Kurt Cobain - 10 years gone!

5th April 1994

His body was found on the 8th, but it's believed he died on the 5th.

Can't believe how fast 10 years have past!!!

I was 14 at the time and when I first heard I thought yeah right, as there'd been a few things like this not long before. He'd apparantly died in a crash, and also had an OD previously

One of my dads mates had come round and briefly mentioned in passing "that singer from that band you like's dead". Casual as you like, telling me a hero and idle was dead.

I've read alot about Nirvana both at the time and since. A lot of it makes me laugh, and some makes me cringe. People try and get too deep about it, saying about their poor angst ridden souls. I'm sure there's many who "connected" with Nirvana and Kurt in this way. But I'm sure there's also plenty who just liked the music. And then there's those, who like me at the time, weren't really sure what was so important about them. Not sure what they were shouting about, but knew they were shouting about SOMETHING at least! And they were doing it with excellent gripping music.

It's funny that two of the only bands I was a real t-shirt wearing scribbling on my pencil case and notebook "fan" of were Nirvana, and in my pre-teens......... Guns'n'Roses. With Kurt apparantly declining to perform with G'n'R - seeing Axl as the antithesis to what he was.

Nirvanas influence on music is obvious. Signing for a major but keeping 100% creative control. An "alternative" band making it huge in the mainstream with out "selling out".
Nevermind is obviously far MOre accessible than Bleach, but still had wasn't exactly your average top 10 album.

10 years on from Kurts death, the suicide/conspiracy stories are still there. The Fact* that there were no prints on the gun, and he wasn't wearing gloves makes things seem odd........ *but then is that really a fact?

A whole lot of shite bands have followed. The majors soon clocked on and flooded the charts with clones. But also perhaps made it so "alternative" bands stood a good chance of making it big...... but then that goes against the whole wallowing in self pitty and being hard done by thing :lol:

Nirvana made some defining albums, and I wonder what they'd be sounding like today? Kurts death came not long after the (IMO) amazing Unplugged set! Where would they have gone from there?

R.I.P
Kurt Cobain

 

There was an article in today's Guardian about him actually... Maybe they were onto the 10 year thing as you point out MO.


I'm not going to comment on the man himself. I'm a big believer in separating the music from the man/woman.

Musicwise, I thought/think Nevermind is a cracking album. Don't listen to the other stuff anymore though.

 

I was going to start a new thread, but since there was one already, I ask this. Suicide or murder?

http://www.cobaincase.com/



Looks like murder to me.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3599769.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/artists/nirvana.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/documentaries/nirvana.shtml

There'll be a documentry on Lamacq show on Radio 1 "Kurt and me" at 11pm tonight.

 

yeah, Nirvana - great band, I was a fan of them since around 1989 / 90...soon after bleach came out, then I heard smells like teen spirit on john peel...then around 6 month later it was released - I mentioned this to a lot of people at work, they of course hadn't heard of thgem, but they came in at number 2 if I remember correctly!

I alsi seen them live at the mayfair at newcastle, and a japanese / chinese band called shonnen knife were supporting them!! can't remember the year of that gig tho...:MILD:

 

10 years? Blimey.

I liked Nirvana a lot. Kurt Cobain was a proper punk rock star, intelligent, charismatic, married to an evil harpy, full of junky despair and rage. All the things a punker poet should be. They even managed to reinvigorate tired old has-beens like Sonic Youth, which was a major achievement. American guitar music got really interesting for a brief period, and the ripples are still there.

Just to be awkward, I like In Utero better than their other albums. "All Apologies" is a truly great song I reckon.

As for the conspiracy theories, has anyone seen Nick Broomfield's Kurt and Courtney documentary? For some reason I've never got round to seeing it.

-- Ian

 

I've always struggled to like Nirvana, whenever I'm in the mood for Nevermind I stick The Pixies Doolittle on instead. I have never been disappointed with this course of action, I'm actually listening to it now…

IMHO Kurt's personal story is far more interesting than the music he produced, I found Nirvana to be too little and too late. The Pixies, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, Minutemen etc had already created the genre and produced it's finest works. Nirvana for me represented the start of the 'dumbing down' and commercialisation that would lead to the countless bland identikit bands people who watch MTV2 all the time have to suffer.

I saw Nirvana live shortly after Bleach (their best album IMHO), good though it was it never found a special place in my long term memory the way earlier gigs by The Pixies and Sonic Youth did. IMHO Nirvana were a good band, definitely not the landmark in musical history they are now built up to be by the press. The Pixies were so much better, Cobain thought so too!

Tony.

 

Comspiracy theories

Lets face it, do you think someone as emotionally 'unplugged' as Courtney could keep anything under her hat??
Plus at every other opportunity she's shot herself in the foot rather than anybody else.

Other than that I tend to agree with TonyL the Pixies had done it all before, I did'nt really go for Nirvana until In Utero. After that then I probably listen to Bleach the most.

timbo

 

Just to be an awkward cuss, apart from Monkey Gone to Heaven, I never really got excited by the Pixies.

