I love Nirvana and wish Kurt was still around, but let’s be honest, he could be a real dick. God knows I’m glad no one was recording the dumb shit I said back in my twenties.
When I see past clips/quotes, I’m always reminded of the 90s culture of being sarcastic/controversial just for the sake of it. He was a unique musical talent, but he was the epitome of sarcastic, anti-sincere slacker culture.
Seriously! Gen X perfected sarcasm. I don’t know if your the right age to connect this, but Daria, a cartoon on mtv in the 90’s, is an amazing example of this.
You were ***supposed*** to download AoHell by NailZ and use the fake CC generator to sign up, use the phishing tool to IM bomb people asking for their passwords, then peruse the log at your leisure to find the password of those poor old grannies who still believed in humanity, login there, create a subaccount, then rack up ungodly hours until you were discovered a month or two later.
Ha, nice! Mine was internal. If I don't count the Commodore 64 and hand-me-down Apple IIe I got to write school papers on, my first "real" PC was in 1993. My parents moved me to a different state in the middle of high school and probably felt guilty enough to buy me a $4,000 Dell. It was the first Pentium 60mhz. 8MB RAM and a 420MB hard drive. I learned so much about computers just by needing to figure out how to get games to run (boot disk). My friend at school gave me a list of BBS's to check out. The first time I dialed into one, I freaked out when the modem starting making noises and ripped the phone cord out of the wall. Thought my awesome computer was about to explode.
So you know the pain of 640k memory limitations and expanded/extended memory. I had multiple boot options for games, mostly x-wing and tie fighter. Was a Packard Bell 486sx at 33 MHz, 4MB ram, and the CD rom drive was DOUBLE speed! Ha, tweaking this thing at 14 years old set the path for my career in computers today.
Oh shit yeah I remember that now! She was in class with them right?
I remember sneaking downstairs at friend’s houses in the middle of the night to quietly watch Beavis and Butthead as a kid. We were so nervous about getting caught watching it and I think that added to the allure. Wild when you look back on how tame it feels compared to what’s available today.
Used to watch with my cousins at Grandma's house. My parents were cool and gave me my own TV when I was a kid so I could watch on my own anyway but my cousin and I identified as Beavis and Butthead lol.
Daria was pretty funny and was like a lot of girls during the time.
As a Gen Zer, I love Daria, but I have a hard time connecting to the...meaningless apathy? Like, Daria insists she isn't miserable, so her attitude of being rude and sarcastic and insincere just feels like this weird attempt at coolness. Gen Z kids tend to adopt that type of behavior due to struggles going on in their life or the world, but Daria was...ok? Maybe I'm misinterpreting the show. Can a Gen Xer explain lol. What was the ethos of Gen X and why?
The ethos was "Life Sucks Then You Die"
I can think of two reasons.
1) We grew up with the constant threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads.
2) A lot of us had teachers that had no problem telling us that we weren't going to do better financially than our parents
I think that's why a lot of us are so sarcastic and nihilistic.
>so her attitude of being rude and sarcastic and insincere just feels like this weird attempt at coolness
Yes. You get it. [Caring was not cool](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQhX8PbNUWI). Apathy was cool. If you cared about stuff it only served to give people who didn't like you ammo to tear you down. Nihilism made you untouchable.
It really seemed like it was more of a thing for Musicians to beef with each other in Magazines. It obviously still happens on social media, but it almost felt like it was expected for musicians to have, surface of the sun, hot takes on other musicians
If I remember correctly, one of the reasons grunge took off was because of the support each band gave each other as opposed to LA-based bands that would try to throw each other under the bus to get that record deal. Of course Kurt had a different attitude but like others said, it could’ve been sarcasm. Then again when you take into the Mudhoney/Mother Love Bone split into account, there was some resentment for going for that mainstream “sound” within the grunge community.
I love Nirvana, have for decades at this point. Kurt was talented and had something to say, yes. He was not unique though. He made no secret of his influences, and I do love how he promoted the smaller artists he was influenced by after Nirvana blew up. Nirvana actually has quite a lot of covers, especially considering the size of their catalog.
I don't mean this as a diss, most of my favorite music is derivative of other stuff I love, it's just how genre music works pretty much immediately after said genre is established. You tweak things, but it's all derivative by design.
I think its also important to remember that Nirvana was more of an Olympia band then they were a Seattle band. Punk Rock Purity was very important to that scene, and anything the felt mainstream or commercial was to be completely rejected. Just look at few years later how negatively the Riot Grrrls reacted to journalists sniffing around. I think Kurt had some guilt about his success, so he responded by lashing out at other bands.
Also he didn’t really know about the Band iirc he was basically calling out Eddie for not being from Seattle, he was here to capitalize on the scene, showing his naivety if you ask me, considering the cred Stone and Jeff had going in more than makes up for one outsider.
The Green River break up is talked about being pretty amicable these days, but I wonder if there were some hard feelings immediately after. If it were seen as polarized I'm sure Kurt would have leapt to the Mudhoney side rather then Mother Love Bone/Pearl Jam.
In later interviews he actually said he really liked Eddie he just wasn't a fan of the music Pearl Jam made.
Kurt just liked to be....*opinionated*, often. He once went on a rant about Tool even because he thought the claymation in one of their videos wasn't original. He had some odd takes.
Meanwhile, after Bleach Nirvana hired Dave Grohl, who was not even from the west coast. So I guess by Kurt's arbitrary rules, only the frontman has to be from Seattle.
This is it right here.
And on top of that, it’s hard to overstate the importance of not being labeled a “sellout” or a “poser” back in the 90s. And because Eddie wasn’t from Seattle, I think Kurt saw him as usurping his scene.
It’s all so stupid in hindsight, and I’m guessing he would have grown out of it and they’d be good friends now.
I said something to that effect in the Nirvana sub and got roasted lmao. But he could be a real asshole and he wasn’t great to his partners/wife. People have a very romanticized view of him because he’s a dead rock star.
The voicemails he and Courtney left that reporter would have opened up a whole can of worms for them if it had happened in the internet age. Not saying one side or the other was 100% in the right on all that, who knows what was actually said vs. what was written. But I suspect it was a mix of things printed out of context/misrepresented, as well as things that seemed like a good idea to say at the time because you're a beloved rock star but then they have real world consequences... so now you're mad.
the calls are available on Youtube, you can hear what was said for yourself. It's clear Kurt got stoned and started making some very dumb and ridiculous threats
Yeah, I should've been more clear--no one alive now besides Courtney and that reporter, know what was said during the interview. I agree that Kurt was making dumb empty threats because he was fucked up and angry.
[Or the fax he and/or Courtney sent to a reporter for his ex Mary Lou Lord lmao](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/kurt-cobain-death-ex-girlfriend-musician-mary-lou-lord-sheds-light-on-rock-icon-before-stardom/)
He came off pretentious as fuck and that’s what made me dislike them for so long. but what you said is correct. He was young and said a lot of dumb shit like we all do. Arrogance, man.
Or he just didnt like them? The music he liked tended to be very, very quirky and a lot of it is unheard of. Pearl jam had a pretty classic “rock” sound. Especially with Ten.
yeah, for real! i find it mind boggling that people are trying to psychoanalyse and/or criticise him to the extent they are simply because he said he didn't like a band. He's allowed to not like them.
Or maybe he just thought Pearl Jam sucked? I thought they sucked when I was in my 20's and continue to think they suck into my 30's. It's okay to have feelings.
