(Credits: Far Out / Nirvana)
Mon 3 November 2025 18:00, UK
Kurt Cobain was never in love with the idea of grunge becoming one of the biggest genres in the world.
As far as he was concerned, the genre was meant to be a fairly niche community of people who played music for the sake of playing, and things were bound to take a different turn when they started to make commercials with kids wearing flannel shirts. But Cobain had yet to realise that there were certain levels of corporatisation that alternative music would be stooping to in the years to come.
But as far as everyone in Seattle was concerned, turning their scene into an entire movement was bound to be a huge mistake. Most of them didn’t even acknowledge “grunge” as a proper term, but when the music press started running with it, all the industry executives saw was dollar signs and were on the hunt for any joker with a guitar in their hands that was willing to mess up their hair and write songs about depression.
If you look at what Nirvana did for the community, though, that was never how they thought about their music. Cobain always wanted to make music that channelled genuine emotion, which explains why ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ sounded the way it did. He was rallying against everything that was pissing him off about the way the industry worked, but he probably didn’t expect the idea to go over everyone’s head the minute that the video blew up on MTV.
For all he knew, Nirvana were making a piece of art, but the blazing speed of the genre taking off was bound to do a number on him. He made sure to manage his fame the way he wanted to by putting out an artsy album like In Utero and refusing to have a proper stadium tour for Nevermind, but if there was one thing that he wanted to avoid at all costs, it was going into easy-listening territory.
That was reserved for the true music legends, and while he was a major Beatles fan, he would have never wanted to be thrown into the same category that Paul McCartney was in. There were no whimsy or silly love songs to be found in Nirvana’s catalogue, but when he saw that grunge was being turned into literal elevator music, he couldn’t help but break into a sad grin that the genre was officially dead.
As far as he was concerned, turning grunge into Muzak was the final nail in the coffin for the movement, saying, “It’s an obvious thing to happen, you know? It’s great, sure. It’s the last chapter in the book of grunge.” Then again, Cobain was a little disappointed to not see much of his music included among the other grunge favourites, saying, “We have some pretty songs. That’s really a bummer.”
And it’s not like the band was too “aggressive” to be considered for the easy-listening treatment. Tunes like ‘Dumb’ and ‘All Apologies’ are absolutely stunning for what they are, and going back to their magnum opus, something like ‘Come As You Are’ could have definitely worked as decent elevator music as well.
But maybe that was a blessing in disguise as well. That meant that Cobain was able to keep his integrity intact and hear the kind of music that reflected where he was at the time. Then again, if he liked the idea of their music being interpreted by the safest genre imaginable, maybe he would have gotten a kick out of hearing someone like Paul Anka turn ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ into a swing number.
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