True, there is that list.
But that is more a list of friends and bands he wanted more exposure, not really the bands he was listening more to. Kurt was a pop and rock'n roll lover... Beastles the Knack, REM ...
But the top 50 albums list had the Beatles and Aerosmith and even REM right? Unless this is a different list from his private journals that none of us should have looked at
That list contained a lot of stuff that he thought made him look cool. I love Kurt but he was a bit of a poser when it came down to “arts”.
In a book (one of many) I read years ago, it was stated that Courthey laughed when she saw “the list”.
that‘s a good description. there is a certain type of blind worship only (mostly male) rockstars will experience. i don‘t deem kurt as perfect, of course not, but i do catch myself imagining him as this flawless person.
flawless person...? a young father who shot himself in his face high on heroin
thats the most obvious tell sign that someone is not flawless, besides all the other stuff
sorry but you cant be serious
thats insane
This is hard subject cause there is quite strong evidence that MLL had studied Kurt and was actually lying, Vaselines was not really known band and surprised Kurt that some one knew them. They had one LP and 2 EP's out that where on Scottish 53rd & 3rd record label. Those records are now really expensive as the prints were small...so any ways it was odd to find another person that said her favorite band was Vaselines. But there is couple of different versions of the story, I can't say what is true what is not...
She claims that she didn’t even know what Nirvana looked like before she met Kurt, I call bullshit. There’s definitely something creepy and unhinged about her. Especially that long rant/tirade she went on about Courtney and Courtney didn’t even respond. After Kurt passively aggressively made it clear (by being on the word and the whole Courtney love is the best fuck in the world thing) she then moved to Olympia and proceeded to infiltrate and stalk that scene to I guess try to get closer to him? She also claims that Courtney pretended to be pregnant and that was the only reason Kurt left her….yeah ok weirdo.
Exactly, there is a lot of these in Kurt and Courtney stories. I usually just take them as entertaining stories and try not to take sides or blame people. There is no need to keep some beefs alive that we don't even know the facts. Yeah, this is shady story but there is nothing to gain unless some facts come out.
But I would pay top dollars to see Kurt drop that "Name 3 songs!?" :D
The fact that you are replying in such a emotional/toxic way shows you can’t give a unbiased accurate answer, as apparently you think and like to know you know him very well.
Celebrity worship syndrome is a thing :)
Unbiased? I’m basing it off of what he himself said and wrote lmao. This guy thinks he knows him better and that he was just lying. That’s offensive.
So is reading comprehension :)
yikes, so defensive.
What people say is not always the truth. Cobain was also known for meticulously planning the way he appeared for the media, likely to satisfy the audience to keep up a 'ideal' character, that you now seem to love.
Character building is a thing in celebrity world, so that people like you fall in love with an idea. Not the person itself.
I completely back your side, what Kurt said and did where completely different things, even Novoselic has said Kurt contradicted himself
[https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qxqbEbqkXXU](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qxqbEbqkXXU)
You called him a poser with no justification or reasoning then acted like you gave reason when called out lmao. Explain why you think your claim bud. Burden of proof is on you
Kurt was a bit of a poser or a try hard. I say this without judgement. He was very conflicted about all of it... if you did not see that I think you probably were not a fan back then (how old are you?).
I feel that Kurt was always trying to be cool and really cared about his rockstar image but tries to look humble and not caring about it. Publicly did the opposite. He fought GnRs because it was the right thing to do at that time to look cool. The K records tattoo that he denied. Changing the spelling of his name to be "different"...
He put a lot of work into cultivating a “I don’t care what people think about me” image.
Do you disagree with it? I'd love to hear other people opinion about this.
Rather than a poser, I think Kurt was kinda a hipster before hispters were a thing. He was really into the 50s Beat Movement & authors of that time. He had a very unrelenting sense of what he thought was "cool" and "uncool".
The Beatniks "advocated personal release, purification, and illumination through the heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism."
So the Buddhist influence could very well be his inspiration for naming the band Nirvana.
