This past weekend was the 20th Anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death and as a result, there was a brief bubble of Nirvana-related news on the radio and a lot of reflections about what impact the band had on the music and culture in general in the two decades hence- which got me to thinking about the impact they had on my musical tastes and development- (would development be the right word? I don't know.) And the weird conclusion I came too was that they were incredibly influential- just not at the time they were actually popular and on the radio.
I wasn't very adventurous, musically speaking, back in the halcyon days of my youth- I had a simple cassette player/radio and Hootie and the Blowfish's Cracked Rear View, Counting Crows' August and Everything After and Fleetwood Mac's The Dance were my first three cassettes. So yeah, I was a pretty vanilla top 40 radio type of kid. (Oh, I forgot Green Day's Dookie. They were an early purchase as well.) Back in those days, Q103 was my radio station of choice and it was that weird period of late 80s/early 90s type of music that marked my first ventures into discovering what music I liked, didn't like, etc, etc.
So I was very much aware of Nirvana, I just didn't listen to them all that much. I got wrapped up in the Ace of Base/Real McCoy/Crystal Waters type of neo-dance music that was popular back then. Open House Party with John Garabedian was my Saturday night tradition and if I listened to any grunge on the radio, it was usually Pearl Jam or this cut from Nivana's MTV Unplugged:
Then, Q103 traumatized my late junior high/early high school years by going country and after that I didn't really listen to the radio- and it's my impression that pretty much from 8th Grade until about my senior year in high school when The White Stripes, The Strokes and the rest of the new indy rock wave touched down, music pretty much blew ass. I was not a fan of the boy bands or Bubblegum pop- and I'm sure there was other great, alternative music out there- I just didn't know where to find it or even start looking. My musical taste was pretty much formed by what I could hear- or not hear on the radio.
In college, however, things changed a little and I began to explore a lot more. I got really into The Cure and The Clash and The Sex Pistols and Joy Division and then (it was nowhere near as horrifying then as it is now) I started to hear Stone Temple Pilots on the radio- the classic rock station of all things and that lead me back into grunge. I hit up Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden.* and rediscovered a lot of old music from back in the day that I had forgotten about entirely. It was like meeting an old friend over again- not that I was all that anxious to think about how wonderful Junior High was, but there was just so much music I had forgotten about- and, more to the point, I had forgotten how much I loved it. Nirvana was one of those bands.
So, did they change my life? Did they make me want to learn an instrument and get my angst out in moody lyrics and plaid shirts? Not really- but they will forever be associated with those twin periods in my life where I first started listening to the radio and discovering music for myself. And while that might not seem like a lot to some people, it's a big deal to me.
*Best story ever from back in those days- Eldest Cigar Sister was out looking for a Savage Garden album and accidentally purchased a Soundgarden Greatest Hits CD. Guess who got to keep that?
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