(Credits: Far Out / Nirvana)
There’s no set formula for how to develop a band like Nirvana. The cultural impact that Kurt Cobain had on pop culture isn’t something that can be learned in a book, so one can only study what the band did during their time together and hope to gain some wisdom from what they created for their brief lifetime. But in terms of the band’s musical aspirations, Cobain felt that there were a handful of bands that they could stand on the shoulders of to reach their classic sound.
When looking at the rest of the grunge heavyweights, though, Nirvana felt like the furthest thing from what the genre was “supposed” to be. Sure, they came from Seattle, but so did Duff McKagan, and yet he was in one of the biggest bands that Los Angeles had spit out in Guns N’ Roses, which never ceased to drive Cobain up the wall every time he heard Axl Rose ramble on about his alpha-male attitude.
Even compared to people like Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, Cobain was always a punk at heart and would do everything he could to ensure he had the right attitude behind whatever he did. Anything too much of a sell-out move in his eyes was never going to be given the time of day, but when he started to sell millions of records off the back of Nevermind, he knew that things had changed drastically.
Then again, there’s no arguing with why Nevermind is an excellent record. The entire music scene had been inundated with bands that sounded like a Fisher-Price version of what rock and roll should be with a little hint of smut thrown in for good measure, so when everyone heard something that was genuinely angry with the world and wanted to change music for the better, it didn’t take long for them to adopt the flannel shirts and Doc Martens.
But no matter how many times Cobain could write the most menacing riff, he would always find the perfect melody to put over top of everything. There were a handful of moments where it didn’t always sound completely in tune, like on ‘Something in the Way’, but even those songs have a certain eeriness because of how catchy the tune is.
And when looking at his music, Cobain felt that the two bands that solidified the band’s sound came from two completely different sides of the music spectrum, saying, “I really do feel we sound like Black Sabbath and The Bay City Rollers. At the same time I think it’s quite hard for a band to describe themselves because they’re probably the last people to realise what their influences are and who they ripped off.”
Bay City Rollers may be the polar opposite of what grunge was supposed to be, but there is some merit to Cobain’s logic there. He had an acute ear for pop melodies, and as long as the guitars were roaring and there was a heavy emphasis on Dave Grohl’s drums, it would be easy to forget that a song like ‘All Apologies’ is sweet enough to be some sort of lost Beatles song with its iconic riff.
People can make all the comparisons they want to bands like Pixies, who set the stage for Nirvana, but there’s a reason why Cobain was considered the true voice of his generation. No one had even thought of playing from the heart like this, but when everyone realised the kind of music that Cobain was working with, there was no doubt that he was pointing the way back to a more genuine take on rock and roll.
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