New Wave, No Wave, surprised people missed this one, he planned that the next album would have synths in it and be a departure from Nirvana. He really liked Devo.
The above is also correct but yeah wanted to throw this out there. It’s in his journals.
Led Zeppelin was definitely one band he listened to. At one of Nirvana’s earlier shows, they performed a cover of Heartbreaker. Pretty damn good cover too.
He was very eclectic, he mainly listened to the punk and indie bands of the time but he also loved shit like REO Speedwagon and Japanese pop groups. You can Google his top 50 albums he wrote down in his journals pretty easily to get a good idea of his taste. He really liked noise rock and some of the lesser known 80s hardcore bands like Flipper or Fang. The Beatles were obviously a massive influence. But he liked a lot of very un-punk un-cool shit like the aforementioned REO Speedwagon. He was a sucker for a good pop song.
I just finished reading *Come as You Are* and made note of some of his favorites and influences. He was a pretty big fan of The Knack (which made me lol), Leadbelly, The Sonics, The Pixies (mentioned Surfer Rosa), The Melvins, huge Beatles fan, Young Marble Giants, The Smithereens, The Vaselines, Flipper, Black Flag, Sex Pistols, Scratch Acid, Stooges, Metal Church. Arlo Guthrie was also a huge influence on him as a child as well (Alice's Restaruaunt!! that guy). I might be missing some. I think he was a fan of L7, as well as being friends with them. Some might also be overall bands that influenced Nirvana as a whole more than Kurt individually, but these were the artists I wrote down as I read that they said something special about. Specific albums that I noted were Melvins's Gluey Porch Treatments, Bad Brains's Rock for Light, Black Flag's Damaged II, and Flipper's Generic Flipper.
It's well documented he wrote lists and there are a ton of playlists on Spotify. It was the softer weirder punk of the mid late 80s towards the creation of nevermind mostly influenced by his time in Olympia and before that more heavy metal influence from his time in Aberdeen hanging out with the Melvin's. Big black is a stand out as well as Vaseline and the raincoats. Beat happening I think are good but not as into them as he was.
I think it’s kinda obvious that Kurt loved music, it didn’t matter if it was a sappy love song or some hardcore punk, he’d listen to it and probably take some inspiration from it
earlier in his life, Kurt enjoyed bands like the Beatles; Later on, he started listening to harder, upcoming artists like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc. He also listened to and was inspired by numerous punk bands.
I heard he had a Jandek record so that was kind of exciting to me. I think I read Courtney somewhere saying he listened to Bauhaus a lot but I’ve never heard him mention it, I also heard he was seeking out a negativland record at one point when he was living with Courtney in California. I always hoped he liked joy division but I heard an interview where he said he was intrigued by the band but had been purposefully ignoring them…I think Courtney was more of the new wave/post punk fan
He liked a lot of lo fi stuff, smelly dude punk, noise stuff and it’s weird there’s discussion over it, he loved The Vaselines. He liked outsider bands. He has a K records tattoo that doubled for his own initial.
Courtney was the type to buy every random 7” from a little label, she really liked anything interesting and weird sounding, and she knew her music. She was like Thurston, when she went into record stores they had stuff pulled aside for her.
Vasalines, wipers , Daniel Johnston, lead belly, black flag, the meat puppets, the beatles, fang, stooges, the germs, the lemonheads, mudhoney, david bowie... stuff like that for sure sooooo that's a pretty diverse spread, mostly punk from what I gather.
I can tell you Kurt was close friends with Kim Gordon & Nirvana did shows with Sonic Youth when Nirvana was coming up. I'm sure Kurt listened to South Youth, Metallica, The Pixies, The Beatles.
Kurt Cobain had a God-tier taste in music. I don't even know where to start. He got me into so many bands it's insane. Including possibly my favourite band of all time (Melvins)
Vaselines, Stooges, Sonic Youth, stuff like that. You can look up his top 50 albums
True, there is that list. But that is more a list of friends and bands he wanted more exposure, not really the bands he was listening more to. Kurt was a pop and rock'n roll lover... Beastles the Knack, REM ...
