I'm most likely committing some kind of rock 'n' roll blasphemy by writing this post on Kurt Cobain's birthday, but here goes.
Look, truth is, I like Nirvana. Nevermind was the first album I ever walked into a record store and bought with my own money, and I still fondly remember locking myself in my bedroom, hearing Cobain screeching 'With the lights out, it's less dangerous!' and thinking 'Man, this dude is PISSED OFF!'
Even now, over 20 years since that album was first released, it's still a classic. It still sounds fresh, raw and exciting every time it enters the stereo. It's predecessor, Bleach was as riveting a debut as you could hope for in a band, and that MTV: Unplugged session they did was a thing of beauty...
..Wait, where was I going with this again?
Oh yeah, overrated bands. I'm not saying Nirvana were not a good band. What I am saying is that, even before Cobain's death, though more so afterwards, they were lifted up to a pedestal upon which they neither felt entirely comfortable or really belonged in the first place.
On more than one occasion I've heard them referred to as 'the voice of a generation' and I'm sorry but that's utter nonsense. Kurt, Dave and Krist were no more the voice of that generation than Coldplay are of this one.
They weren't the voice of anything, the saviours of popular music or anything like that. They were a good band, arguably even a great band, and they might have played some rather catchy alternative rock, but that's about it.
The fact that today's video is from an absolute gem of a track does little to back up my argument, but trust me, Nirvana were overrated.



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