12 years ago, Kurt Cobain had a pretty bad headache...
 

...he was only 25 years old too...

Actually he was 27 when he killed himself in '94.

wow. Kurt Cobain would be almost 40. That's weird to think about.

I still remember the bad joke we told in school about this...

Kurt's eyes were blue.

One blew this way, the other blew that way.

Don't know if they were blue or not...but the joke circulated regardless.

that's why I say:

hey man, nice shot

This made me think; when was the last time a big-time rockstar/celebrity died? It seemed like in the 90's it happened all the time (Cobain, Tupac, Biggie, the Blind Melon guy, etc). And from what you hear it used to happen a lot back in the day as well (I'm too young to really know). But I can't remember anyone dying 'at the top of their game' in years now.

Am I just not hip enough to recognize when big stars are dying now? Or have hard drugs become safer? Should I be rethinking my stance on heroin?

Shotguns have become safer.

Obviously, the difference is the Republicans have the White House.

Cobain, is, unfortunately, overrated.

Has anyone else Gus Van Sant's Last Days? It was billed as being loosely based on or "influenced" by Cobain's suicide, but I thought it was just another shitty movie.

if you don't know anything about music please don't make retarded statements like this.

Ouch...can't say i agree.

I'll agree with Neon.

Kurt sux.

My two "favorite" jokes of this type (forgive the old references):

Did you hear Grace Kelly was on the radio? Yeah, and on the dashboard and on the winshield...(can be used for Lady Di, too)

What kind of wood doesn't float? Natalie Wood.

I don't know about overrated, but, like Thurman Munson, he was clearly past his prime.

Nevermind is one of the top 10 most important rock albums of all time. hwo is Cobain overrated.

i don't care, i'll argue this till you see the light. i'm not letting these retarded comments go unchallenged. i'm not even the biggest Nirvana fan (only liked Nevermind), but i give props when props are due.

past his prime??? a 27 year old who made one of the most influential albums of all time? if he was a 40 year old today he'd make a hit album with songs that are of nothing but his voice and him strumming the curly strands of pubic hair on his nuts.

i hate revisionists, seriously.:mad:

If the only music in existence was written by Kurt Cobain, I would give up listening to music.

ok, now you're just being silly. i'll reply to you when you're ready to be serious.

Damn, his body was there for 3 days? I know for a fact the news didn't break until the 8th. I recall quite vividly because it was my birthday.

Bleach > Nevermind > whichever crappy albums came after that > unplugged

Revisionist? I remember listening to that unplugged album and feeling sad. It's not my fault he wasted his talent and was washed up at 25 or however old he was ... but he was most definitely washed up.

I just feel that Nirvana and the entire Cobain (and Nirvana) cult-like following really only took off and went APESHIT BIG when he killed himself.

I'm not saying that Nirvana isn't good. Nirvana was a great band.

It's Cobain who's overrated. His suicide adds to this illusion of his "greatness".

The guy QUIT on life. Come on. I really can' t say much for someone who quits on life.

In my opinion:

Kurt Cobain was a talentless hack. His lyrics were unintelligible; his singing voice was horrid; he made it fashionable for an entire generation to feel sorry for itself. The only song of his that I like at all is "All Apologies". Others may feel differently. Nobody is right or wrong.

Actually the best album is "In Utero"

Bob Dylan didn't enunciate so well either...so I would have to disagree...I didn't find all Nirvana worthwhile or substantial, but some of it was in what it did and how it influenced the next generation...you cannot discount Nirvana and Cobain even if you didn't like him...or at least you shouldn't.

No it isn't. Despite what Kodos says, I am right and you are wrong.

Oh, the other thing about Nirvana: They never get enough credit for totally ripping off the Pixies.

and who influenced the Pixies?

cough Husker Du cough...

Mark Twain? Pumpy Tudors?

The Supremes

What were Lady Di's limo driver's first words when he woke up from his coma?
"Hey, I don't remember 'Candle in the Wind' going like that!"

well, that's close but not quite right. HA is clearly wrong.