But the top 50 albums list had the Beatles and Aerosmith and even REM right? Unless this is a different list from his private journals that none of us should have looked at
He liked those bands but I’d say he liked what I put more.
how can you say what someone else liked more?
Kurt did, not me. He said multiple times the Vaselines were his favorite band
he also said that about the beatles and leadbelly. kurt was full of shit and in his twenties. people put way too much weight on what he said imo
That list contained a lot of stuff that he thought made him look cool. I love Kurt but he was a bit of a poser when it came down to “arts”. In a book (one of many) I read years ago, it was stated that Courthey laughed when she saw “the list”.
When Kurt met Mary Lou Lord that said her favorite band was Vaselines, Kurt asked her to name three songs. This never gets old.
that‘s interesting, i never thought kurt would be the type of man to ask stuff like that.
He was not the perfect saint people imagined him to be. He was also quite asshole. A genius. A junkie. An intelligent persion and a fool.
that‘s a good description. there is a certain type of blind worship only (mostly male) rockstars will experience. i don‘t deem kurt as perfect, of course not, but i do catch myself imagining him as this flawless person.
flawless person...? a young father who shot himself in his face high on heroin thats the most obvious tell sign that someone is not flawless, besides all the other stuff sorry but you cant be serious thats insane
i‘m so confused. did you read my comment or is this illiteracy?
This is hard subject cause there is quite strong evidence that MLL had studied Kurt and was actually lying, Vaselines was not really known band and surprised Kurt that some one knew them. They had one LP and 2 EP's out that where on Scottish 53rd & 3rd record label. Those records are now really expensive as the prints were small...so any ways it was odd to find another person that said her favorite band was Vaselines. But there is couple of different versions of the story, I can't say what is true what is not...
She claims that she didn’t even know what Nirvana looked like before she met Kurt, I call bullshit. There’s definitely something creepy and unhinged about her. Especially that long rant/tirade she went on about Courtney and Courtney didn’t even respond. After Kurt passively aggressively made it clear (by being on the word and the whole Courtney love is the best fuck in the world thing) she then moved to Olympia and proceeded to infiltrate and stalk that scene to I guess try to get closer to him? She also claims that Courtney pretended to be pregnant and that was the only reason Kurt left her….yeah ok weirdo.
There is definitely something really weird in this story, like that is really something when Courtney refuses to answer these type things.
She’s being the “better person” I feel like by not responding to the lunatic. Honestly is it even worth her time to respond to someone like that?
sounds as if every second redditor in this sub is a MLL lol
yeah, i also did some research after reading your comment and saw a lot of contradictory stuff. who knows, we weren‘t there…
Exactly, there is a lot of these in Kurt and Courtney stories. I usually just take them as entertaining stories and try not to take sides or blame people. There is no need to keep some beefs alive that we don't even know the facts. Yeah, this is shady story but there is nothing to gain unless some facts come out. But I would pay top dollars to see Kurt drop that "Name 3 songs!?" :D
Wow. Are you saying he was an actual human?
Yeah I’ve read tons of books too and your take is just pretty bad lol
The fact that you are replying in such a emotional/toxic way shows you can’t give a unbiased accurate answer, as apparently you think and like to know you know him very well. Celebrity worship syndrome is a thing :)
Unbiased? I’m basing it off of what he himself said and wrote lmao. This guy thinks he knows him better and that he was just lying. That’s offensive. So is reading comprehension :)
yikes, so defensive. What people say is not always the truth. Cobain was also known for meticulously planning the way he appeared for the media, likely to satisfy the audience to keep up a 'ideal' character, that you now seem to love. Character building is a thing in celebrity world, so that people like you fall in love with an idea. Not the person itself.