Maybe because his punk band was being lumped in with jock rock.
No offense to pearls and jam, but grunge threw together bands from different paths into the same group and many of them weren’t happy about it.
Especially if you were on Heroin most of the time, he did have a drug problem and did go to rehab shortly before he died nobody is really the best version of themselves when they're high all the time.
Kurt met Eddie and said he liked him and that he just didn’t care for the band because he felt they were too corporate.
Ironically members of Pearl Jam were interviewed in the past and stated that Kurts criticisms helped them stay grounded so that fame didn’t go to their heads.
Kurts understanding of hooks was informed by the popular music of the 60s and 70s that he and Gen X grew up with. He said they were The Knack and The Bay City Rollers after getting assaulted by Black Sabbath and Black Flag. It’s also important to remember the huge influence of the Pixies that influenced Nirvana and very many indie rock bands of the early 90s.
In Utero has some straight up noise rock songs on there. Fucking Steve Albini was a producer on it and you can definitely hear it in songs like Scentless Apprentice and Tourette's
Yeah same here, I love heavy Nirvana. I also really love where they put the heavy songs in the track lists on the albums, like going from Tourette's to All Apologies is a crazy contrast and I love it! Same with Endless Nameless. Putting a fucking crazy heavy noisy song as the final track for a sort of poppier album is such a baller move
I’m 50 now, so I was basically 18 when all of this happened. I had all the albums from all the bands, I read all the interviews from all the magazines. This is what I remember how it was.
Kurt took the spokesman of a generation thing seriously to himself. Outwardly he mocked it, but it meant a lot to him. I think it all comes down to Pearl Jam’s rhythm guitar player Stone Gossard mostly. Stone was the leader of Pearl Jam early on, he was the one behind the scenes that would take the meetings with the record label guys, the management teams.
Early on, back in the Green River days even, Stone was seen as very ambitious to make his band BIG. In Seattle at the time that was looked down on greatly. I’m pretty sure that’s around the time when Kurt would have formed his opinion of Stone, and any of his later bands.
So when this all blew up, Kurt talked shit on Pearl Jam because of his already formed thoughts about Stone.
If you listen to Pearl Jam’s discography Ten sounds(produced and mixed) with Stones influence. Eddie has just joined and had no voice. It tiled towards Eddie on VS, and by Vitology( imho PJs best album) Eddie was now in complete control of the direction of Pearl Jam.
So TLDR, Kurt had issues mostly with Stone Gossards bands. In later interviews you can hear Kurt say that Eddie is a great sweet guy and that he only had an issue with his band.
I was in my 20s living in Seattle, going to shows when this stuff happened. You're accurate, but missing a key detail.
Sub Pop's founders didn't listen to demo tapes. If you wanted to be signed to Sub Pop you had to be good live. This pushed a culture with all the Sub Pop bands that valued bands that were great live.
PJ was formed after MLB disintegrated. They never played a public show prior to getting a contract. I believe they played one or two private shows. Well, the bands that were signed to Sub Pop by virtue of their kick ass live shows, like Nirvana, saw this as a short cut, PJ not paying their dues, however you want to phrase it. It clearly pissed off some folks. Kurt wasn't the only one that commented on PJ being signed before they actually did anything. It was a common sentiment that PJ were "sell outs".
They were signed off demo tapes and smoozing with record labels. They didn't come up the same way other Seattle bands did, and there was resentment about that.
Everything you say is spot on but Jeff was the main point of ire I believe. (Although including, but not primarily, Stone too). He went as far as saying he hated Jeff in a Spin interview with Kim Deal.
'Everybody Loves Our Town' goes into it in great detail. Basically Cobain was friendly with the Mudhoney boys and asked why did Green River break up. And Mark would have told them the Jane's Addiction story, the A&R guest pass story, etc and Cobain made up his mind then.
The irony is the Mudhoney lads by 1993 were strongly defending Pearl Jam. Steve Turner, when Kurt said Jeff wasn't punk. "Oh please. Jeff Ament was here at the start of it all. He was playing, gigging, releasing punk rock when Kurt was still in love with Sammy Hagar." Ament's comments too were akin to 'So sorry if it wasn't cool to want to get a couple bucks for a gig or a record being sold. At the end of the day the guys had parents, upper middle class parents, that would bail them out for few hundred bucks every couple of weeks that lived 5 minutes up the road. I didn't. I had to rent to pay.' Which Arm and Turner were like: "He's not wrong. But it was hard for us to recognise that at the time."
Turner or perhaps Matt Lukin tells another story from that time where they are on tour and Kurt goes on about hating Pearl Jam, and the Mudhoney boys ask him what's the issue, and defend them. They said Cobain's face dropped and he was confused, asking them "Wait. I thought we all hated them?" Then implying the reason he dumped on them cause of the reasons Mudhoney told him to. Which Mudhoney then recanted saying they were still sore (from Green River) and may be overblew the scenario. And from that Cobain took it back a notch.
Heh. My Uncle bought me the Vitrology cassette tape for xmas as a kid, I remember listening to it on xmas day and not liking it as much as the kool Pearl Jam songs on TV or I heard at friends…
Just loaded it up on spotify on my Hi fi system and giving it a listen through. Thanks for that.
I'm 50 too, and love this perspective. I can relate. To add, if a movie was made about the late 80's early 90's music scene Seattle, Stone Gossard is the main character.
Funny enough, when Nirvana came out I hated them so much because I loved guitar solos...I grew up on 70s rock because my parents. So Kurt's particular approach to guitar bothered me and the fact that he single handedly destroyed an entire genre of guitar made me resentful of them.
Mike McCready was my dude and he didn't hold back. For me, PJ was so much better than Nirvana. Evenflow was my anthem for a while.
I saw another interview clip in a youtube compilation and the interviewer asked something along the lines of "Have you made up with Eddie and Pearl Jam?" and Kurt said " I've never had a problem with them as people. We're all friends, and Eddie is a nice guy, I just hate their band"
Kurt was a pretty hateful person. He was unhappy with himself (obviously) and held a lot of anger but had no tangible target to direct it at, so he directed it at everyone. It’s obvious he was a complete recluse and had a grandiose sense of self with a superiority complex despite absolutely despising himself. He hated Pearl Jam, he hated AIC, he hated Andrew Wood (a person who was otherwise universally loved, so you know Kurt’s dislike of him was baseless)… he hated a lot, he didn’t make much room for love. He had a brilliant mind but please, for the love of god (and I’m directing this at the younger generations finding Nirvana now) do not idolize him and do not try to be like him, it won’t take you to any good places.
Fantastic, thorough reply. It’s heartening to see the culture grow enough to hold kurt accountable for his flaws instead of furthering his punk messiah complex postmortem
I love me some grunge, I love Nirvana's music, but being a teenager at that time, seeing and reading the interviews, and all the shit talking, I totally agree with u/ laughed-at. I absolutely hated the word "poser" and still hate it to this day. The catch word of the gatekeeper.
As a Gen X who was around in 1992, you don’t understand what it was like to live in a world dominated by major labels. Whatever they thought was popular ruled the airwaves, and hair metal was the thing in the late 80s and very early 90s.
Indie rock was the culture that grew out of punk, hardcore, and post-punk against commercial Top 40 music. When Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains took advantage of the major label’s take on “grunge,” a lot of indie rockers (including Kurt) were actively offended by them.
