Tom Petty thought Kurt Cobain was the last “Beatles-like figure” in music
It’s impossible for anyone to think along the lines of The Beatles.
As much as some people like the idea of trying to find that one group of guys that sound like they could take over the world, it’s not something that anyone could have ever dreamed up in a lab when talking about the greatest artists of all time. Those kinds of voices come from people outside the mainstream, but Tom Petty could always feel when the tides were changing in rock and roll during every step of his career.
That didn’t mean that he had to love every single change that occurred, though. Petty was a student of bands like the Fab Four and The Rolling Stones when he first got started, but no matter how hard he tried to pay tribute to the giants that came before him, the entire rock fanbase seemed content to put him in the same musical scene as people like the Sex Pistols and The Clash. Petty might not have minded being placed amongst Elvis Costello or anything, but he was his own unique entity.
He was punk or new wave, and when he made a name for himself, he practically solidified what heartland rock was always supposed to be. This was music that reflected the everyday life that he saw when he lived in Gainesville, and he wasn’t about to let some lackey in a suit tell him what his music was going to be. He didn’t come all this way to be told what to do, and his entire career was made out of poking and prodding the most artificial side of the music industry.
All good music had to have some heart behind it, and even if there were people out to make a quick buck, he never gave them the time of day. His friends like Stevie Nicks could easily have found themselves writing songs with people like Bret Michaels, but there’s a reason why Petty was much more comfortable singing at the MTV Awards with Guns N’ Roses than any member of Poison or Winger. But Guns N’ Roses was only priming people for something else on the horizon.
The age of teased hair was slowly starting to phase itself out, and while Axl Rose was willing to stomp out any other band in Los Angeles, Kurt Cobain had a message that was much more powerful. He might not have anticipated grunge being one of the biggest genres in the world, but the minute that ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ took off, Petty understood that there was a lot more going on in Cobain’s head than a bunch of heavy guitar riffs.
This was the kind of songwriter that would last for generations to come, and after he passed, Petty felt that the world had lost one of the true icons of the genre, saying, “I thought Kurt Cobain was the last Beatle-type figure to come into rock’n’roll. I thought he was amazing. [I jammed with Dave Grohl], but I’m not sure he’d have been happy hanging out with such old guys. Then he told me he had done his own album called the Foo Fighters…I said, You’re never gonna be happy with me if you leave that.”
And looking at the state of rock and roll music today, it’s not like anyone has come along to replace Cobain by any stretch. There are many bands that tried to ride his coattails at every opportunity, but there were still more than a few that were clearly putting on a show. Not all of them could manage to touch the same nerve that Nirvana did, but it was much easier to separate the Billy Corgans of the world from the Gavin Rossdales half the time they appeared on MTV.
But, really, the reason why another Cobain hasn’t shown themselves in recent years is because there’s a good chance that they won’t look like Nirvana. The next figure that could have that big of an impact is going to come out of nowhere, and it’s up to the rest of us to see if we can appreciate them for however long they last.
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