DAE think Kurt Cobain gets way too much credit for being some kind of genius?

I was at the auto parts store yesterday picking up a new alternator for a 98 Civic, and they had Nirvana playing over the speakers. This kid working the register started going on about how Kurt Cobain was this once in a generation talent that changed music forever. I just stood there holding my brake cleaner like, really? I mean sure he wrote some catchy tunes, but let's be real here. Half those riffs are just recycled Pixies stuff and his lyrics are mostly just random journal entries set to power chords. I get that he died young and tragic, but people act like he invented the whole grunge scene by himself when bands like Mudhoney and The Melvins were doing it first. Am I the only one who thinks the whole martyrdom around him is way overblown compared to what he actually produced?

3 comments

3 Comments

jordan_hill3d ago

Kurt Cobain didn't invent the wheel, but he sure as hell polished it and put it on a fast car for everyone to see. The Pixies influence is obvious, but Cobain took that quiet/loud dynamic and made it mainstream without watering it down. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a perfect pop song disguised as a punk anthem, and most bands can't write one of those in a lifetime. His lyrics might seem like random journal entries, but they're raw and honest in a way that cut through all the hair metal fake crap that was huge before him. If he wasn't special, why do people still care thirty years later?

the_brian3d ago

Wait, you're actually saying his lyrics read like random journal entries? Like that's a bad thing or something? That's literally what made them hit so hard man. When I first heard "Lithium" I was like damn this dude just wrote down exactly what it feels like to be confused and angry and hopeful all at once. Most bands back then were writing about partying and girls and crap nobody actually related to. Cobain wrote about feeling like a freak and hating yourself and being bored out of your mind which is exactly what being a teenager is actually like. The journal entry thing is what made it real instead of polished and fake.

mileslane3d ago

Ha, I'm over here trying to write a grocery list that doesn't fall apart by the second item, and this dude was turning his brain dumps into anthems that people still scream along to in their cars. Yeah, the quiet/loud thing wasn't new, but he made it feel like a secret you were finally let in on, you know? Like with "Teen Spirit" you get that soft verse where you're just mumbling to yourself, then the chorus explodes and you're suddenly yelling at the world. And the journal entry thing is exactly right, it's like he wasn't trying to be clever or impress anybody, he was just sick of pretending everything was fine and that honesty hit way harder than any fancy metaphor ever could.