From David Bowie to Aerosmith: Kurt Cobain’s favourite albums from the 1970s
During the 1990s, the American rock scene was dominated by the abrasive sounds of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. From their humble beginnings within Seattle’s blossoming grunge scene, taking cues from the likes of Melvins and Mudhoney, Cobain’s band soon transcended that underground scene to become titans of the musical mainstream. Even today, three decades after the songwriter’s tragic passing, Cobain’s songwriting is still as relevant as ever. This timeless quality is largely a result of Cobain’s incredibly broad range of influences.
When Cobain was in his adolescence, the world of mainstream rock in America could not have been further away from what he wanted to hear. Bubblegum rock imbued with hyper-masculine intolerance and, often, misogyny, Cobain could find nothing to relate to in the sounds of mainstream pop rock. Inevitably, therefore, the budding young songwriter found solace in the world of DIY punk, post-punk, and indie.
Immersing himself in the defiant sounds of groups like Gang Of Four, The Slits, and The Vaselines, Cobain’s early listening habits helped to lay the foundations for the formation of Nirvana later down the line.
Although much of Cobain’s life remains a mystery, the controversial publication of his journals back in 2002 helped to provide some stunning insights into the mind and interests of the Nirvana frontman. For instance, Kurt Cobain: The Journals features an exhaustive list of 50 albums which Cobain listed as his all-time favourites. Among them, there are the expected artists like Mudhoney, Black Flag, and The Butthole Surfers, as well as a few notable curveballs.
If you wanted, you could easily trace the origins of Seattle’s grunge scene back to the punk movement of the 1970s. The decade was instrumental in putting the musical means of production into the hands of ordinary people, bringing forth countless innovative DIY artists that Cobain adored. In fact, almost ten per cent of Cobain’s ‘favourite albums’ list came from the 1970s, ranging from the proto-punk of The Stooges’ Raw Power to the pop rock of The Knack.
Perhaps most notably, Cobain’s list shows an obvious appreciation for the early punk wave, listing groups like the Sex Pistols, The Saints, and, of course, Gang Of Four as particular highlights. The legendary Leeds band were so influential on Cobain that he once described Nirvana’s early period as being “a Gang Of Four and Scratch Acid ripoff”. The songwriter also showed a healthy love for pioneering female punk bands like The Raincoats and The Slits, with ‘Typical Girls’ being one of his all-time favourite tracks.
Elsewhere in Cobain’s 1970s highlights, he picks out the often overlooked David Bowie record, The Man Who Sold The World. Marking Bowie’s move from acoustic-led music to out-and-out rock, the unique tones of the record clearly made an impression of a young Cobain, who went so far as to cover the album’s title track with Nirvana.
Speaking about that beloved cover version, Bowie himself once mused, “It’s a very sad rendition, of course, because it is so tied up with his own life and death. So it takes on all these different shades for me”.
Cobain’s list of favourite records from the 1970s reads like the shopping list of a particularly obsessive music fan, let loose in a record store with an unlimited budget. While the mainstream picks on there, like Sex Pistols or even Aerosmith, are not particularly in keeping with his DIY punk ethos, the presence of groups like The Saints and The Raincoats suggest that the songwriter spent many years drowning in piles of records before having his own success story.
Kurt Cobain’s favourite 1970s albums:
- The Stooges – Raw Power (1973)
- Gang Of Four – Entertainment! (1979)
- Sex Pistols – Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols (1977)
- The Knack – Get the Knack (1979)
- The Saints – Eternally Yours (1978)
- The Raincoats – The Raincoats (1979)
- Aerosmith – Rocks (1976)
- The Slits – Cut (1979)
- David Bowie – The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