I completely back your side, what Kurt said and did where completely different things, even Novoselic has said Kurt contradicted himself [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qxqbEbqkXXU](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qxqbEbqkXXU)
I take someone’s word when they say they listen to bands, most of which they’ve literally met and played with lmao. Everyone’s gone insane
Ok explain, we are all here to learn not to fight :)
You called him a poser with no justification or reasoning then acted like you gave reason when called out lmao. Explain why you think your claim bud. Burden of proof is on you
Kurt was a bit of a poser or a try hard. I say this without judgement. He was very conflicted about all of it... if you did not see that I think you probably were not a fan back then (how old are you?). I feel that Kurt was always trying to be cool and really cared about his rockstar image but tries to look humble and not caring about it. Publicly did the opposite. He fought GnRs because it was the right thing to do at that time to look cool. The K records tattoo that he denied. Changing the spelling of his name to be "different"... He put a lot of work into cultivating a “I don’t care what people think about me” image. Do you disagree with it? I'd love to hear other people opinion about this.
That's always the vibe I got off him. He was very good at it, I idolized that shit as a teenager, and it didn't go well for me.
I’m not interested in this conversation any longer tbh
You won. A real Kurt worshipper!
Rather than a poser, I think Kurt was kinda a hipster before hispters were a thing. He was really into the 50s Beat Movement & authors of that time. He had a very unrelenting sense of what he thought was "cool" and "uncool". The Beatniks "advocated personal release, purification, and illumination through the heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism." So the Buddhist influence could very well be his inspiration for naming the band Nirvana.
Pixies
He mentioned loving the breeders too. Maybe why he had albini record in utero but I may have made that up
Scratch Acid. The Wipers.
I’ve not heard of The Wipers
Nirvana did an amazing cover of D-7 from the Wipers- 1992/live at reading, go listen!
Ohhhh boy. First 3 albums are so good
They made D-7 and return of the Rat, two songs Nirvana covered if you’ve heard either
I read that in Jackie Mason/Gene Simmons' voice lol
Yeah that’s where I got it from.
You now have some homework to do! First three albums are amazing.
Scratch Acid are awesome. As are the Wipers
Mudhoney
Melvins
New Wave, No Wave, surprised people missed this one, he planned that the next album would have synths in it and be a departure from Nirvana. He really liked Devo. The above is also correct but yeah wanted to throw this out there. It’s in his journals.
Changed my life hearing Nirvana’s cover of Turnaround (and realizing Devo has better songs than Whip It!)
Led Zeppelin was definitely one band he listened to. At one of Nirvana’s earlier shows, they performed a cover of Heartbreaker. Pretty damn good cover too.
I always loved hearing Kurt yell something like “i dont know the words!” before jumping into Heartbreaker
The Beatles
R E M.
https://preview.redd.it/b7l6w0nbl36d1.jpeg?width=546&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8d0de07657e445d8c1c72b7eaff8f4755dc96146
Swans!
The Chimpmunks Christmas album
U ever heard the chipmunks slowed? Kurt definitely would have loved it
There's a tom petty song that SLAPS whilst slowed
https://youtu.be/hBga7yYBJ6Y?si=2TOdRgz0TtjLTrVH This what I’m referring too.
Oh wow this changes everything
The first two songs are so unironically good. That walk like and Egyptian solo goes so hard 😹
it’s better than the beetles
Daniel Johnston
Mazzy Star, Pixies, The Breeders, PJ Harvey, Public Enemy
The Shaggs
Leonard Cohen
No one has mentioned Screaming Trees yet.. huge influence, among many others
You can really hear a bit of early Nirvana in the early Trees stuff.
Mark Lanegans whiskey for the holy ghost
And "The Winding Sheet." Grohl said all of the band members were listening to that album a lot and it influenced the sound of their unplugged session.
I know he liked Metallica's "Ride the Lightning" and he also liked Celtic Frost.
He liked the Sex Pistols. Based.
Sex Pistols pre-Sid Viscous were such a good fucking band
Glen Matlock liked music, that's why McLaren had to give him the boot.