Sums up my thoughts. Never liked him. Never will. Blowing his head off and leaving his wife and child behind to suffer the aftermath (and given how Courtney Love's been doing since, I'd say I'm understating a bit) just clinched the argument for me. He may have had a great influence and was popular, but that doesn't mean he was great. Sure, it'll mark me as uncool to say this, but then I was never part of the "cool" or "in" crowd when I went through high school and this stuff hit the fan anyway.

and if the Pixies were all that good they'd have been Nirvana before Nirvana was Nirvana. i've heard one or two Pixies songs and i was not impressed in the least. one of those bands whose aura/legacy is bigger than their actual contribution.

Nirvana was an incredibly important band to me. Nevermind is the most important album of the 90's. I find it hard to take people seriously who can't recognize the influence they had, but mostly I chalk it up to them not knowing much about really anything. ;)

I remember when I turned 28, it freaked me out that I was older than Cobain. Saw Nirvana during their last tour and it was a hell of a good time.

i'm the exact same way. keep in mind Nirvana isn't even my in top 10 favorite bands, but i respect their contribution to rock and music as a whole and acknowledge the impact Cobain had on an entire generation. to say anything else is to reveal how little one knows about music - personal tastes aside. i don't like the Beatles but even i acknowledge they are what they are - the greatest rock band and greatest songwriters of all time. true lovers of music look beyond their own likes and dislikes.

Nirvana and Cobain had some good stuff, and were certainly influential. But they didn't come close to earning the level of reverance they have. Very very overrated.

They had a couple good albums and, like almost every other band in history, they would have followed them up with some mediocre albums to balance things out. Instead, Cobain offed himself and the band is held on a pedestal.

If Perry Ferrell had died after Nothing's Shocking, Jane's Addiction would be revered in the same light. Instead, they had a so-so album, broke up, formed bad side bands, put together a crappy leftovers album, and regrouped to put out a monstrously bad album. They are remembered as a band that had some great moments, but not one of the all time greats, and that's how Nirvana/Cobain would be remembered as well if he hadn't been such a coward.

Frankly, I don't mourn Kurt Cobain. I remember the shock of hearing of his death, but MTV made it seem like he was John Lennon which even I knew was far from correct. His death was a tragedy but not unexpected, after all he attempted with pills in Italy just prior, he clearly was not long for this world.

That being said, Nirvana was a huge influence on bands. They filled the gap at a time when the music scene was becoming excessively bad, to a point that it has still yet to recover from Rap and Hip Hop taking the charts. And while they "woe is me" is a little overdoing it, I think Cobain was trying hard to remain untainted by fame and money (he failed). He certainly never looked like he was enjoying what he was doing.

To say his vocals sucked, or that lack of guitar vituosity is to remove the main reasons why he influenced bands to a point that today it's overkill on the feelings.

Whether or not you found him talented, his band filled a void and ended up influencing a generation, and for those who say he ripped off the Pixies, least that was the influence, I couldn't go through another hair band revival.

The fact that I'm agreeing 100% is in no way a reflection on my personal distate for your sandwich habits.

like, say, Nirvana?

no, if all Nirvana did was release Nevermind mind (which many here claim they only did) that's enough to put them in the Pantheon. Sex Pistols only had one album and it was enough to reserve them a spot.

Nevermind was a very important album in music. i don't care about Cobain's views on life or where his head was at - i'm talking strictly music.

Nirvana was not even the best band from his own city at the time.

Alice in Chains was vastly superior musically, as were Soundgarden and especially Mudhoney.

Nirvana is not a good band. They're decent at best. Right place, right time is all that comes to mind when I think of Nirvana. Teen angst? I'd say more or less teen stupidity. There were bands much before Nirvana who were better musically and stood for something that didn't get bigger because people weren't ready for a change (See Bad Brains). Granted in the case of BB, they became obsessed with Jai and all that but they were Nirvana before Nirvana.

Rant off.

Agreed...I think it's just that people don't remember what music was like back then. You had great, intelligent bands before Nirvana, but many of them toiled away in obscurity because the radio waves were filled with hair bands and the like. No one is saying Nirvana invented "indie" rock (nor were they necessarily the best band out there), but their success helped pulled hundreds of bands out of the local clubs and onto labels. In turn that pulled local labels onto the national scene...and then the national labels started to look at a wider range of music. It was a great situation for many, many bands.

