How would Nirvana/Kurt's legacy have fared if he hadn't died?
What would he be up to ? ?
>>60947098
making his new pop album
They'd probably be on Manson or Smashing Pumpkins level, a voice of the 90s band/singer who made some good music. Nirvana most likely wouldn't be so jerked off over if he was still alive.
One hit wonder doing the festival circuit. Everyone who sees him are bored until he plays Smells Like Teen Spirit
>>60947098
I swear to god it's zach from diiv making these threads
anyway idk making pop music?
well he wouldn't be anywhere near as famous and that would change the dynamic completely
>>60947151
>>60947149
>>60947098
Nirvana would be one of those forgotten bands, also no foo fighters. Everybody wins
His effect on the music industry and fashion and popular culture at large was already in full force before he died. The world wouldn't have suddenly reverted back to 1990 if he didn't die. What's done was done. His death imparted a kind of tragic romanticism and iconicity but that's ultimately extraneous to what he already accomplished.
Like Greil Marcus said, if Cobain had nothing else but write and record Smells Like Teen Spirit, he'd already have a strong claim as the most iconic figure of the 90s.
He was already frustrated with being seen as a "grunge rocker" and wondered in interviews if he could ever be seen as just a songwriter, without all the connotations that had been attached to him. Critics have suggested that Cobain could've revolutionized folk music like he had rock. Unplugged suggested he was capable of shrugging off grunge and doing more great things, but then "You Know You're Right" was as generic of a grunge song as you can get so who knows what would have happened.
Taste is worth a lot, and Cobain had great taste. Better taste than his contemporaries. That could've been his saving grace, what could've kept him from becoming a tired grunge legacy act.
>>60947557
if only courtney didn't kill him
he would be other Scott weiland at best
apparently kurt wanted to quit the band and move to the east coast
>>60947380
>>60947557
He'd probably be bowie-level
ykyr sounds generic in retrospect because basically all buttgrunge copied it's template (unknowingly, seeing as how it wasn't released til what, 2000?)
>>60947557
Cobain was arranging to record with Michael Stipe shortly before he died and he allegedly had plans to wrap up his Nirvana commitments and go solo as an acoustic artist. Who really knows where his career could have gone if he hadn't died?
I can imagine his popularity waning compared to his 90s heyday but still having a sizeable indie following were he still around today.
>>60947149
You know how he'd also be on those bands' levels? He'd be someone who was totally washed up and irrelevant at this point, since the edginess of being a heroin addict, having a kid with an ugly whore, and not bathing would've worn as thin as Manson's Antichrist Superstar schtick and Smashing Pumpkins' "voice of the depressed little teenager" schtick.
If he hadn't killed himself then, he'd wish he had by now, if only by looking at his wife and child and asking himself "man, what the fuck did I do with my life?". His career would be dead, but at least Grohl would've probably stuck around long enough for the hype train to screech to a halt; there wouldn't be any Foo Fighters without Nirvana's unhindered success to coast on.
>>60947098
Modern day pearl jam
>>60949096
Even less relevant, pj was more popular than nirvana(before Cobain death)
>>60949040
I'm trying to think of someone who was able to successfully shed that sort of tender-teenage schtick that was big in the 90s. Is Trent Reznor the only good example or are there more ?
>>60949289
I don't think there are. Bands that got big in the 90s liked to stick close to what made them big (especially nu metal bands), so I think Trent's the only one who came close, and even he relapsed into it for a bit on "With Teeth". Everybody else either died, broke up, or wore the schtick down to nothing and faded into obscurity like Manson.
Getting a heroin overdose in 1997.
>>60947149
You're implying Smashing Pumpkins aren't still jerked off to to ridiculous levels.
>>60947151
>implying they didn't have like 6 hits
IMO: he would have been just like Scott Weiland. Twenty-five years of pathetic mediocrity, then dead in a bus stoned out of his gourd.
I don't see any way his story ends happily.
![kurt-cobain-suicide-note[2].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oDcrFYu.jpg "kurt-cobain-suicide-note[2].jpg")
Here is what the next Nirvana album would sound like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoTnXFzmav0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY_HbFr3qc8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uukOdFdyqVQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suLBicNT-XA
>>60949377
They are, but they didn't end on a good note.
>>60947557
I mean, I heard them play You Know You're Right before a Godspeed show and I noticed minor post-rock elements. What do you think the chances are he'd heard Soundtracks for the blind? We know he's heard SWANS.
![a3b22fc2f686f9ace46f056bf70e963e[2].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/EL6leU7.jpg "a3b22fc2f686f9ace46f056bf70e963e[2].jpg")
Friendly reminder he was MURDERED
Playing the Superbowl with Billy Corgan
>>60949417
Oh yeah Kurt loved Soundtracks for the blind, his favorite record actually. He was quoted saying "This is a hella fucking epic jam bro!"
After In Utero they would go all MBV and start taking 10 years to release albums.
Their reputation would be similar to Radiohead's once the grunge fad died out.
>>60948218
Yeah, I was thinking of Bowie when I was talking about taste. He's a good example of someone who's star has faded but still does his own thing and is taken seriously.
>>60948239
On the acoustic/solo/folk note, I always wonder if his influence could have continued in that realm. Some people mistakenly believe his influence was limited to FM buttrock, when Arcade Fire and AnCo and St Vincent and hell, punk, emo, the entire gamut of indie is loaded with Nirvana fans. I wonder if he went the folk route, if the 00s indie folk boom would have maybe sounded any different? Less pastoral and quirky. He could've still effected music outside of commercial rock.
>>60949289
Reznor never really entirely abandoned it, and he was always more cartoonishly angsty than Cobain could ever bring himself to be. Reznor expanded into film scores, but NIN is more or less what it always was. The last album was called HESITATION MARKS. I mean, c'mon.
>>60949417
Soundtracks released in 96. I don't personally hear any post-rock in his music, but if other people do, I would attribute those elements to Sonic Youth.
>>60949659
>>60949417
No he would have gone more in a the drone direction ala Earth, Dylan Carlson was his best friend, after all.
>>60947098
we would have never gotten THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST
>>60947557
YKYR was never meant to be as big as it was, let alone released the way it was. It was just a half-baked song that nirvana jammed to before Kurt died, and after the fact it gained notoriety as being the last-ever recorded nirvana song.
>>60947098
Kurt would have come out of the closet
how many people here think he actually may have been killed?
>>60950650
he's not dead, dude...
I would at least have some faith that he wouldn't go the lame dad rock route Dave went.
Honestly I think he was just destined to die. If he didn't kill himself in 1994 he would have killed himself in a later year.
Some people are just kind of like that I guess. Just the way he was and the things he did and sang and wrote in his journals paint him as a walking tragedy that had been ready to be gone for some time before he actually did it.
>>60949440
Sqaked in Bleach