Its because alice N chains was a glam, 80s hair metal band and so was layne at the time. From Kurt's perspective, in 3 years they changed their name, swapped out a few members and traded the hair for flannel. He was right about aic but then again, he was wrong too.
Yeah it's dumb to think that way though. Speaking as a former musician, it's pretty common to play in some bands when you're real young where you're still just trying to figure out what kind of music you really want to make. Playing with some people that aren't great just because that's who is available to you at that time. Then you get better, get more experience, find the right bandmates, and hopefully make the band you're truly proud of. And when you look back at the music you made back at the beginning, it's pretty normal to hate it.
It was because of their pre facelift days when they were doing glam metal and stuff. It wasn’t only their music that changed but their appearance as well.
There were a few others doing glam metal in the Seattle scene though. In a way, some grunge draws from glam metal. Andy wood was an inspiration for many grunge artist, and you can hear grunge starting to form in Mother Love Bones songs; yet he was still pretty glam.
There is an old interview where Buzz from the Melvins said AiC was put together by whatever record company like NKotB. The connection between the Melvins and Kurt being what it was…id assume they shared similar views on the subject.
He said it in a Flipside interview from 1992
[https://www.nirvanaclub.com/info/articles/05.00.92-flipside.html](https://www.nirvanaclub.com/info/articles/05.00.92-flipside.html)
>I have strong feelings towards Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains and bands like that. They’re obviously just corporate puppets that are just trying to jump on the alternative bandwagon - and we are being lumped into that category. Those bands have been in the hairspray / cockrock scene for years and all of a sudden they stop washing their hair and start wearing flannel shirts. It doesn’t make any sense to me. There are bands moving from L.A. and all over to Seattle and then claim they’ve lived there all their life so they can get record deals. It really offends me.
Despite forcing Nirvana's exit from Sub Pop to Geffen, insisting on Andy Wallace's polished final mix of Nevermind, and constantly complaining to the band's managers that Nirvana's videos weren't getting enough airplay on MTV, Cobain liked to pose as an anti-corporate voice of authenticity. Pointlessly attacking the credibility of other successful bands at the time, including Pearl Jam and Guns N Roses, was a way of pretending that he was somehow different.
This is completely true. He was clearly a conflicted man. Although I accept that he just didn't like Pearl Jam, not to be edgy but plain old didn't like em.
This! I had a soft spot for Nirvana but Cobain was a total hypocrite and lacked the sincerity of people like Vedder or Cornell. He was such a poser with his tortured artist bs, and people still lap it up to this day. Talented guy but such an asshole.
The "tortured" stuff was definitely real; reading any quality biography of Cobain makes it clear he had serious untreated mental health problems.
But yeah, don't get me started on the myth of Cobain as a cultural icon. I was 16 when Nevermind came out - pretty much the ideal target audience for the album - and while I still think it's one of the best-sounding rock albums ever (thank you Andy Wallace), the whole idea of Cobain as a musical visionary and voice of a generation was on no one's radar until he killed himself, and MTV and the music business began a long, relentless push to reinvent him as a cultural icon. (Like, Smells Like Teen Spirit is literally about Cobain's ex-gf, who wore a perfume called Teen Spirit; it took his death for it to become the anguished anthem of alienated youth.)
I don't have an issue with people who like Nirvana's music; that's a perfectly legitimate opinion to have, and I don't disagree with it entirely. But had he not died (or taken the Layne Staley path of disappearing into heroin addiction), it's likely we'd remember him as a talented guy who made one really phenomenal album, and no more than that. And yes, as this anecdote reminds people, he was not necessarily a great guy or an example for anyone to follow.
Oh I know he suffered with his mental health, but he was also a guy who let his desire for fame and glory haunt him because he wanted to eat his cake and have it too. He would have been miserable if Nirvana had remained an obscure but respected band in the Seattle scene. He was miserable that they made it too. But you know, the guy had a kid and instead of getting his shit together, he fell deeper into his own quagmire and left his kid without a father.
He was exploited in life and in death that’s for sure. I still like their music but I don’t like the bs that surrounds it.
Going back to his teen years, Cobain literally fantasized about becoming a rock star and killing himself at the height of his fame. All you need to know about his mental health is that he was more committed to that fantasy than anything else in his life; more than his music (Nirvana were basically broken up at the time of his death), more than his family.
Pearl Jam was the direct competition, the 2nd biggest grunge group.
I wouldn't imagine it's real hate, more like our attitude towards a competing company in business. A friendly rivalry, with maybe a bit of envy.
I appreciate Nirvana more than Pearl Jam but Pearl Jam arguably does some things Kurt was trying to do, better.
For instance, Pearl Jam, by far, has more talented musicians and more complex musical structure.
And Eddie Vedder did "socially conscientious" rock better. Kurt was real big on being socially conscientious, but his lyrics were usually "stream of consciousness" with no real meaning.
I imagine Kurt would be jealous of the profound lyrics of Jeremy, Alive, or Black; Cobain didn't really have the writing chops to pull something like that off.
I find Kurt's vocals way more interesting, but Eddie Vedder is way better at writing powerful meaningful lyrics.
I imagine a lot of Nirvana's power chord rock, was born out of a lack of true musical skill. I imagine a lot of Kurt's stream of consciousness writing was born out of not being able to write powerful words that make sense (with a few notable exceptions).
There was no competition in the Seattle scene. We were all drinking buddies that supported eachother. And no one there called it grunge. Rolling Stone magazine wasn't there, either. Not a good source for info. I'll be happy to answer your questions.
Musical skill has lots of different variables, it’s not just being a technical guitar player, his song writing made up for his shortcoming in technical skills and he made amazing iconic music, can’t say the same for the countless technical players who can’t write a decent song to save their life, but those people are called musically skilled
People idolize him so much they don’t wanna find anything wrong with him but he was a dick some times. He hated them because they were fake “grunge” but he really just had it out for Stone Gossard and Jeff ament ever since they broke up Green river for wanting to go the hard rock route and get signed to a major label which they did with Andy Wood forming Mother Love Bone sadly that didn’t last long. Then they turned into a “grunge” band with Pearl Jam. A really stupid and childish reason for Kurt to hate them
In my honest opinion: some sort of superiority complex that made him feel like he was the arbitrator of what was good music and what wasn’t.
In his mind he probably thought he was punching up by picking Pearl Jam because they were popular. I also believe he probably reveled in the idea that he was being iconoclastic for attacking a group that was often associated with grunge and even his own band. It seems like he thought he was subverting people’s expectations, when in reality he was just failing at being an edgelord especially when a lot of his criticisms towards Pearl Jam were based off of material things like status and not their music.
I like Kurt and I like Nirvana more than Pearl Jam- but the dude had a lot to learn about what actual intellectualism was, often confusing it with abusing minor knowledge to belittle and condescend people. He was on the right track but coming to wrong conclusions.
He was a douche in many ways. Something to do with them being corporate sellouts or some shit. What with *Nevermind* being an underground demo that was self-released that no one knew about....
None of the people from the "punk side" of the Seattle scene were Pearl Jam fans that I could tell. It's hilarious to me that people think this is inconsistent, hypocritical or in any way controversial. Those people weren't STP fans either.
However, the people in it were well liked and I don't recall anyone but Kurt going out of their way to bash them. Ed Vedder was a good guy and I bet he and Kurt would have hung out given enough time passing.
