[Sam_b]

Would rather listen to Dinosaur Jr.'s grungier stuff personally. They're not bad though.

[RedWaves]

I have never liked them. Always seen them as one of the most over hyped bands ever. They were huge when I was growing up, and I didn't care for them, but Dave Grohl is a very talented musician and it's hard to ignore that when you see his range of abilities with instruments.

The whole "Nirvana killed glam rock" is total bullshit. Glam glam killed itself when people stopped buying that bullshit. Glam glam was really just a reprise of the 70's. They took the Bowie and New York Dolls type glam and hit a grand slam with it for selling and marketing.
Really, the 80's were the worst period of music ever. On top of Prince, the rise of early Hip Hop, a few great solid synth bands, Stevie Ray Vaughan, early Industrial music,the resurgence of Albert Collins, I don't exactly look up to that decade and remember it for awesomeness and maybe that's why Nirvana gets all the credit for killing an abomination like glam metal, cause almost anything in the book that came out in the early 90's was much better than listening to that shit.


Not a fan of them but never had a problem with them. Like I said, Dave Grohl is a piece of gold in our current age of music, and I'm glad Nirvana came around to strike his career.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Agree that Grohl is a great drummer (Songs for the deaf, anyone?), but Foo Fighters are shite.

[RedWaves]

Agree that Grohl is a great drummer (Songs for the deaf, anyone?), but Foo Fighters are shite.


Check out ProBot if you like Metal, he does some work with a wide range of Metal musicians. It's interesting, but I'm not a Metal fan by any means (except for Industrial)

[Doflamingo]

Kurt has said a lot of pretty great quotes like:

"When I hear the term Right wing I think of Hitler and Satan and Civil war."

"John Lennon has been my idol all my life but he's dead wrong about revolution... find a representative of gluttony or oppression and blow the motherfuckers [sic] head off."

[Leo]

I quite like Nirvana though it does get a bit repetitive after a while sometimes.

The best grunge band ever is Pearl Jam though, not Nirvana and if it was Eddie Vedder who died instead of Kurt Cobain, he'd have been an even greater legend.

[ComradeChe]

I was introduced to Nirvana in '95 I think, my friend's older brother was driving me home and he had them on in the car, I liked them and he gave me Nevermind and Unplugged cassettes, I thought they were amazing. Sadly, growing up in Jordan where western music was not that popular - I guess certain genres in particular - and with no MTV or Internet at that time, it took me all the way until '99 to know that Kurt Cobain has died before me even knowing them, that was a huge disappointment and a shock because I always wondered when they will be releasing a new album, or if I'll ever be able to see them live in concert.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I like some of their songs, I really like the aesthetics and symbolism in the Heart Shaped Box video; definitely among a select few videos I genuinely like even if you put it on mute. There was also a time when the only music things I owned was a shitty cassette player with a Foreigner cassette and Nirvana's Nevermind which I repeatedly listened to over and over whenever I wanted music. Would I classify myself as a fan? Like a die hard fan and so on? Not necessarily, considering they're not among the bands I listen to daily but I dig em. I also remember I use to entertain the idea that it was Love who shot Cobain. Past all of this, I don't really have much else to say.

[Os Cangaceiros]

How the hell am I the only person to mention Mudhoney. How is that possible.

Actually I think it's just because I came from a background of liking hardcore punk predominantly, and Mudhoney is probably the closest musically to that tradition (although Cobain liked a lot of that shit as well). Whereas Soundgarden was more from a metal tradition, the Melvins and such...I'm not sure where to situate Pearl Jam, I never really liked them.

I really liked Superfuzz Bigmuff and that comp March To Fuzz as a kid, though...Mudhoney did some awesome covers, I esp like the one they did of Fang's "The Money Will Roll Right In".

[Ele'ill]

I never really liked them.

[Ele'ill]

I think i'll probably curl into a ball somewhere and sob until I die when Bjork dies, just because her music has been in my life at very vivid times since I was born as a counter balance and hope to shitty things and I know it's silly nothing matters there's no such thing as magic but there's magic out there for real nothing matters doesn't matter it just is i'm drunk