-- Ian

 

I too definitely prefer Nirvana to The Pixies. "In Utero" and "Nevermind" are my favourites - All Apologies is indeed a great song. I also think the MTV Unplugged album is outstanding, especially the cover of "Man who sold the World" and, again, All Apologies.

I've seen the Broomfield documentary a couple of times and after watching it you can't help thinking there was something decidedly dodgy about the "official" version of events. Courtney might appear emotionally unhinged but she is quite clearly a very clever, calculating and manipulative person who had Kurt wrapped around her little finger. I'm reasonably sure she was involved in Kurt's death in some way or other.

EDIT: I was living in Portland, Oregon - just down the road from grunge central in Seattle - when he died and it was quite a surreal day. Kids sitting in groups in the park just crying .

Michael.

 

Finally I completely disagree with you Ian.
I'm with Tony on this one, Doolittle is ace, Nevermind is pretty good. Never even bothered with In Utero...
Also, having seen both Pixies and Nirvana live, Pixies kicked their butts on stage as well.
Didn't someone blame the Gysin's dream machine for Kurt's state of mind? I really regret not buying it when I was younger, as a record shop in Oslo had it, but much as I was fascinated by it it was out of my price league back then, nevermind...

 

Nirvana made some very good albums, I actually think Nevermind is their worst effort by a mile, despite the success of Teen Spirit. Other than Unplugged (which is second only to 10000 Maniacs as the best Unplugged MTV session IMO), Bleach is the only one I ever go back to on a regular basis. I keep hearing good things about the electric live album but have still to hear it.

I'm another one who'll dig out the Pixies instead. Doolittle or the live disc that came as a bonus on 1997's Death To The Pixies compilation. An absolutely superb band, can't wait to see them in August at the V Festival, having not seen them the first time around I can't wait. An opportunity I never thought I'd get.

 

I was wondering which way this would go first.

Either:-

a) "Pearl Jam, Pixies, Soundgarden, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, etc... were better"

or

b)"Selfish wanker leaving his wife and kid behind! Miserable git! Better off dead"

I like a few of the other bands mentioned, and the Pixies "Doolittle" is a classic, and home to quite possibly the MOst eMOtional song ever........... "MOnkey gone to heaven"

But, to me, Nirvana just had that something else. Kurts voice being one of the best rock voices ever IMO. Tunes that are catchy and powerful. I think it was Dave Grohl in an interview (when Nirvana were still togeather), who was comparing them to being alMOst nursery rhyme like...... just with some slightly odd lyrics.

With Bleach they made an excellent heavy rough album. Nevermind, cleaned it up a bit and had an album full of greats. In Utero was an excellent follow up and making things a bit MOre "raw" again. And Unplugged was a truly wonderful thing, both the show and album.

I've a couple of live albums, one of them being an excellent bootleg.

They don't get played every day or week, but I still enjoy them greatly every listen

 

I was watching something on TV when dad looked up from his paper and said "that Kurt Colbin guy's dead". I said "What, don't you mean Kurt Cobain" and he said "yes, that's him".

I just said "Good."

Then about a month later my mate at Uni forcefed me Nevermind for about a week, and I started to actually LIKE Nirvana, despite my best attempts. When I heard Bleach, I realised why I didn't like Nirvana before; everyone claimed Nevermind was the "best album ever" blah blah, but Bleach pissed all over it from a great height! I then proceeded to buy In Utero, Incesticide and MTV Unplugged, and got into Nirvana wholesale.

Kurt was murdered, or the body was tampered with. There's no way in HELL he could shoot himself then lay the gun down by his side. The odd thing is that, as soon as I'd said "Good", I then said to dad - "It was murder. I dunno why, but I don't reckon he killed himself"...

I normally go on gut feeling, and I've never swayed from the almost DEFINITE fact that he was offed by someone other than himself. I wouldn't put anything past Courtney, and now we have Brody Dalle (Distillers) there's no reason for Courtney to make any more music anyway! (I actually like Hole and Courtney's current solo album though!)

Plus Courtney was in Sid and Nancy, so she has one thing in her favour...

 

good grief, how can we possibly pretend to know anything about his demise other than what we've read in the papers? We werent there, we havent seen the police reports.

On the music side of things, I was into the music at the time - Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains - I was living and working in America, and this was the music I liked.

In album terms, I thought that Nirvanas debut Nevermind was their best, with a decline in quality towards the end of the career. I dont think you can include the unplugged album in that, as it was effectively just a live album of previously recorded material.

I remember reading at the time that his death had to do with a feeling that his music had lost direction, and I remember thinking that this tied in with my feeling that their best work was in their early years. I cant remember if this was press speculation, or some sort of note he may have written.

In hindsight, looking at foo fighters - I think the voice and the style and the presentation was all Kurt.. the musicianship perhaps elsewhere!

Im too young to have really discovered pixies and sonic youth at a time when I would have liked it most, and these days Im less attracted to punky grunge.

I would be interested in some sort of compilation, if someone can reccomend a pixies, sonic youth, husker du, mudhoney etc compilation CD?.. perhaps I can catch a glimpse of what Ive missed?

Chris