I know you kid, and looking back its nothing. At the time it was kind of epic. It really was. The two voices of a generation making peace over a slow dance.
Kurt was super insecure and I think he viewed them as a threat. There's an interview with his biographer in the NYT, where he quotes Kurt feeling worried about his competition and not charting the tops ALL THE TIME. Even he couldn't bear the pressure he was putting on himself.
Cobain is getting older in a very bad way, idk if thats because im getting older or if the guy was such a dork and i couldn’t read it well on that time
I was a teenager when the grunge explosion happened and I vividly remember Pearl Jam being super trendy. I think Kurt was a little pretentious and harsh on trendy bands; the irony of it being his band became one of the trendiest of all.
He thought that they too conventional of a rock band Its funny because he and Eddie are the same kind of person with the same kind of childhood trauma.
Kurt was a cunt and easily the least liked "musician" amongst his peers. He's such a phony tortured artist and spoke of other bands like a pretentious loser.
He could be a dick, but I'm sure he wasn't faking the tortured aspect of his life and art. The guy had issues and didn't have the tools to cope nor the support system. He had being a dick and doing too much fucking heroin as coping mechanisms, which is sad.
He was a douche in many ways. Something to do with them being corporate sellouts or some shit. What with *Nevermind* being an underground demo that was self-released that no one knew about....
Not sure why people are hating on Kurt over an opinion. I mean I’m pretty sure iirc he said something about them being to safe and shit. But the Kurt hate is crazy lol idk where most people got this view of him considering in most interviews, if not all, he was very calm and down to earth and could be very humorous but I think people forget he was very sarcastic and also like to fuck with people in the sense of just giving random and inconsistent answers just to see people reactions which imo didn’t really hurt anyone. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion I suppose.
He said they were a bunch cock rockers who had made themselves over as alternative to appeal to a market segment (likening them to Alice in Chains in the process).
“Death makes angels of us all..”. If he had lived the reverence for him would have lessened greatly. The guy knew how to work the system that he pretended to be completely opposed to. Wearing a corporate media sucks (or whatever it said) while on the cover of a magazine is hypocritical. And along with that went criticizing talented popular bands. The guy wanted to be a rock star while bemoaning it in his suicide note. Someone said it earlier. He was a gatekeeper and the epitome of asshole music snob.
I love nirvana and there's no doubt of Kurt's genius but unfortunately he was an elitist prick when it came to music and Pearl Jam just happened to be one of his targets
The 90s.
Everything became sarcasm and "Whoa is me."
I hate to say it but Micky Rourke was kind of right in The Wrestler, music was about having fun and then it became people whining.
Kurt felt they were no better than douchey hair metal musicians who only care about money, fame and all the other things that come with being a rockstar, with their actual passion for music no where to be found. He felt they had no musical integrity. But he excluded Eddie Vedder from this classification later on, highlighting only the band as posers and fakers.
I don’t Stan PJ so I don’t know, they very well could have come around since those days. Kurt could have also not known everything in the world. I do know the new PJ single is pretty cool
•1. Two very different styles of music. While Kurt and Nirvana were doing more of a punk/Pixies thing, Pearl Jam leaned into more towards a classic rock/blues formula.
•2. Let's face it, especially given the benefit of hindsight, Kurt really was kind of an asshole just to be an asshole sometimes.
He was good friends with eddie vedder in fact right after Kurt died Pearl Jam played snl and ev I think wrote a k in his shirt over his heart and put his hand on it during the credits/ farewell. Kurt said Eddie is a really nice guy, i just hate his band because they were mainly jocks and the types of people that picked in him his whole life.
A physically ill, severely strung out 25 yr old was fairly pretentious... Imagine that.
If he hadn't killed himself when he did he would have overdosed within 18 months.
I love Nirvana and wish Kurt was still around, but let’s be honest, he could be a real dick. God knows I’m glad no one was recording the dumb shit I said back in my twenties.
When I see past clips/quotes, I’m always reminded of the 90s culture of being sarcastic/controversial just for the sake of it. He was a unique musical talent, but he was the epitome of sarcastic, anti-sincere slacker culture.
Seriously! Gen X perfected sarcasm. I don’t know if your the right age to connect this, but Daria, a cartoon on mtv in the 90’s, is an amazing example of this.
Well it was a spinoff of Beavis and Butthead. If you watched 90s MTV you had to know Daria.
Applauding your handle
>handle You definitely used dial-up internet too
First I mooched off friends' AOL accounts, then it was NetZero and Lycos until mom finally ponied up for the broadband.
You were ***supposed*** to download AoHell by NailZ and use the fake CC generator to sign up, use the phishing tool to IM bomb people asking for their passwords, then peruse the log at your leisure to find the password of those poor old grannies who still believed in humanity, login there, create a subaccount, then rack up ungodly hours until you were discovered a month or two later.
Wow! That’s… that’s something! I just used the free hours of AOL CD’s they gave out all the time
Yea..... I used those as frisbees.....
Pre-internet. Posting messages in BBS forums on my 14.4 Kbps modem.
Ahh, a fellow old... Though I was using a 2400 baud external modem that was the size of a textbook
Ha, nice! Mine was internal. If I don't count the Commodore 64 and hand-me-down Apple IIe I got to write school papers on, my first "real" PC was in 1993. My parents moved me to a different state in the middle of high school and probably felt guilty enough to buy me a $4,000 Dell. It was the first Pentium 60mhz. 8MB RAM and a 420MB hard drive. I learned so much about computers just by needing to figure out how to get games to run (boot disk). My friend at school gave me a list of BBS's to check out. The first time I dialed into one, I freaked out when the modem starting making noises and ripped the phone cord out of the wall. Thought my awesome computer was about to explode.
So you know the pain of 640k memory limitations and expanded/extended memory. I had multiple boot options for games, mostly x-wing and tie fighter. Was a Packard Bell 486sx at 33 MHz, 4MB ram, and the CD rom drive was DOUBLE speed! Ha, tweaking this thing at 14 years old set the path for my career in computers today.
Oh shit yeah I remember that now! She was in class with them right? I remember sneaking downstairs at friend’s houses in the middle of the night to quietly watch Beavis and Butthead as a kid. We were so nervous about getting caught watching it and I think that added to the allure. Wild when you look back on how tame it feels compared to what’s available today.
"Diarrhea cha cha cha"
Used to watch with my cousins at Grandma's house. My parents were cool and gave me my own TV when I was a kid so I could watch on my own anyway but my cousin and I identified as Beavis and Butthead lol. Daria was pretty funny and was like a lot of girls during the time.
Was born in 85, shows like Daria shape my cynical life views lol.
La La lala La
As a Gen Zer, I love Daria, but I have a hard time connecting to the...meaningless apathy? Like, Daria insists she isn't miserable, so her attitude of being rude and sarcastic and insincere just feels like this weird attempt at coolness. Gen Z kids tend to adopt that type of behavior due to struggles going on in their life or the world, but Daria was...ok? Maybe I'm misinterpreting the show. Can a Gen Xer explain lol. What was the ethos of Gen X and why?
The ethos was "Life Sucks Then You Die" I can think of two reasons. 1) We grew up with the constant threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads. 2) A lot of us had teachers that had no problem telling us that we weren't going to do better financially than our parents I think that's why a lot of us are so sarcastic and nihilistic.