Sex Pistols, like Nirvana, were all image. Musically they weren't anything special. They just had a hook. Cobain was the depressed, haunted grunger, while Rotten and co were ditball, sleezebags people loved to talk about. Not much is ever said about their music.

Remember that Nirvana was influenced by many 80's hardcore punk bands. Hell, Dave Grohl was a drummer in one of those bands before Nirvana and he credits their sound to all of them. Nirvana did nothing revolutionary, they just got lucky.

the callous dipshittery of this thread is really making me sad.

Tell me you aren't comparing the greatest songwriter of the last 50 years with Kurt Cobain - please.

And so far as the "scene" Nirvana created, I am hard pressed to find many bands of the same "scene" to acknowledge Nirvana as an influence. If anything most of the modern rock acts like System of a Down acknowledge Faith No More and such as their influences.

First of all, there is definitely an phonomenon here in America where we have a tendancy to deify people who die in tradegy early. JFK was not nearly as good a President as some feel, when his son recently died you would not be faulted for thinking that our country had lost a prince instead of a magazine owner, Janice Joplin was not so good an artist, and so forth.

Has Cobain been lifted by his death? Obviously, and to deny that people think more highly of Cobain after he died than before he died would be to deny reality. To listen to some reports and read some articles you would have thought that Cobain was the Christ of Rock come to save our souls.

Likewise, to deny that Cobain had influence on his generation of musicians and fans would also be to deny reality. Cobain was a very influential musician as the head and voice of Nirvana.

The question many rightfully ask is how much of Cobain's "legacy" is due to him shooting himself, and how much is real? That's a legitimate question to ask whenever someone tragically dies.

There is also a question of talent and art. Kraftwerk may be a monumentally influential group, but their music just isn't that good at the end of the day. It would certainly be consistent with reality to argue that Nirvana, although influential, did not produce that good music. It would also be consistent to argue that Niravana was both influential and made good tunes. This particular argument is relegated to the sphere of opinion.

-Anxiety

dola, The Clash - now they were amazing. Before my time - but wow.

I don't think anybody mentioned Johnny Cash :)


-Anxiety

Man, I must have had you wrong throughout this thread. You're clearly right -- Faith No More was a much more important and music-changing phenomenon than Nirvana ever was. I'll have to run home and put on their album...er, wait, I don't have any of them. Though I do remember the fish flopping video. That was inspiring.

And they wouldn't have too - we were mentioning the best - Dylan. Heck, Dylan did country as well as Cash (who was amazing - no doubt - Cat's Crade is one of my favorite songs). :D

Don't know anything about influence, but only really liked a couple of Nirvana songs. Meh.

I don't think anyone here is making the argument that Nirvana was a great band. And I think only a very, very small number of people are qualified to say whether Nirvana, as opposed to other similar bands, were or were not a great influence on future music. Nirvana's legacy, instead, is their success - the fact that millions and millions of new people were listening to this kind of music pretty much overnight. That influenced the culture of the time - the clothes, the attitudes, everything. Whether or not other bands were "better", Nirvana was the one that crossed that bridge. As this really wasn't a post-death phenomenon, as anyone who was in middle school or high school at the time would remember.

Layne Staley died today too.

Does anyone think Cobain may have been murdered? Certain things in the coroners report do seem to be questionable. Stuff like the fact that the gun was at an improbable angle of falling(he would have had to essentially pull it with his toes, but he was wearing shoes). A limited amount of blood at the scene and a highly lethal dose of heroin in his system are both quite questionable as well.

I don't want to say that Nirvana was the best. band. evar., or even my favorite band of all time, but if you made me list my favorite albums or artists off the top of my head, they'd likely be the first one I'd mention.

Did Cobain's death make them larger than life? Sure, of course it did, that happens and its natural. But to say the band was terrible, or had no influence, is to deny the truth.

Cobain knew how to merge pop with punk/metal, and for a short period of time he produced some awesome and groundbreaking material. The fact that he was a douchebag in many aspects of life (including and most importantly his method of exit) should not diminish the work of the band. Pyramids were built on the backs of slaves by some a-holes in the truest sense, but you cannot discount the wonderment of the finished product based on that knowledge. It is what it is, and that's that.

