Inspired by the Paul Anka thread it occured to me that among my group of peers I seem to be the only one that has no love for Kurt Cobain or Nirvana. I don’t really mind the music but I don’t get why people idolize this guy. As far as I can tell he didn’t do anything really groundbreaking except for a few hit songs that have outlived their shelf life.
Kurt and Nirvana was good for the time and place they made it in but now it just seems kind of sycophantic to worship this drug-addled, depressed whiney guy that really wasn’t that great of a musician.
If you replace “wasn’t that great of a musician” with “was a terrible musician - no, shouldn’t even be called a musician”, then you’ve got a backer in me. He played a few power chords and whined at the right place and the right time, and somehow there are still people that deify him.
I spent my young childhood listening to Nirvana. I remember hearing on the radio that he died and I was really sad. I was eight (have an older brother that listened to them).
I don’t think Nirvana put out the greatest music but it did resonate with a generation. I dig it though.
But reading “Heavier than Heaven” by Charles R. Cross (Cobain bio) was pretty interesting. He was a weird guy. And he did have a kind of messed up childhood. And he brought a lot of his problems on himself (hmm…heroin anyone?)
I don’t like him either. I’ve heard folks wax poetic about his guitar playing, but he seems like just another basher to me. I’m willing to overlook a guy’s bad singing if he can play well, or if he writes great songs. Cobain didn’t do any of that, IMO. It’s a shame he was a junkie. It’s a shame he killed himself. It’s a shame he was famous for no apparent reason.
Nope, you’re not alone. Mediocre guitarist, whiny voice, looked like he hadn’t showered in about 2 years. I don’t like Neil Young for the same reasons. And I never understood the popularity of the music. But then, I never understood the popularity of Depeche Mode, either. They both strike me as Music To Slit Your Wrists By.
Well…first I would say I don’t think they’ve outlived there shelf life. They still sound pretty good to me. I think they will continue to. Some songs are like that.
Secondly, groundbreaking? Depends on how you define it. Was he really doing anything new? No, and I don’t think he thought he was. It was just groundbreaking because his particular punk/post punk band was the one that sold a million copies. Sonic Youth acknowleged that (the year punk broke).
And as for the whorship? Well that’s never a good idea. But he makes as much sense as James Dean. And almost as much as John Lennon.
He’s a symbol…we do that. Not good but we do that.
And for the record I’m pissed off at him for settling for being a stupid symbol and not sticking aroungd to see if he could make some more music.
I had cassettes of Bleach and Nevermind back when I was in 8th grade, when they were making it big, but I grew out of them. To me, Nirvana always remained “children’s music,” like they were a stepping stone for young teenagers to cross on their way to discovering better music. Now I find them unlistenable: the distorted, noise blithering whine of a drug-addled half-wit. Plus, the guy was a fucking coward. He couldn’t face the responsibility of raising a baby daughter, so he retreated further into drugs and then popped himself. (Then again, if I was married to Courtney Love, I might consider the same.) I have no sympathy for someone like that, and I won’t canonize him or say that he was important to our culture or the grand scheme of popular music in any way. He didn’t have anything truly insightful to say, and wasn’t even talented enough to say it very well.
Plus, the Pixies did everything Nirvana became famous for, but they were a lot tighter of a band, more FUN, more talented, and preceded Nirvana by five years or so.
To my knowledge (bios, interviews, etc.), he did drugs for 2 reasons:
-Self-medicate a stomach problem he never could get a diagnosis for.
-To escape being famous - not escape raising his child. While he and Courtney were bad parents (both junkies), they seemed to truly love Frances. Kurt hated being famous while enjoying it at the same time. I think he just wanted to play music, but the money was also nice (hey, who wouldn’t like the money). I’ve never been addicted to heroin, but I can tell it’s pretty fucking hard to quit, no matter what responsibilities you have.
Kurt wasn’t some super talented guy, but he sold a lot of records and his videos got play. There are plently or artists now that aren’t very good but people still love them. Nirvana is definitelty a gateway band - so they are important. To more seasoned ears, they are pretty blah (they aren’t on my playlist anymore really), but man to a kid they are golden.
Its tough to say bad things and really easy to praise someone that died so they naturally grow in stature after their death. For another example of this see Kennedy.
I don’t understand how your confused notions about suicide should have any bearing on how anyone perceives Nirvana’s music. Cobain clearly had problems. He killed himself. He made some music along the way. His music, and all music, should be taken at face value.
I’ll say for the record that I still enjoy Nirvana. I don’t listen to them as much as I did when Kurt was alive, but I think they still hold up. Kurt Cobain wasn’t a great guitar player, but he had his own style. He wasn’t a great singer either, but his voice worked great for his band. He also had the beneift of having a brilliant drummer. Personally, I think he was a pretty good songwriter too. Maybe he wasn’t Paul Westerberg, but who is?
To be sure, Kurt Cobain was in the right place at the right time. He came along and made a lot guys with spandex and long hair look like the obvious frauds that they were. Maybe if it wasn’t him, someone else would have been there to take his place. But things happened the way they did. I still miss him.
I really liked the music he produced, but I don’t think he is some great visionary. His music was enjoyable but is too mixed with nostalgia for me to give an honest criticism.
As far as a guy, I couldn’t care less about him. He seemed like a loser. I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with him and I wasn’t terribly disturbed by his death.
Also, may I say that he is not even in the same neighborhood as John Lennon. Lennon produced a larger, much more significant body of work. Nirvana’s contribution to civilization (at least pop culture) was a drop in the bucket compared to Lennon’s.
It always annoyed me how they compared the two.
Nirvana= A good band with one great album.
John Lennon = One of the most influential artists in history with NUMEROUS great albums.
Sgt. Pepper’s alone eclipses Kurt Cobain’s contribution to society. And that was just part of Lennon’s body of work.
I’m with the OP, and I thought I was the only one.
When Nirvana and Soundgarden and AIC and all the rest started getting airplay, I absolutely loved it. It signaled the death of bands like Warrant and Poison, and for that reason alone I embraced “grunge”.
I wore out my copy of Nevermind just like many others, but it wasn’t because it was such a great album (perhaps I thought so at the time, but it hasn’t really held up that well), but because it was new and different to what I’d been hearing in my musically sheltered life… specifically, it wasn’t “glam”. It seemed to me to be what people who embraced punk must have felt when it came along and kicked disco in the ass.
Now, if a Nirvana tune comes on the radio I’ll usually listen to it and tap my foot, but I generally don’t go out of my way to listen to them at all and I’ve come close to physical altercations with enraged fans when I dare to even suggest that he was not a very good lyricist. That’s the part that I really don’t get: why he’s credited as such an ingenious writer. He wrote whiny drivel most of the time, and complete nonsense the rest of the time. His lyrics were neither deep, nor profound… and I was doing drugs at the time so if anyone could have found meaning in nothing, I’d have been a candidate.
I’ve also received bodily threats for suggesting that if he hadn’t died when he did, in the way that he did, he wouldn’t be anything but a historical footnote now, but that’s a topic for another thread I think.
And, I still maintain that the best band to come out of that time period and area is AIC.
