{"id":308717,"date":"2026-02-20T22:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/308717\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T22:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:11:08","slug":"happy-birthday-to-the-most-overrated-artist-of-the-90s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/308717\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday To The Most Overrated Artist Of The 90s"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got in some hot water recently for suggesting that The Beatles were overrated.<\/a><\/p>\n

As one of my readers put it, “Saying the Beatles are over-rated is like Michael Jordan was an average basketball player. Please. Keep listening to Quiet Riot and Poison I guess.”<\/p>\n

Well, Chris, I’m not particularly fond of Quiet Riot and Poison either, but more to the point, I stand by what I said.<\/p>\n

The only other musical act I can think of that rivals the Beatles in terms of being overrated is Nirvana, and today just so happens to be Kurt Cobain’s birthday, so what better time to roast the late grunge star than today?<\/p>\n

READ: Top 5 Most Shocking Deaths In Rock History<\/a><\/p>\n

I was born in November 1992, so I was only a year and a half old when Cobain met his tragic end at the age of 27, but my whole life I had been told what a mythical creature Kurt Cobain was.<\/p>\n

I heard all about how Nirvana was the most influential band of the 90s and how Cobain was a “genius” and the “voice of a generation,” and I have to say, after listening to large parts of Nirvana’s catalog throughout my life, I remain wholly unimpressed.<\/p>\n

Let me first meet all the Nirvana fanatics halfway: I like some Nirvana songs.<\/p>\n

The first side of Nevermind is quite enjoyable and a great rock album, and I also think there are parts of In Utero that are solid, but other than that, it’s hard to find much else to come away impressed with.<\/p>\n

Everything off of their first album, Bleach, is either uninteligible garbage or two chords accompanied by screaming, and everything after that is good at best, so to say he is a “genius” feels like a reach.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s the mythos of Kurt Cobain that I just can’t stand, because he gets propped up as this misunderstood guitar visionary but, by all accounts, he was a horrendous guitar player who almost scoffed at the idea of skill and technique, saying they “got in the way of originality.”<\/p>\n

What a pretentious thing to say!<\/p>\n

Speaking of being pretentious, his lyrics were garbled messes, so much so that Weird Al actually parodied them in his song “Smells Like Nirvana.”<\/p>\n

Cobain was quoted multiple times saying his lyrics had no meaning and only changed his tune on that once he realized he sounded more like a tortured artist that way.<\/p>\n

As far as his actual singing voice, that may have been the weakest tool in his toolbox.<\/p>\n

He vacillated wildly between whiny and screaming and this, along with his guitar playing, was supposed to be seen as some “anti-establishment” shot at corporate rock.<\/p>\n

“Hey guys, being bad at things is cool!”<\/p>\n

I think it was all just a big coping mechanism because he didn’t have the talent of a Billy Corgan or Jerry Cantrell.<\/p>\n

That brings me to another point: why is Nirvana held up as this paradigm-shifting, revolutionary band, when other contemporary acts were far more talented and sounded better?<\/p>\n

Alice in Chains absolutely laps Nirvana, as do Stone Temple Pilots and the Smashing Pumpkins in both musicianship and writing ability, but because Cobain was some morose nihilist with a baggy sweater, he’s the Chosen One?<\/p>\n

I want to reiterate that I like some Nirvana songs. I just don’t know why Cobain and the rest of the band got anointed as gods.<\/p>\n

Maybe I’m just mad that Nirvana nuked my precious hair metal movement, but if you gave me the choice between party anthems and being depressed 24\/7, I think I would choose the former over the latter.<\/p>\n

All those hair metal bands could play circles around Nirvana, and I know skill isn’t everything, but it sounded good in addition to being lightyears more talented.<\/p>\n

The fact that Cobain was hailed as the “voice of a generation” is embarrassing for Gen X.<\/p>\n

He was a mopey drug addict who hated anyone that listened to his music who wasn’t as messed up as he was.<\/p>\n

And that goes for any of you rushing to defend this guy: he would have hated you too.<\/p>\n

If you liked sports, were traditionally masculine, voted republican, or liked any of the “popular” bands of the era then Cobain probably thought you were the scum of the earth.<\/p>\n

He was a deeply troubled guy who wrote some good songs and died tragically young, but let’s stop short of saying he was a genius and that Nirvana was the best band of their era.<\/p>\n

They weren’t even the best band to come out of Seattle in the 90s.<\/p>\n

And if your response to all this is “oh you had to be there, you’re too young to understand,” then just save it.<\/p>\n

My favorite band (Van Halen) was formed almost 20 years before I was born and a lot of my favorite music came out years before I was even musically aware.<\/p>\n

So, go listen to some Nirvana and appreciate what the guy did for rock music, but spare me the talk of Cobain being the musical equivalent of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Okay, now that I’ve pissed you off, feel free to email me and tell me how awful a take this was at austin.perry@outkick.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I got in some hot water recently for suggesting that The Beatles were overrated. As one of my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-308717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}