And obviously because you don't own a FNM album, they were not influential.. While youre at it go tell that to Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Korn, Deftones, System of a Down, Sound Garden and several other bands...

You want to continue giving a verbal lovejob to Nirvana, go ahead but leave bands you have no idea about out of it.... Dave Grohl is a better musician than Cobain was anyway.

No. I do think it possible, however, that Courtney Love is the uncredited composer or co-composer of more than one Nirvana song.

A very important point. Nirvana's rhthym section made Cobain famous, not the other way around.

Death to the Pixies.

Reread...I wasn't comparing, I was explaing how poor singing and odd lyrics don't exactly discount credibility. But I never equated them together (and by that since you misunderstood before Cobain and Dylan).

Thank you come again

Those are interesting statements, and ones that I would really like to know the truth about. I find it just as probable that Dave Grohl and Courtney Love learned a thing or two about composing a song from Cobain during their time together.

The person who is best positioned to answer these kinds of questions is Krist Novoscelic, but I'm guessing he is the type of person who will never tell.

Let's not play "compare our musical knowledge." I give plenty of credit where it's due, to bands I like and bands I don't dig. Hell, I think you'd have a tougher argument over whether or not Mr. Bungle was more important than Faith No More.

Don't think either of my posts was a "verbal lovejob," but in neither of them did I say I didn't know anything about Faith No More. Just said I didn't own any of their work. Not that I haven't listened to it.

You're right about one thing, though: Grohl is a better musician than Kurt was. On the other hand, Kurt would have taken a dump on some of the songs Dave's been releasing these days, so maybe the "musical integrity" question would be less in his favor. Fwiw, I like the Foos fine.

I think GenerationX just eats this crap up.

Let's go back to the early-to-mid 90's. You have an entire generation of teens and young adults, the spawn of the Baby Boomers, with no identity. 80's music has gone out. There's nothing cool to listen to. They don't embrace rock (well, most of them don't), and they're looking for the sort of musical and cultural identity that their parents had, without it sounding, well, like their parents music... they're looking for... ding! An Alternative.

Alternative Rock is born, not because it's any good, but because it's the only distinguishably new genre of music for this sad generation to latch on to. It fits nicely with their generally pessimistic and apathetic world view. GenX really has nothing on their parents, as far as stuff to complain about. The Boomers had Vietnam, Watergate, and gas rationing. And lots of new drugs and free sex to play with. GenX had… what? A booming economy, relative world peace, Say No To Drugs, and Don’t Have Sex Because You Will Get AIDS and Die.

What was there to protest? What cause was there to identify with? Truthfully, there was NOTHING important going on during the 90’s. The Cold War was over. Al Gore invented the Internet. Everyone was getting rich.

So, kids listen to the whiny lyrics from grunge rockers who are trying to convince themselves that it’s really not that great. For the most part, the whole thing is marginalized.

Then Cobain eats a shotgun blast. And all of a sudden, a million GenX’ers cry out in euphoric agony… “We have something REAL to cry about! Our parents lost Hendrix, Joplin, Lennon, etc. We lost… Kurt Cobain!”

If you ask me, it’s pathetic. I’m a GenX’er. I watched the crap on MTV when he died. You’d have thought it was the damned Pope or something.

Hey, I liked a few Nirvana songs. A few of their tracks were the best of an otherwise forgettable genre of music. But let’s not make this like Elvis died or anything. Cobain was influential only because a generation of wannabes made him that way. If he were alive today, Nirvana (if they were still together) would be no more influential in today’s music than Pearl Jam (who has a loyal following, but hardly cracks the top 40 anymore).

Why couldn’t Eddie Van Halen have killed himself? Then we’d have a decent musician to mourn, and the added bonus of never hearing another album after F.U.C.K.

Sex Pistols don't have a spot either, unless it's the Suck Donkey Balls Hall of Fame.

I agree here--Nirvana was that group that heralded a change in pop music during that era. That period (1991-1993) was an amazing time to be listening to the pop radio. By 1991, 80s-style pop had started to grow stale and nobody was quite sure what would replace it, so a lot of programmers seemed to play anything and everything. Not to denigrate them, but as some have alluded to, Nirvana seemed to be in the right place at the right time in this regard.