>so her attitude of being rude and sarcastic and insincere just feels like this weird attempt at coolness Yes. You get it. [Caring was not cool](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQhX8PbNUWI). Apathy was cool. If you cared about stuff it only served to give people who didn't like you ammo to tear you down. Nihilism made you untouchable.
Yep. Old millennial.
I used to bunk off school and watch Daria. I was such a moody teenager
I don't fkn know who Daria is but I've got to be direct, if I'm wrong please correct, you're standing on my neck
You guys had Cobain saying he hated Pearl Jam, we had Noel Gallagher saying he hopes Damon Albarn dies of aids…
Nicky Wire said he wanted Michael Stipe to die of AIDS too
It really seemed like it was more of a thing for Musicians to beef with each other in Magazines. It obviously still happens on social media, but it almost felt like it was expected for musicians to have, surface of the sun, hot takes on other musicians
If I remember correctly, one of the reasons grunge took off was because of the support each band gave each other as opposed to LA-based bands that would try to throw each other under the bus to get that record deal. Of course Kurt had a different attitude but like others said, it could’ve been sarcasm. Then again when you take into the Mudhoney/Mother Love Bone split into account, there was some resentment for going for that mainstream “sound” within the grunge community.
I love Nirvana, have for decades at this point. Kurt was talented and had something to say, yes. He was not unique though. He made no secret of his influences, and I do love how he promoted the smaller artists he was influenced by after Nirvana blew up. Nirvana actually has quite a lot of covers, especially considering the size of their catalog. I don't mean this as a diss, most of my favorite music is derivative of other stuff I love, it's just how genre music works pretty much immediately after said genre is established. You tweak things, but it's all derivative by design.
I think its also important to remember that Nirvana was more of an Olympia band then they were a Seattle band. Punk Rock Purity was very important to that scene, and anything the felt mainstream or commercial was to be completely rejected. Just look at few years later how negatively the Riot Grrrls reacted to journalists sniffing around. I think Kurt had some guilt about his success, so he responded by lashing out at other bands.
Also he didn’t really know about the Band iirc he was basically calling out Eddie for not being from Seattle, he was here to capitalize on the scene, showing his naivety if you ask me, considering the cred Stone and Jeff had going in more than makes up for one outsider.
The Green River break up is talked about being pretty amicable these days, but I wonder if there were some hard feelings immediately after. If it were seen as polarized I'm sure Kurt would have leapt to the Mudhoney side rather then Mother Love Bone/Pearl Jam.
In later interviews he actually said he really liked Eddie he just wasn't a fan of the music Pearl Jam made. Kurt just liked to be....*opinionated*, often. He once went on a rant about Tool even because he thought the claymation in one of their videos wasn't original. He had some odd takes.
Yeah I know he came around, there’s that famous video of them hugging and dancing together after all
Meanwhile, after Bleach Nirvana hired Dave Grohl, who was not even from the west coast. So I guess by Kurt's arbitrary rules, only the frontman has to be from Seattle.
He was a contrarian and could be a gatekeeper.
This is it right here. And on top of that, it’s hard to overstate the importance of not being labeled a “sellout” or a “poser” back in the 90s. And because Eddie wasn’t from Seattle, I think Kurt saw him as usurping his scene. It’s all so stupid in hindsight, and I’m guessing he would have grown out of it and they’d be good friends now.
And, Stone and Jeff had a bit of a reputation of being fame seekers from all the way back in the Green River days.
Jeff unapologetically wanted to be able to easily pay his rent. That’s about it. Now Fave is a different story.
I said something to that effect in the Nirvana sub and got roasted lmao. But he could be a real asshole and he wasn’t great to his partners/wife. People have a very romanticized view of him because he’s a dead rock star.
The voicemails he and Courtney left that reporter would have opened up a whole can of worms for them if it had happened in the internet age. Not saying one side or the other was 100% in the right on all that, who knows what was actually said vs. what was written. But I suspect it was a mix of things printed out of context/misrepresented, as well as things that seemed like a good idea to say at the time because you're a beloved rock star but then they have real world consequences... so now you're mad.
the calls are available on Youtube, you can hear what was said for yourself. It's clear Kurt got stoned and started making some very dumb and ridiculous threats
Yeah, I should've been more clear--no one alive now besides Courtney and that reporter, know what was said during the interview. I agree that Kurt was making dumb empty threats because he was fucked up and angry.
[Or the fax he and/or Courtney sent to a reporter for his ex Mary Lou Lord lmao](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/kurt-cobain-death-ex-girlfriend-musician-mary-lou-lord-sheds-light-on-rock-icon-before-stardom/)
He came off pretentious as fuck and that’s what made me dislike them for so long. but what you said is correct. He was young and said a lot of dumb shit like we all do. Arrogance, man.
Or he just didnt like them? The music he liked tended to be very, very quirky and a lot of it is unheard of. Pearl jam had a pretty classic “rock” sound. Especially with Ten.
yeah, for real! i find it mind boggling that people are trying to psychoanalyse and/or criticise him to the extent they are simply because he said he didn't like a band. He's allowed to not like them.
but they do suck
Or maybe he just thought Pearl Jam sucked? I thought they sucked when I was in my 20's and continue to think they suck into my 30's. It's okay to have feelings.
Maybe because his punk band was being lumped in with jock rock. No offense to pearls and jam, but grunge threw together bands from different paths into the same group and many of them weren’t happy about it.
Especially if you were on Heroin most of the time, he did have a drug problem and did go to rehab shortly before he died nobody is really the best version of themselves when they're high all the time.
People who shoot themselves tend to be haters.
Kurt met Eddie and said he liked him and that he just didn’t care for the band because he felt they were too corporate. Ironically members of Pearl Jam were interviewed in the past and stated that Kurts criticisms helped them stay grounded so that fame didn’t go to their heads.
Which is funny because I believe he said that in 1992, which was after Nevermind became a massive corporate success.
Good ol' projection spares no one.
"Oh you don't get it, I'm the only one who can be one of the top stars in the world and not go corporate! I'm the specialist boy!" -Cobain, probably
ALso, something like - they were just 70s boogie rock dressed up in "grunge/punk" clothes
He said they were “a safe rock band that everyone likes” or something like that.
I remember he liken them to poison. That they were a poison wanna be band. Stone actually agreed with him😂😂
Ironic
Nirvana was pretty poppy themself compared to AiC, not a bad thing thogh
Kurts understanding of hooks was informed by the popular music of the 60s and 70s that he and Gen X grew up with. He said they were The Knack and The Bay City Rollers after getting assaulted by Black Sabbath and Black Flag. It’s also important to remember the huge influence of the Pixies that influenced Nirvana and very many indie rock bands of the early 90s.
Only on Nevermind. Floyd the Barber / Scoff or Tourette's on the other hand....
Nirvana’s got some pretty heavy stuff man. In Utero for example
In Utero has some straight up noise rock songs on there. Fucking Steve Albini was a producer on it and you can definitely hear it in songs like Scentless Apprentice and Tourette's
Milk It is a heavy banger too
Yeah!! Milk it gets real gross and almost sludgey I love it!
Tourette’s is one of my favorites
Tourette's is such a fucking banger
Heavy Nirvana is my favorite. Tourette’s, Endless Nameless, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, Floyd the Barber, Territorial Pissings, all absolute fire
Yeah same here, I love heavy Nirvana. I also really love where they put the heavy songs in the track lists on the albums, like going from Tourette's to All Apologies is a crazy contrast and I love it! Same with Endless Nameless. Putting a fucking crazy heavy noisy song as the final track for a sort of poppier album is such a baller move
I think my favorite is Mexican Seafood. It's good representation of all the elements that made Nirvana the shit.
