(Credits: Far Out / HBO Documentary Films)
Sun 22 March 2026 20:00, UK
It was always hard to really get a gauge on what Kurt Cobain wanted out of life as a musician.
As much as people loved the idea of him playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ until the end of time with Nirvana, there was a piece of him that seemed to be above the idea of being treated like a god every single time that he performed with his bandmates. He knew that he was no better than the average songwriter of yesteryear, and if he had the voice of the people for a few years, the least he could do was be brutally honest about the kind of music that he would have wanted on the charts.
But there’s a good chance that some of Cobain’s all-time favourite acts didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting on the charts. There was a lot of bands that had some great tunes in their arsenal that would become legendary like REM and Pixies, but if you were to look through the biggest bands that were in his record collection, Butthole Surfers weren’t exactly going to be given the same kind of time that The Rolling Stones used to get back in the day, even if their name was eye-catching.
Because, really, a lot of Cobain’s idols didn’t get into the business to become famous. He was in the business of making musical art every single time he played, and there was no reason to think that he would ever be on the charts when the biggest names in music at the time were Guns N’ Roses and Poison. He never wanted that kind of attention anyway, but time had a few other plans when he started performing.
Then again, it’s not like Cobain openly tried not to have a hit. No one makes songs like ‘In Bloom’ and ‘Come As You Are’ without a little bit of a desire to be on the radio, and while it took the rest of the world a few weeks to catch on and knock Michael Jackson off the top of the charts, what Nirvana was playing had an almost elementary level of simplicity compared to everything else.
Which checks out, given that Cobain was one of the biggest punk fans in his circle. He loved the idea of making music to rebel against the establishment, but compared to everyone else who was trying to copy the likes of Black Flag in the hardcore scene, he was more focused on learning from bands from the new wave scene, like Devo and The B-52s, whenever he performed.
You wouldn’t hear it from his music, but Cobain felt that new wave was where he felt the most comfortable whenever he performed, saying, “[New wave] had punk-rock roots, but it was easier to swallow for the media and middle America, and that’s kinda what I think about our music. We’re getting more new wave as the days go by. I think we’re gonna reinvent new wave. That’s what our music is sounding like, we’re using a lot more FX boxes.”
While you’re not going to hear nearly as much influence from new wave when listening to an album like In Utero, you can hear a lot of what Cobain is talking about if you look through their B-sides. Incesticide is full of songs that have that new wave angle, and when they weren’t outright covering Devo songs on the album, they were showing people some acts that they might have never given a shot to at the time like The Vaselines.
There was never any reason to think that Cobain was going to be putting on a boiler hat and make a song that Mark Mothersbaugh would have written, but it was all in the attitude. The biggest new wave acts of all time were interested in reinventing the wheel, and Cobain figured he’d do everything he could to give rock and roll a firm kick in the ass if it meant not dealing with Guns N’ Roses.