Looking back, it's amazing to think how fleeting that era was--ask a 14 year old in the year 2000 what "Lollapalooza" was, and he probably wouldn't know. By 1994 I felt that top 40 was starting to get stale again ("overgrunged"). The first time I heard the Dionne Farris single "I Know" on the radio, I figured that "alternative pop"'s days were numbered on Top 40 radio.

Who do you think was the seminal act that heralded the teen pop era (1997-2001 in the US)? Spice Girls? Backstreet Boys?

The amount of subjective-opinion-as-fact in this thread is effing awesome.

Let's settle this once and for all:

I LIKE NIRVANA ______ I DO NOT LIKE NIRVANA ______ (CHECK ONE)

/Thread done.

I really like ths "Nirvana may not have been the best musical band or the best songwriting band, but they had commercial success so they were one fo the best of all time," argument.

Many have made similar arguments in this thread. I wonder why they think it makes sense to argue that Nirvana was great because of their commercial success and not, say, the Backstreet Boys and their commercial success? After all, the BSB were also influential in many ways as well.


-Anxiety

I like Epic way more than Smells like Teen Spirit. :)


-Anxiety

I don't disagree with the notion of BSB being a seminal group. The so-called grunge era and the teen-pop era were what they were, nothing more nothing less.

Then I respect your consistency.

-Anxiety

I'd think I'd have liked it better if they'd hired Courtney Love when she auditioned for the group. :D

(For what it was, Epic was a fun song)

I was wondering if you would have gotten it if, instead of mentioning Epic, I had merely quoted your post and then said, "You want it all but you can't have it."


-Anxiety

You're fucking CLUELESS is you believe this. Bands like the Velvet Underground and The Pixies had way, way, way bigger impacts on music than their record sales would indicate.

I think it's way more likely that Kurt Cobain wrote almost all of Live Through This, the only Hole album worth owning.

I know somebody who says that he knows the brother of somebody who overheard at a party yadda yadda yadda ....

Anyway the rumor was that not only did Cobain write all the music on that album, but also played most of the instruments. I don't know ... unless it was written quite a long time before it was released, I don't see it. As I pointed out above, Cobain was quite obviously washed up years before he killed himself.

Wait wait... 'years before he killed himself'? In 1991 he recorded what is largely regarded as the defining album of his generation... in 1994 he was dead... in the time between he recorded 1 new album, and recorded a (critically acclaimed) unplugged album.

Now, explain how he was 'quite obviously washed up', even in 1994... nevermind (pun intended) 'years before' that time. Was he washed up in 1987? Did he put out all this stuff after being washed up? Even if In Utero stunk, can an artist be considered washed up after 1 bad album out of a total of 2?

Like his music or not, your quote above is quite possibly one of the stupider things I've read in a long while.

No kidding. At least now I know what to do if I want to make a bunch of people sound like idiots. Either shout "Nirvana was the greatest" or "Nirvana sucks and is overrated" and then just sit back and watch hilarity ensue. :)

Actually, iirc, nevermind was released in 1990, and in utero had been recorded at the same time.

But, whatever. I remember thinking he was finished creatively long before he died. I don't how long, maybe it wasn't years.

Nevermind
Original Release Date: September 24, 1991


In Utero was most definately not recorded at the same time, it was recorded sometime in 1993 and released in september of that year.


Why can no one on the internet just say "I was wrong"?

The parallel between Pearl Jam and Nirvana is interesting. People talk now about how Nirvana single handedly made alternative popular, but Pearl Jam sold way more records and had more airplay than Nirvana while Cobain was alive and I think its reasonable to assume that Vedder and Pearl Jam would be just as esteemed as Cobain and Nirvana if the roles were reversed and Vedder offed himself right after recording Vitalogy.

That's not to say Nirvana isn't really good. PJ and Nirvana both had really great "debut" albums (counting Nevermind as their debut even though it obviously wasn't their 1st album because it was the first time 99.9% of their fans heard of them) and a soild overall body of work.

So I guess I'd agree that the people saying they're the most influencial/best band of the 90's are going overboard a bit -- personally i think Radiohead gets that distinction AND Nirvana wasn't that much better than contemporaries like PJ, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, etc. I'd also agree the people saying Nirvana were shit are going overboard a bit. They obviously don't appeal to everyone, but to ignore their contributions is crazy.