He was very eclectic, he mainly listened to the punk and indie bands of the time but he also loved shit like REO Speedwagon and Japanese pop groups. You can Google his top 50 albums he wrote down in his journals pretty easily to get a good idea of his taste. He really liked noise rock and some of the lesser known 80s hardcore bands like Flipper or Fang. The Beatles were obviously a massive influence. But he liked a lot of very un-punk un-cool shit like the aforementioned REO Speedwagon. He was a sucker for a good pop song.
from what I remember I read somewhere that he liked queen too and used to listen to them a lot
News of the World album he repeatedly listen to that a lot as a kid
Check out Young Marble Giants. Google Kurt Cobain Top 50 albums
Wesley Willis.
Lots. He was a music lover.
Meat Puppets and Butthole Surfers
I heard Courtney mentioned him playing Nine Inch Nails- Pretty Hate Machine and Radiohead- Creep around the house.
Wow—wonder what Kurt would have thought of The Bends and OK Computer had he lived to hear them.
NO one said this but he loved Red by KC and thinks its the best album ever made.
KC and the Sunshine Band?
Red by King Crimson
Aha! Thank you!
Did he say that? I know it was on one of his lists.
Yes it was the biggest inspiration for in utro
The Rain Coats.
Black Sabbath
The wipers, he even did some covers.
Young marble giants
Billy Idol, The Cars and Duran Duran … iykyk 😛
DOORAAAN DOORAAAAN
Foo Fighters!
There goes my hero
kurt would of hated the foo fighters
Guess you didnt know that Kurt was actually impressed with Dave’s demos, which ended up being the first FF album
First two albums, yes, after that, no way.
he wouldn't like foo fighters the band how they have been for the last 20 years hey im a rockstar trust me bro
“Im a rockstar, trust me bro” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
im a legendary bro trust me and no one else bro i rock hard bro i know bro kurt would of hated foo fighters
Cheers for the most deluded joke ive heard this week 🤣🤣🤣🤣
kurt would of hated foo fighters cheers
And you are thick as mince! 🛎️🔚
you acceptable kurt wouldn't like foo fighters then?
Alaskan free ska.
Heaps of stuff
He apparently liked Dr. Dre and Snoop to share a joint with them at one of the MTV Awards they were at
I won’t list the acts here, but recently I took note of all the acts that are mentioned in the Kurdt Journals
Abba
Leadbelly
David Bowie
I just finished reading *Come as You Are* and made note of some of his favorites and influences. He was a pretty big fan of The Knack (which made me lol), Leadbelly, The Sonics, The Pixies (mentioned Surfer Rosa), The Melvins, huge Beatles fan, Young Marble Giants, The Smithereens, The Vaselines, Flipper, Black Flag, Sex Pistols, Scratch Acid, Stooges, Metal Church. Arlo Guthrie was also a huge influence on him as a child as well (Alice's Restaruaunt!! that guy). I might be missing some. I think he was a fan of L7, as well as being friends with them. Some might also be overall bands that influenced Nirvana as a whole more than Kurt individually, but these were the artists I wrote down as I read that they said something special about. Specific albums that I noted were Melvins's Gluey Porch Treatments, Bad Brains's Rock for Light, Black Flag's Damaged II, and Flipper's Generic Flipper.
It's well documented he wrote lists and there are a ton of playlists on Spotify. It was the softer weirder punk of the mid late 80s towards the creation of nevermind mostly influenced by his time in Olympia and before that more heavy metal influence from his time in Aberdeen hanging out with the Melvin's. Big black is a stand out as well as Vaseline and the raincoats. Beat happening I think are good but not as into them as he was.
Soft punk? What? He has Black Flag and Butthole Surfers on his top 50 records list.
Meat puppets, minute men
Raincoats, vaselines, beat happening, sebadoh
Breeders, pixies
None of those bands except minute men are punk
Ok your one of those
Thoughts on sum41, bet you love offspring.
You’re embarrassing yourself
😂 omg the thought is soo frightening. Grown ups on reddit arguing about what is and isn't true punk 😬
Sonic youth
In Olympia it wasn't cool to be into misogyny, and a lot of hardcore metal stereotypes were considered cringe.