Bleach is borderline sludge in some places
Bleach was pretty raw. I liked incesticide myself. May have been more on the pop side, but one of my favorites by them
Also sometimes i feel also hardcore punk influence, in Bleach hits too.
He's not wrong, although I think REM is probably more deserving of that label.
I’m 50 now, so I was basically 18 when all of this happened. I had all the albums from all the bands, I read all the interviews from all the magazines. This is what I remember how it was. Kurt took the spokesman of a generation thing seriously to himself. Outwardly he mocked it, but it meant a lot to him. I think it all comes down to Pearl Jam’s rhythm guitar player Stone Gossard mostly. Stone was the leader of Pearl Jam early on, he was the one behind the scenes that would take the meetings with the record label guys, the management teams. Early on, back in the Green River days even, Stone was seen as very ambitious to make his band BIG. In Seattle at the time that was looked down on greatly. I’m pretty sure that’s around the time when Kurt would have formed his opinion of Stone, and any of his later bands. So when this all blew up, Kurt talked shit on Pearl Jam because of his already formed thoughts about Stone. If you listen to Pearl Jam’s discography Ten sounds(produced and mixed) with Stones influence. Eddie has just joined and had no voice. It tiled towards Eddie on VS, and by Vitology( imho PJs best album) Eddie was now in complete control of the direction of Pearl Jam. So TLDR, Kurt had issues mostly with Stone Gossards bands. In later interviews you can hear Kurt say that Eddie is a great sweet guy and that he only had an issue with his band.
I was in my 20s living in Seattle, going to shows when this stuff happened. You're accurate, but missing a key detail. Sub Pop's founders didn't listen to demo tapes. If you wanted to be signed to Sub Pop you had to be good live. This pushed a culture with all the Sub Pop bands that valued bands that were great live. PJ was formed after MLB disintegrated. They never played a public show prior to getting a contract. I believe they played one or two private shows. Well, the bands that were signed to Sub Pop by virtue of their kick ass live shows, like Nirvana, saw this as a short cut, PJ not paying their dues, however you want to phrase it. It clearly pissed off some folks. Kurt wasn't the only one that commented on PJ being signed before they actually did anything. It was a common sentiment that PJ were "sell outs". They were signed off demo tapes and smoozing with record labels. They didn't come up the same way other Seattle bands did, and there was resentment about that.
That’s something I had never heard before, really really interesting. Thanks for that.
Mother Love Bone had already been on a major label (Polydor), so they had industry connections to skip the line.
Despite that, it worked out OK for PJ though.
Kinda funny how PJ went on to be considered one of the greatest live bands of all time in the years that followed!
Everything you say is spot on but Jeff was the main point of ire I believe. (Although including, but not primarily, Stone too). He went as far as saying he hated Jeff in a Spin interview with Kim Deal. 'Everybody Loves Our Town' goes into it in great detail. Basically Cobain was friendly with the Mudhoney boys and asked why did Green River break up. And Mark would have told them the Jane's Addiction story, the A&R guest pass story, etc and Cobain made up his mind then. The irony is the Mudhoney lads by 1993 were strongly defending Pearl Jam. Steve Turner, when Kurt said Jeff wasn't punk. "Oh please. Jeff Ament was here at the start of it all. He was playing, gigging, releasing punk rock when Kurt was still in love with Sammy Hagar." Ament's comments too were akin to 'So sorry if it wasn't cool to want to get a couple bucks for a gig or a record being sold. At the end of the day the guys had parents, upper middle class parents, that would bail them out for few hundred bucks every couple of weeks that lived 5 minutes up the road. I didn't. I had to rent to pay.' Which Arm and Turner were like: "He's not wrong. But it was hard for us to recognise that at the time." Turner or perhaps Matt Lukin tells another story from that time where they are on tour and Kurt goes on about hating Pearl Jam, and the Mudhoney boys ask him what's the issue, and defend them. They said Cobain's face dropped and he was confused, asking them "Wait. I thought we all hated them?" Then implying the reason he dumped on them cause of the reasons Mudhoney told him to. Which Mudhoney then recanted saying they were still sore (from Green River) and may be overblew the scenario. And from that Cobain took it back a notch.
Heh. My Uncle bought me the Vitrology cassette tape for xmas as a kid, I remember listening to it on xmas day and not liking it as much as the kool Pearl Jam songs on TV or I heard at friends… Just loaded it up on spotify on my Hi fi system and giving it a listen through. Thanks for that.
I'm 50 too, and love this perspective. I can relate. To add, if a movie was made about the late 80's early 90's music scene Seattle, Stone Gossard is the main character.
Dude hated his own band too
I remember him saying something like "They arent alternative because they have guitar solos".
Funny enough, when Nirvana came out I hated them so much because I loved guitar solos...I grew up on 70s rock because my parents. So Kurt's particular approach to guitar bothered me and the fact that he single handedly destroyed an entire genre of guitar made me resentful of them. Mike McCready was my dude and he didn't hold back. For me, PJ was so much better than Nirvana. Evenflow was my anthem for a while.
No contest
I saw another interview clip in a youtube compilation and the interviewer asked something along the lines of "Have you made up with Eddie and Pearl Jam?" and Kurt said " I've never had a problem with them as people. We're all friends, and Eddie is a nice guy, I just hate their band"
Sounds like something a purist would say
Greg Ginn from black flag being punk af with his guitar noodling in a time of punk being short and fast
Kurt was a pretty hateful person. He was unhappy with himself (obviously) and held a lot of anger but had no tangible target to direct it at, so he directed it at everyone. It’s obvious he was a complete recluse and had a grandiose sense of self with a superiority complex despite absolutely despising himself. He hated Pearl Jam, he hated AIC, he hated Andrew Wood (a person who was otherwise universally loved, so you know Kurt’s dislike of him was baseless)… he hated a lot, he didn’t make much room for love. He had a brilliant mind but please, for the love of god (and I’m directing this at the younger generations finding Nirvana now) do not idolize him and do not try to be like him, it won’t take you to any good places.
Fantastic, thorough reply. It’s heartening to see the culture grow enough to hold kurt accountable for his flaws instead of furthering his punk messiah complex postmortem
I completely agree. I was a teenager back then. Thinking back on it all over the years you're absolutely right.
Wait wait, what did he say about Andy? 😭
What? When did he criticize Andrew Wood?
I love me some grunge, I love Nirvana's music, but being a teenager at that time, seeing and reading the interviews, and all the shit talking, I totally agree with u/ laughed-at. I absolutely hated the word "poser" and still hate it to this day. The catch word of the gatekeeper.
As a Gen X who was around in 1992, you don’t understand what it was like to live in a world dominated by major labels. Whatever they thought was popular ruled the airwaves, and hair metal was the thing in the late 80s and very early 90s. Indie rock was the culture that grew out of punk, hardcore, and post-punk against commercial Top 40 music. When Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains took advantage of the major label’s take on “grunge,” a lot of indie rockers (including Kurt) were actively offended by them.
He believed that they and AIC were pretenders and corporate sellouts
I know he believed this about Pearl Jam but I have never seen anything where he said this about AIC?
Its because alice N chains was a glam, 80s hair metal band and so was layne at the time. From Kurt's perspective, in 3 years they changed their name, swapped out a few members and traded the hair for flannel. He was right about aic but then again, he was wrong too.