Nirvana were more important for what they achived than their music. Their songs were good, but they, for whatever reason, managed to get alternative rock played on mainstream radio and on MTV. Remember, even MTV in the late 80s was not an alternative outlet as it is now, they played the same hair-rock and cheese-pop that commercial radio in the US was playing at the time. Nirvana changed that and kickstarted a movement that got bands that previously would've otherwise toiled for years playing small venues and releasing under-the-radar EPs, out into the mainstream arena. Regardless of whether theur music was masterful or not (I am of the opinion that they were solid but not spectacular) that is why Kobain was so important and why I agree with HA that Nevermind is one of the 10 most important rock albums ever.

Because on the internet, everybody's a beautiful woman.

You make a good point here, and its pretty valid. The only thing I can sort of say is that the part of Cobain that made him kill himself is also the part that I think raises his music a level higher than Vedder's. The emotion in Nirvana songs always feels a few levels higher than PJ's, or at least a little more raw and real. To me, that adds to the allure.

That said, the first 3 PJ albums are pretty awesome!

I don't know why I'm posting in this thread. Radiohead is the only band mentioned that I have actually listened to on purpose in the last ten years.

What are you wearing right now?

#12 Pats jersey, my new cowboy hat, and a jockstrap.

Oh well, too bad for him. He was overrated anyway.

This thread and a majority of the posts within disgust me.

Dola,

I'll just say that I'm amazed how people can complain so much about Nirvana when there's so much worse stuff out there. If Soundgarden had sold as many records, and then Chris Cornell killed himself, people would be saying the same stuff about them.

Wow. On everything you just said. Just wow.

Beavis: Isn't that the lead singer of the Spin Doctors?
Butthead: Yeah. He jams with Soundgarden sometimes.

This is the same argument as the previous posts about Nirvana being important or not. I am particularly unimpressed by the Pixies music, but they were a huge influence on a huge number of rock bands.

Whether people like Nirvana or not, I cannot see how people cannot say they were not an important band: they opened up major labels and the general public for bands that would not have had a look in before, and had as big an influence on many later bands as the Pixies had had for them.

(For the record I do Like Nirvana a lot, apart the horrendous (IHMO) In Utero - personally I think this is the record that crossed the line from mixing punk and rock, throwing in major feedback and making great songs, into basically creating major feedback and making noise)

If anybody wants to find out about Kurt Cobain's life, I strongly recommend 'Heavier Than Heaven' by Charles R Cross. While Cross was a Music Journo, and the fact he chose to write the book shows he is not necessarily personally completely impartial, it does seem fairly balanced, painting a not-altogether rosy picture of Cobain, and goes a long way to answering some of the points in this thread, for example his struggles to cope with fame, and mess of a relationship with Courtney Love, both of which were largely his own making.

When I think Cobain. I think Influential. I think popular. I don't think greatest of all time.

Ali is the greatest of all time...

I think I agree on all counts. The truth is somewhere in between Kodos and Hell Atlantic's take on the situation. They really weren't all they were cracked up to be, but to say Cobain is a talentless hack is pretty silly.

Green Day was another band that "crossed over" and I don't hear many bands cite them as influential. Whether or not you own their CD's is not important, it's the fact you'll find numerous bands of today cite them as an influence long befor e Nirvana.

Nirvana, without MTV, would've been nothing. People wouldn't have seen this look they had that was new compared to all the hair bands and such of the 80's and early 90's. They were an MTV band if I've ever seen one and that explains there meteoric rise. Some marketing exec somewhere did a hell of a job.

I was a big Nirvana fan. "Unplugged in New York" is probably my favorite CD of all time.

Too bad Courtney got away with his murder...

The Melvins.

I agree that this is closer than what Kodos said. I think this has happened in every era and in every genre, so I guess it is human nature. I recall that those of us in the 20s and 30s in the late 80s/early90s were just flipping the channel whenever Smells like Teen Spirit played on MTV for the millionth time, while the kids were eating this up thinking they were doing hardcore rebellion. Nirvana's album (pick one) may be important in the history of rock thing but that doesn't make them good, just being at the right place at the right time.