FEATURE:
On a Plain
IN THIS PHOTO: Kurt Cobain during the taping of MTV Unplugged at Sony Studios in New York City/PHOTO CREDIT: Frank Micelotta/Getty
Kurt Cobain at Fifty-Five: His Legacy and Genius
___________
ON 20th February…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kurt Cobain alongside Nirvana bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl/PHOTO CREDIT: Jesse Frohman/Trunk Archive
the world will mark what would have been Kurt Cobain’s fifty-fifth birthday. A ‘90s icon who was the lead of one of the most influential bands of their time, Nirvana, his songwriting brilliance, feminist attitude and captivating personality made him a hero to millions. Before coming to features about his legacy and what made Cobain so special, it is worth knowing more about one of the most iconic and revered songwriters ever. AllMusic’s biography provides great detail:
“As the lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain's musical success began in his twenties and was heightened when he formed the band Nirvana. Hits such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are," and "Heart Shaped Box" helped the group achieve international success.
Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Washington. Hyperactive as a youngster, he was given Ritalin to help him concentrate in school and sedatives to help him sleep at night. At the age of seven, his parents got divorced. He became so difficult to live with that his parents sent him to live with relatives. This period in his life is reflected in songs such as "Sliver." With a dislike for school, Cobain spent his time painting and singing. He listened to the Beatles and the Monkees, but changed to bands such as Kiss, Black Sabbath, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash in 1979. On his 14th birthday, Cobain bought his first guitar and started experimenting with different musical styles. He also was a roadie for a Seattle group called the Melvins. He dropped out of high school a few weeks before graduation to get a job, but his efforts were unsuccessful because he couldn't hold a job for very long.
In 1986 the group Nirvana was formed with Cobain on vocals and guitar, Krist Novaselic on bass guitar, and various drummers. Their first album, Bleach, was released in 1989. They toured the U.S. and had their first international concert in Newcastle, England. Their second single was unsuccessful, so they changed record companies. After signing with Geffen Records in 1991, and adding permanent drummer Dave Grohl, they produced their second album, Nevermind, which received rave reviews with the hits "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are," and "Lithium." Their popularity grew after the group made appearances on MTV's Headbanger's Ball and NBC's Saturday Night Live. The success of the band was intimidating to Cobain, who liked the intimate setting of nightclubs; it was the money that guided them to do concerts and shows in the rock arena. It was in the early '90s that Cobain began doing heavy drugs such as morphine and heroin, but in 1992 his personal life brightened as he married Courtney Love in Hawaii, and their union brought a daughter, Frances Bean. With a wife and daughter, Cobain calmed a bit, and the group released Incesticide.
Things took a turn for the worse in 1993 when Cobain overdosed on heroin. After seeking rehabilitation for a time in a center, he left without completing the program. During this time the band played on. In 1993, the band released In Utero, their last studio-recorded album. Nirvana played an MTV Unplugged concert and a concert in Munich in 1994. One week after the concert in Munich, Kurt Cobain was hospitalized in a coma. After waking up and leaving voluntarily, he was reported missing and was found three days later in his house, dead of a gunshot wound.
Over the next two decades, Cobain's legend only grew, thanks in part to posthumous Nirvana recordings. The live albums MTV Unplugged in New York and From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah appeared in 1994 and 1996, respectively, and in 2002, an eponymous greatest hits album appeared. Two years later, the rarities and outtakes box With the Lights Out saw release and that was the last major archival release until 2015, when Brett Morgen directed the documentary Montage of Heck. The film was accompanied by the release of a soundtrack album, containing home recordings and demos by Cobain; it was the first-ever album to be credited to Cobain alone”.
Whilst, in 2022, there might not be more to say about Cobain’s legacy and brilliance, it is worth noting what he left the world following his premature death in 1994. Ahead of a big birthday where fans will mark his passing in addition to celebrating his music and the words he put out into the world, I wanted to source a few articles where writers have tried to explain what his legacy and influence is. Last year, twenty-seven years after Cobain’s suicide, this article tells how Cobain and Nirvana inspired their peers, and how Nirvana’s iconic MTV Unplugged set showed new talents and multiple sides of Cobain:
“From the yellow wiggly smiley face you see everywhere to their infamous naked baby 1991 album Nevermind still seen in music shops, there is no denying that Nirvana is the most influential grunge band of all time. As of 31st March 2021, the band has just over 17,255,000 monthly listeners and their most well-known song ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, has just over 933,525,000 plays on Spotify! They are certainly not going away any time soon.
While the hot debate surrounding what can be defined as grunge has been going on since the mid-80s, Nirvana embraced it for what they assumed it to be. Musically, grunge is an underground genre that borrows from punk, metal, rock and to a certain extent, pop. Under the talent of Cobain, Nirvana surprised the world with their second album, Nevermind breaking tradition by having huge success on radio, MTV, CD, and tape recordings, thus launching the genre into the mainstream. They were raw and unpolished; that’s what was needed then.
Furthermore, their iconic Nirvana MTV Unplugged 1993/1994 set reminded viewers and listeners that they were more than your average Joe. Although the infamous 1992 MTV Awards (when Nirvana performed) may lead many to question why the band would agree to perform for MTV Unplugged, it came at a time where the TV station’s popularity was dipping. Cobain’s motives will never be clear, but one thing is for sure – they rocked the roof off! Viewership for this much-anticipated release did wonders for MTV and showed the entire world that Nirvana were not just some shouty, rowdy men who turned the volume up to 100. This was their time to shine and show their talent off. From ‘All Apologies’ to ‘About A Girl’, they were stripping back and showing off the incredible vocal skills and writings of Cobain. Oh, and the band were willing to take risks by performing covers of David Bowie, who, according to The Independent, was ‘regarded as a sort of super-naff crazy uncle to Phil Collins. It is hard to convey just how uncool he still was in the early Nineties.’ They made it their own.