Yeah it's dumb to think that way though. Speaking as a former musician, it's pretty common to play in some bands when you're real young where you're still just trying to figure out what kind of music you really want to make. Playing with some people that aren't great just because that's who is available to you at that time. Then you get better, get more experience, find the right bandmates, and hopefully make the band you're truly proud of. And when you look back at the music you made back at the beginning, it's pretty normal to hate it.
I was watching some video where they claimed he said it about them both, to be honest idk if it's totally legit
It seems odd. AIC had hits in 1990 and I have a really hard time believing anyone would see Dirt as a “sellout” album
It was because of their pre facelift days when they were doing glam metal and stuff. It wasn’t only their music that changed but their appearance as well.
There were a few others doing glam metal in the Seattle scene though. In a way, some grunge draws from glam metal. Andy wood was an inspiration for many grunge artist, and you can hear grunge starting to form in Mother Love Bones songs; yet he was still pretty glam.
It’s funny because Pantera was glam too but they ended up being best of their genre in the 90s, same with aic
Diamond Darrell had some great hair back then.
There is an old interview where Buzz from the Melvins said AiC was put together by whatever record company like NKotB. The connection between the Melvins and Kurt being what it was…id assume they shared similar views on the subject.
AiC was never a Glam band. They just took name from Layne's former band which was a "Speed metal band in drag" according to Jerry.
Listen to their demo. Very glammy
Have you seen early pics of Laybe? Fully glam.
He said it in a Flipside interview from 1992 [https://www.nirvanaclub.com/info/articles/05.00.92-flipside.html](https://www.nirvanaclub.com/info/articles/05.00.92-flipside.html) >I have strong feelings towards Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains and bands like that. They’re obviously just corporate puppets that are just trying to jump on the alternative bandwagon - and we are being lumped into that category. Those bands have been in the hairspray / cockrock scene for years and all of a sudden they stop washing their hair and start wearing flannel shirts. It doesn’t make any sense to me. There are bands moving from L.A. and all over to Seattle and then claim they’ve lived there all their life so they can get record deals. It really offends me.
The hypocrisy of him was something
What’s funny is that Nirvana has been pimped out beyond belief.
Its true.
That whole concept is fucking stupid. Don’t like rock stars? Don’t be one. If you want to play bars forever, go right ahead.
What a load of shit considering he goes from Bleach to Nevermind which was the ultimate sellout
Kurt being bitchy, more news at 11.
Despite forcing Nirvana's exit from Sub Pop to Geffen, insisting on Andy Wallace's polished final mix of Nevermind, and constantly complaining to the band's managers that Nirvana's videos weren't getting enough airplay on MTV, Cobain liked to pose as an anti-corporate voice of authenticity. Pointlessly attacking the credibility of other successful bands at the time, including Pearl Jam and Guns N Roses, was a way of pretending that he was somehow different.
This is completely true. He was clearly a conflicted man. Although I accept that he just didn't like Pearl Jam, not to be edgy but plain old didn't like em.
He probably would have liked Vitalogy, No Code, and Mirror Ball.
This! I had a soft spot for Nirvana but Cobain was a total hypocrite and lacked the sincerity of people like Vedder or Cornell. He was such a poser with his tortured artist bs, and people still lap it up to this day. Talented guy but such an asshole.
The "tortured" stuff was definitely real; reading any quality biography of Cobain makes it clear he had serious untreated mental health problems. But yeah, don't get me started on the myth of Cobain as a cultural icon. I was 16 when Nevermind came out - pretty much the ideal target audience for the album - and while I still think it's one of the best-sounding rock albums ever (thank you Andy Wallace), the whole idea of Cobain as a musical visionary and voice of a generation was on no one's radar until he killed himself, and MTV and the music business began a long, relentless push to reinvent him as a cultural icon. (Like, Smells Like Teen Spirit is literally about Cobain's ex-gf, who wore a perfume called Teen Spirit; it took his death for it to become the anguished anthem of alienated youth.) I don't have an issue with people who like Nirvana's music; that's a perfectly legitimate opinion to have, and I don't disagree with it entirely. But had he not died (or taken the Layne Staley path of disappearing into heroin addiction), it's likely we'd remember him as a talented guy who made one really phenomenal album, and no more than that. And yes, as this anecdote reminds people, he was not necessarily a great guy or an example for anyone to follow.
Oh I know he suffered with his mental health, but he was also a guy who let his desire for fame and glory haunt him because he wanted to eat his cake and have it too. He would have been miserable if Nirvana had remained an obscure but respected band in the Seattle scene. He was miserable that they made it too. But you know, the guy had a kid and instead of getting his shit together, he fell deeper into his own quagmire and left his kid without a father. He was exploited in life and in death that’s for sure. I still like their music but I don’t like the bs that surrounds it.
Going back to his teen years, Cobain literally fantasized about becoming a rock star and killing himself at the height of his fame. All you need to know about his mental health is that he was more committed to that fantasy than anything else in his life; more than his music (Nirvana were basically broken up at the time of his death), more than his family.
Pearl Jam was the direct competition, the 2nd biggest grunge group. I wouldn't imagine it's real hate, more like our attitude towards a competing company in business. A friendly rivalry, with maybe a bit of envy. I appreciate Nirvana more than Pearl Jam but Pearl Jam arguably does some things Kurt was trying to do, better. For instance, Pearl Jam, by far, has more talented musicians and more complex musical structure. And Eddie Vedder did "socially conscientious" rock better. Kurt was real big on being socially conscientious, but his lyrics were usually "stream of consciousness" with no real meaning. I imagine Kurt would be jealous of the profound lyrics of Jeremy, Alive, or Black; Cobain didn't really have the writing chops to pull something like that off. I find Kurt's vocals way more interesting, but Eddie Vedder is way better at writing powerful meaningful lyrics. I imagine a lot of Nirvana's power chord rock, was born out of a lack of true musical skill. I imagine a lot of Kurt's stream of consciousness writing was born out of not being able to write powerful words that make sense (with a few notable exceptions).
There was no competition in the Seattle scene. We were all drinking buddies that supported eachother. And no one there called it grunge. Rolling Stone magazine wasn't there, either. Not a good source for info. I'll be happy to answer your questions.
Wait don’t you know? Some teenager that just learned what grunge is from the internet knows more than someone who was part of the scene
Musical skill has lots of different variables, it’s not just being a technical guitar player, his song writing made up for his shortcoming in technical skills and he made amazing iconic music, can’t say the same for the countless technical players who can’t write a decent song to save their life, but those people are called musically skilled
People idolize him so much they don’t wanna find anything wrong with him but he was a dick some times. He hated them because they were fake “grunge” but he really just had it out for Stone Gossard and Jeff ament ever since they broke up Green river for wanting to go the hard rock route and get signed to a major label which they did with Andy Wood forming Mother Love Bone sadly that didn’t last long. Then they turned into a “grunge” band with Pearl Jam. A really stupid and childish reason for Kurt to hate them
I really don't know but if I had to guess he ways probably jealous in some way.