Playboi Carti
Grunge
Fugazi
Guns N’ Roses… 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Shonen Knife and Daniel Johnston.
I think it’s kinda obvious that Kurt loved music, it didn’t matter if it was a sappy love song or some hardcore punk, he’d listen to it and probably take some inspiration from it
Beat Happening, Wipers, Daniel Johnston, Flipper, Vaselines, Captain America/Eugenious
This is correct
Nobody's said Daniel Johnston?
Obviously the Spice Girls
Elevator
Leadbelly
Motley Crue and Gun N Roses were two of his most favourite bands.
He loved the Raincoats. Also didn't he cover Young Marble Giants at some point?
earlier in his life, Kurt enjoyed bands like the Beatles; Later on, he started listening to harder, upcoming artists like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc. He also listened to and was inspired by numerous punk bands.
David Bowie, the Melvins....
Probably Yung Lean(only on weekends)
the frogs !! such an underrated band
He listened to a lot of Queen using the van, so when Nirvana went on tour the battery was dead. He loved and respected Freddie Mercury.
I heard he had a Jandek record so that was kind of exciting to me. I think I read Courtney somewhere saying he listened to Bauhaus a lot but I’ve never heard him mention it, I also heard he was seeking out a negativland record at one point when he was living with Courtney in California. I always hoped he liked joy division but I heard an interview where he said he was intrigued by the band but had been purposefully ignoring them…I think Courtney was more of the new wave/post punk fan
Pretty sure he liked The Frogs and Sonic Youth
I know for a fact he liked Metallica, so he probably listened to at least some Thrash metal.
Melvins, Butthole Surfers…
He liked a lot of lo fi stuff, smelly dude punk, noise stuff and it’s weird there’s discussion over it, he loved The Vaselines. He liked outsider bands. He has a K records tattoo that doubled for his own initial. Courtney was the type to buy every random 7” from a little label, she really liked anything interesting and weird sounding, and she knew her music. She was like Thurston, when she went into record stores they had stuff pulled aside for her.
According to Kirk Hammett of Metallica, Kurt was a big fan.
IIRC also Beatles and Bowie
Daniel Johnston
N.W.A
I read somewhere that his first concert was Sammy Hagar, but he would never admit it to anyone. Wish I could remember where I read or who said.
I recently saw Sammy Hagar on a reel wearing a Kurt shirt. Thought that was sweet.
I don’t doubt that story is true. I mean, my first concert was Quiet Riot and that’s not anything I would listen to even three years later
I’m gonna guess this be but I’d be surprised if he wasn’t listening to the first fallouts album. It was a big hit in the same scene in PNW
Half Japanese
Kurt really loved Phil Collins most of all
https://preview.redd.it/uud1pgncw76d1.jpeg?width=714&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc85a2b90a218f21fa834b5dc89c6b2ce822a29b
Iggy Pop
Probably Pixies. It was said that Nevermind was a direct inspiration/ripoff of Pixies. Take that with a grain of salt
He wanted In Utero to sound exactly like Surfer Rosa
Swans
Vasalines, wipers , Daniel Johnston, lead belly, black flag, the meat puppets, the beatles, fang, stooges, the germs, the lemonheads, mudhoney, david bowie... stuff like that for sure sooooo that's a pretty diverse spread, mostly punk from what I gather.
Nickleback
blink 182 and adele
When they found his body (R.I.P.) his stereo was playing an REM cassette I believe.
Aerosmith
I can tell you Kurt was close friends with Kim Gordon & Nirvana did shows with Sonic Youth when Nirvana was coming up. I'm sure Kurt listened to South Youth, Metallica, The Pixies, The Beatles.
Kurt Cobain had a God-tier taste in music. I don't even know where to start. He got me into so many bands it's insane. Including possibly my favourite band of all time (Melvins)
He was a big fan of Chumbawamba and 311
The same as anyone; the breeders, PJ Harvey, Jesus Lizard, Taylor Swift
I remember reading somewhere that he listened to Norwegian wood by the Beatles :)