Cobain became an icon himself. With his clothing style, unphased attitude and his refusal to be inauthentic – many idolised him, and still do. He was ahead of his time; he was even arrested for spray-painting ‘God is Gay’ on police cars in Washington state. He was also modest about his own talent, saying that ‘We’re from the learn-as-you-play school. We’re still in it.’ Cobain came from a small town and dreamed of making it big time. That’s what he did; he never gave up”.
Arts & Culture wrote about Kurt Cobain’s legacy back in 2019. It is clear that the world has not witnessed anyone like him since. Even if he was a reluctant voice of a generation, Cobain had a power and pull that has lasted to this very day:
“The grunge wave Cobain fronted kicked out 1980s pop and rock, and set the glum tone for modern guitar music forevermore, from Korn, Linkin Park and Nickelback to early Radiohead and beyond. What then seemed like a passing trend was arguably rock's last hurrah – a milieu today held up with more misty-eyed affection than any movement in guitar music since. In truth, grunge was a nebulous conceit, coined by journalists lazily clumping together scruffily dressed rockers of different musical allegiances – Seattle also-rans Pearl Jam, Cornell's Soundgarden and Alice in Chains owed more to the big riffs of commercial 1970s rock and heavy metal.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Lavine
It's not easy for anyone to serve as the spokesperson for a generation, but quick-witted Cobain seemingly made maladjusted discontent and media antagonism appear an art-form. His widow Courtney Love implies he "chose" a life of drug abuse, and Cobain's strung out visage is the epitome of the oxymoronic phrase "elegantly wasted". Marc Jacobs's high-end grunge clothing range may have little to do with Cobain's thrift-store rags that inspired them – but like a Che Guevara or Bob Marley T-shirt, a Cobain image today represents a statement more cultural than musical. And it's not One Love or socialist revolt that Cobain stood for.
"Teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old," Cobain sang on In Utero's opener Serve the Servants. He always had a shrewd awareness of his legacy and repute, as the theatre of Unplugged and the scrawl of his suicide note show – complete with that priceless Neil Young quote, "It's better to burn out than to fade away”.
There is one more article that I want to illustrate. In 2020, The Boar also had their say when it came to explaining the relevance and influence of Kurt Cobain. One reason why so many people admired Cobain was his very progressive thinking (in a decade where not all male Rock and Grunge artists would have shared his worldview and intelligence):
“As the anniversary of his death comes around again – is this really how we want to remember him? Is this how we preserve him in history, as a tragic young man and a member of the fabled 27 Club? Speculating over the circumstances of his death, even now, won’t do anything. It won’t bring him back.
It is important to acknowledge the tragedy of his suicide and to understand that Cobain was a troubled man. He suffered from depression and addiction. His life was oftentimes difficult. That shouldn’t be ignored but it also shouldn’t be glamorised.
It is more important to instead remember how Kurt Cobain lived, rather than how he died. His legacy is first and foremost the music he made with Nirvana, that to this day still has the ability to inspire and empower. For some, it is the gateway to a love of rock music that lasts a lifetime. I still remember the first time I heard ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ when I was 15. I thought: “Where has this band been my entire life?” He gave us even more great music than just their signature song: ‘Heart-Shaped Box’, ‘Lithium’, ‘Breed’, ‘Come As You Are’, ‘Negative Creep’, just to name a few. These songs, two decades after their initial release, are still relevant and still capture people’s attention. That takes talent.
Something we should also acknowledge when we talk about Kurt Cobain is his political progressiveness
Nirvana also pushed the grunge genre forward more than any other band. Their commercial breakthrough, 1991’s Nevermind, is credited with establishing the commercial potential of rock music, taking it from its underground roots and the specialist sections of record stores to the bright lights of the mainstream. That is a big ask for a genre that is perhaps not the most palatable to every taste (try playing ‘Territorial Pissings’ to your parents – or, on second thought don’t). What it is, then, is a testament to the power of their underground fanbase, as well as the band’s music itself for resonating with enough people to make that happen.
Something we should also acknowledge when we talk about Kurt Cobain is his political progressiveness. In the liner notes of compilation album Incesticide, he writes “If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of a different colour or women, please do this one favour for us… don’t come to our shows, don’t buy our records.” He continued to speak up for feminism, having often associated himself with bands of the Riot Grrrl movement, and was even known to wear dresses on stage. He also spoke up for LGBT rights in a time where it was a far more contentious subject than today, and once admitted in an interview that he ‘could be bisexual’. He also penned two anti-rape songs, ‘Polly’ from Nevermind and ‘Rape Me’ from In Utero that denounced sexual violence while also acknowledging the strength of rape survivors.
Even if he is no longer around, Kurt Cobain’s voice, his words, and his melodies can never be taken from us. When we remember him, let’s celebrate him both for the person he was and the music he made. Let that be his legacy”.
As we get closer to 20th February, there will be various articles and new pieces that talk about Kurt Cobain from a number of angles. From the sense of torture and doom that he felt towards the end of his life through to Nirvana’s brilliance, all the way to how he affected the new generation of artists coming through, his death definitely left a huge gulf in the world. Even from Nirvana’s 1989 debut album, Bleach, we could definitely tell Cobain was a rarefied talent. 1991’s Nevermind and 1993’s In Utero solidified that. Although he quoted a famous Neil Young quote/lyric in his suicide note, “It's better to burn out than to fade away”, the genius and importance of the peerless Cobain…
COULD and never will fade.