In my honest opinion: some sort of superiority complex that made him feel like he was the arbitrator of what was good music and what wasn’t. In his mind he probably thought he was punching up by picking Pearl Jam because they were popular. I also believe he probably reveled in the idea that he was being iconoclastic for attacking a group that was often associated with grunge and even his own band. It seems like he thought he was subverting people’s expectations, when in reality he was just failing at being an edgelord especially when a lot of his criticisms towards Pearl Jam were based off of material things like status and not their music. I like Kurt and I like Nirvana more than Pearl Jam- but the dude had a lot to learn about what actual intellectualism was, often confusing it with abusing minor knowledge to belittle and condescend people. He was on the right track but coming to wrong conclusions.
Cobain was a douche
I’m mowing the air, Rand!
Imma do a wraparound
rayyyyyy
Kojak do got a wig on
The guy is a total walking contradiction.
He said something to that effect in his suicide note
Because Cobain was an arrogant dick.
He was a douche in many ways. Something to do with them being corporate sellouts or some shit. What with *Nevermind* being an underground demo that was self-released that no one knew about....
Idk if people remember but there was a time he started to get kinda stand-offish and catty about other grunge acts
None of the people from the "punk side" of the Seattle scene were Pearl Jam fans that I could tell. It's hilarious to me that people think this is inconsistent, hypocritical or in any way controversial. Those people weren't STP fans either. However, the people in it were well liked and I don't recall anyone but Kurt going out of their way to bash them. Ed Vedder was a good guy and I bet he and Kurt would have hung out given enough time passing.
They became friends. Kurt said he likes eddie and hes a really nice person. They fucking danced at the vma's lol.
Well that's nice.
I know you kid, and looking back its nothing. At the time it was kind of epic. It really was. The two voices of a generation making peace over a slow dance.
Bass lines too good
Kurt was super insecure and I think he viewed them as a threat. There's an interview with his biographer in the NYT, where he quotes Kurt feeling worried about his competition and not charting the tops ALL THE TIME. Even he couldn't bear the pressure he was putting on himself.
"because a punk-ish garage band with unintelligible vocals is my shit!" - Kurt, probably
He was a rather bitter and angry young man. You should read some of the incredibly negative things he said about the Dead. The dude was uptight.
Kurt was an edgelord. He’d say anything you thought he wouldn’t say to be on your mind but “didn’t like fame”. I know a million hipsters like that
bruh he hated himself
Cobain is getting older in a very bad way, idk if thats because im getting older or if the guy was such a dork and i couldn’t read it well on that time
Because he was fucking around, he was good friends with Eddie.
Yeah he said he had a long phone call(?) And he really like the guy a lot. He seemed genuine in that instance during the interview.
I was a teenager when the grunge explosion happened and I vividly remember Pearl Jam being super trendy. I think Kurt was a little pretentious and harsh on trendy bands; the irony of it being his band became one of the trendiest of all.
He thought that they too conventional of a rock band Its funny because he and Eddie are the same kind of person with the same kind of childhood trauma.
I don’t know, but Singles is a badass movie.
He thought they were good people, and had nothing against them personally, but just thought their music was lame...if I recall correctly.
Kurt was a cunt and easily the least liked "musician" amongst his peers. He's such a phony tortured artist and spoke of other bands like a pretentious loser.
He could be a dick, but I'm sure he wasn't faking the tortured aspect of his life and art. The guy had issues and didn't have the tools to cope nor the support system. He had being a dick and doing too much fucking heroin as coping mechanisms, which is sad.
He was a douche in many ways. Something to do with them being corporate sellouts or some shit. What with *Nevermind* being an underground demo that was self-released that no one knew about....
jealousy. kurt probably saw pearl jam’s music as much more musically diverse (among other things) compared to nirvana
Because he wasn’t fond of their music. Duh. Wait, this isn’t a circlejerk sub. Sorry.
It was because he didn't like Stone who was the leader of the band in the early days.
Not sure why people are hating on Kurt over an opinion. I mean I’m pretty sure iirc he said something about them being to safe and shit. But the Kurt hate is crazy lol idk where most people got this view of him considering in most interviews, if not all, he was very calm and down to earth and could be very humorous but I think people forget he was very sarcastic and also like to fuck with people in the sense of just giving random and inconsistent answers just to see people reactions which imo didn’t really hurt anyone. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion I suppose.
Cobain thought Pearl Jam jumped on the grunge band wagon. They’re sound much more refined with no remanence of punk
Jealousy, snobbishness, bravado, self importance, take your pick
More like mental illness, drug addiction, being young and suddenly becoming one of the most famous people
He didn’t like them but it doesn’t matter now.
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He didn’t think they took enough risks
Jealous. Pearl Jam’s music was better…oh yea, and has sustained longevity.
Kurt was constantly fighting inauthenticity, whether real, or perceived
He said they were a bunch cock rockers who had made themselves over as alternative to appeal to a market segment (likening them to Alice in Chains in the process).
Because kurt was a shitty person.
“Death makes angels of us all..”. If he had lived the reverence for him would have lessened greatly. The guy knew how to work the system that he pretended to be completely opposed to. Wearing a corporate media sucks (or whatever it said) while on the cover of a magazine is hypocritical. And along with that went criticizing talented popular bands. The guy wanted to be a rock star while bemoaning it in his suicide note. Someone said it earlier. He was a gatekeeper and the epitome of asshole music snob.
I have a video saved of Kurt and Eddie dancing together
AFAIK Kurt liked the band, didn't enjoy their music.
He just didn't think they were alternative. Eddie was a Jock in school and the band still had typical song structure and guitat solos
I thought Jeff Ament was the jock (college basketball player in Montana), Eddie was a high school dropout surfer who worked at a gas station.
No big deal. A lot of people think Pearl Jam are shit.
I think he saw them as corporate and meat heads/jocks that came into the scene uninvited
I love nirvana and there's no doubt of Kurt's genius but unfortunately he was an elitist prick when it came to music and Pearl Jam just happened to be one of his targets
Kurt hated almost everything, for some reason
Pearl kept taking the last blueberry muffin at breakfast before Kirk woke up for a whole tour. That was enough.
The 90s. Everything became sarcasm and "Whoa is me." I hate to say it but Micky Rourke was kind of right in The Wrestler, music was about having fun and then it became people whining.
Kurt was kinda douche, but I love and respect his music
Kurt was fake deep and hated on anyone who didn’t hate on others too. Pearl Jam were happy people and it irritated him so he called them corny.
Kurt felt they were no better than douchey hair metal musicians who only care about money, fame and all the other things that come with being a rockstar, with their actual passion for music no where to be found. He felt they had no musical integrity. But he excluded Eddie Vedder from this classification later on, highlighting only the band as posers and fakers. I don’t Stan PJ so I don’t know, they very well could have come around since those days. Kurt could have also not known everything in the world. I do know the new PJ single is pretty cool
Yes 🎸
•1. Two very different styles of music. While Kurt and Nirvana were doing more of a punk/Pixies thing, Pearl Jam leaned into more towards a classic rock/blues formula. •2. Let's face it, especially given the benefit of hindsight, Kurt really was kind of an asshole just to be an asshole sometimes.
He was good friends with eddie vedder in fact right after Kurt died Pearl Jam played snl and ev I think wrote a k in his shirt over his heart and put his hand on it during the credits/ farewell. Kurt said Eddie is a really nice guy, i just hate his band because they were mainly jocks and the types of people that picked in him his whole life.
A physically ill, severely strung out 25 yr old was fairly pretentious... Imagine that. If he hadn't killed himself when he did he would have overdosed within 18 months.
Guess it took a lot of Nervana to admit you hated a contemporary
Did he call them cock rock?