Kurt Cobain’s favourite albums of the 1980s
Even though he’s regarded as the founding father of grunge, Kurt Cobain was an avid fan of a broad variety of music. You only have to listen to the melodicism of Nevermind and In Utero, or note how Nirvana covered acts as varied as David Bowie to the Meat Puppets and Shocking Blue to realise that Cobain was a music obsessive who was simply searching for a way to express himself in a way that encompassed all of his listening habits.
It’s impossible to tell what direction Nirvana would have gone in had Cobain not passed away after the band’s third album, but given how each record felt like an expansion on the last, you can assume that things would’ve gotten even more experimental or varied. If Nevermind was a dismissal of Bleach’s rawness in favour of writing more accessible hooks, then In Utero was a widening of the scope for what the band could achieve. There was no cap on what Nirvana could’ve achieved as a group; only the demise of their singer got in their way.
When it comes to the sort of music that Cobain was interested in, many people instantly call to mind his handwritten list of his favourite albums of all time. While classic acts like The Beatles make the cut – although with their early US-only release, Meet The Beatles! – there are plenty of obscure picks that make you wonder just how vast his musical knowledge truly was. It’s probable that if you walked into a record store in Seattle in the late 1980s, you’d have found Cobain curiously flicking through LPs and picking out anything that caught his fancy.
His eclectic array of 50 favourite selections includes 33 albums and EPs from the 1980s; a decade which would have been incredibly formative for Cobain in establishing his music taste. Within his ‘80s picks are punk heroes, noise rock pioneers and experimental provocateurs in equal measure, but none of his selections smack of pretentiousness or a deliberate ploy to seem interesting; they paint a picture of a man with an extreme passion for growing a record collection that offered him new things to explore.
From the start of the decade with minimalist post-punk of Cardiff trio Young Marble Giants’ sole album, Colossal Youth, to the freakish and controversial It’s Only Right and Natural by The Frogs at the tail end, there’s plenty to be discovered within Cobain’s stash of recommendations for people who might be looking to branch out. On the other hand, the familiarity of the likes of The Clash’s Combat Rock and REM’s Green suggests that even though he loved digging out gems from the underground, the popular groups of the era still excited him.
Appearing on the list multiple times are Wipers, a Portland punk band whose sound massively paved the way for bands like Nirvana and the wider grunge scene, along with fellow hardcore titans Black Flag, whose abrasiveness can be felt massively in the earliest material of Nirvana. Butthole Surfers make it onto the list on a couple of occasions as well, with the experimental rock group clearly flicking a switch in his head rather than leaving him perturbed like they did with many listeners.
It’s fascinating to rifle through the treasure trove of records in Cobain’s list, even if it is to pick out details of how he prefers Daniel Johnston’s Yip/Jump Music over Hi, How Are You? despite famously owning a t-shirt of the latter, and how he highlights Pixies’ Surfer Rosa as a favourite, with producer Steve Albini going on to assist Nirvana with In Utero and giving it a similar sound. Cobain’s taste in music is endlessly fascinating to dive into, and this list is just a fantastic insight into his habits during the decade when it all began for him.
Kurt Cobain’s 33 favourite records from the 1980s:
- Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth (1980)
- Wipers – Is This Real? (1980)
- MDC – Millions of Dead Cops (1981)
- Saccharine Trust – Paganicons (1981, listed as 1st EP)
- Black Flag – Damaged (1981)
- Public Image Ltd – The Flowers of Romance (1981)
- Marine Girls – Beach Party (1981)
- Wipers – Youth of America (1981)
- Fang – Landshark! (1982)
- Various Artists – What Is It. (1982, listed as What Is This?)
- The Clash – Combat Rock (1982)
- The Faith/Void – The Faith/Void (1982)
- Flipper – Album – Generic Flipper (1982)
- Fear – The Record (1982)
- Butthole Surfers – Butthole Surfers (listed as Pee Pee the Sailor, 1983)
- Bad Brains – Rock for Light (1983)
- Daniel Johnston – Yip/Jump Music (1983)
- Wipers – Over the Edge (1983)
- Scratch Acid – Scratch Acid (1984, listed as 1st EP)
- Black Flag – My War (1984)
- Tales of Terror – Tales of Terror (1984)
- Swans – Young God (1984, listed as Raping a Slave)
- Shonen Knife – Burning Farm (K Records version, 1985)
- Rites of Spring – Rites of Spring (1985)
- Butthole Surfers – Locust Abortion Technician (1987)
- Pixies – Surfer Rosa (1988)
- The Vaselines – Dying for It (1988, listed as Pink EP)
- Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation (1988)
- R.E.M. – Green (1988)
- Beat Happening – Jamboree (1988)
- Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988)
- Mudhoney – Superfuzz Bigmuff (1988)
- The Frogs – It’s Only Right and Natural (1989)
