The one singer Kurt Cobain wanted to sound like: “I wish I could get away with that”
If you were listening to any mainstream rock music around 1993, you would hear something that sounded like Kurt Cobain. Even if people wanted nothing to do with Nirvana or anything they stood for, chances are they would have to listen to at least six other bands on the radio with a similar approach to vocal performance. This is strange because even Cobain thought he should have aimed to sound a little closer to J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr rather than what he ended up with.
When talking about the approach to rock and roll vocals in the 1990s, there are usually two camps: Cobain followers and Vedder disciples. Despite acts like Bush blatantly copying every single thing that Nirvana did to a tee, it’s arguable that just as many people were riding Pearl Jam’s coattails thanks to Eddie Vedder’s soulful croon, which could be heard in everyone from Stone Temple Pilots to Hootie and the Blowfish.
The version of Cobain that fans were hearing didn’t come from years of practising the mechanics of vocal pitch or anything. He was just singing based on how he was feeling at the time, but Dinosaur Jr may have been doing what Cobain wanted to sound like years before.
While Pixies get a lot of credit for inspiring Cobain to come up with the structure for songs like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, J Mascis may have been more crucial in bringing a sense of melody to the table. They were just as abrasive in terms of crunchy guitars as Frank Black was, but hearing Mascis’s voice is one of the most oddly comforting sounds in underground music.
His delivery just sounded like a stoner happy to have an audience listening to him, and that’s exactly how Cobain saw himself, saying, “That’s not really a character he plays–he is that person. God, I wish I could get away with that because I’ve always thought I was really close to J Mascis as a person, but I couldn’t sing like that. I have a different side to me that’s really hyperactive.”
It’s also a little ironic that Cobain considered his vicious side a deficiency since it’s half the reason so many of his tunes work. Going all the way back to the group’s single, ‘Love Buzz’, the track is a perfectly acceptable slice of garage rock until Cobain starts screaming on the chorus, which might be up there with Roger Daltrey as one of the most gloriously chaotic screams in music.
That scream had teenage angst dripping off of it whenever it came on, but it was also a voice that was full of genuine anger and sadness. Since Cobain didn’t have a proper outlet for his troubled home life, a lot of his internal problems got channelled through his music, leading to tracks that sounded genuinely terrifying, like the breakdown of ‘Scentless Apprentice’.
Mascis may have had the respect of the rest of the Seattle scene and beyond, but Cobain’s talent was never meant for just his local punk squats. Mascis could have certainly been an influence, but what Cobain created would help people get through their personal pain for the rest of rock history.
