The Gen-X Kings: What did Kurt Cobain think of Radiohead?
The tragic suicide of Kurt Cobain in 1994 left fans with many questions that will never be answered. While the whys and wherefores of his death are the most heartbreaking, other, less gloomy ones concerning his art have provided much food for thought. One of the broad questions is what he would have thought of some of the other alternative icons who emerged in the 1990s, including Radiohead.
With a penchant for ease, we often think of music linearly; however, nothing in life is like this. Cross-pollination and overlap are key parts of human existence and are often crucial in significant developments unfolding. For instance, The Beatles are typically hailed as the pioneers of rock music, but things might not have happened as they did, if they didn’t end up supporting one of their heroes, Little Richard in Hamburg, who taught Paul McCartney how to scream. This was key in rock ‘n’ roll evolving into rock.
This is just one instance of overlap in music, and although we often erroneously classify them as being from different eras, Radiohead and Nirvana were both operational at the same time. Hailing from Oxford, England, Radiohead released their debut album, Pablo Honey, in February 1993. It was preceded by its hit lead single, the alt-rock classic ‘Creep’, which arrived the previous September.
Although Pablo Honey is the worst album in Radiohead’s back catalogue and is more like generic alternative rock than anything they’ve since released, according to those who knew Cobain, he was a fan of the record. It begs big questions about what he would have thought about the ensuing accomplishment of 1995’s The Bends – a rock band highlight – and all of the more experimental refinement they would later enact.
Cobain’s Radiohead and Pablo Honey fandom was revealed in the 2014 oral history of Hole’s 1994 album, Live Through This, in SPIN. As we know, Hole’s singer was Courtney Love, who was married to Cobain, and those around them provided insight into his liking of Radiohead.
Was Kurt Cobain a Radiohead fan?
Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson explained that the band hired producers Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade – who co-produced Pablo Honey – because of Cobain’s influence. He explained: “We picked Paul and Sean because Kurt would just sit there and watch MTV all day, and he’s like, ‘Get the guy that did the Green Day album.’ [Laughs.] Those were the videos that were on all the time then. It was Radiohead’s ‘Creep,’ and then Green Day. I remember him saying, ‘Get the Green Day producer or get the Radiohead guy.’ I don’t know what happened with the Green Day guy, but for some reason we got Sean and Paul.”
Elsewhere, Mark Kates, the famous A&R at Geffen Records, recalled that Kolderie and Slade were selected one day in a conference call with Love and manager Janet Billig. Like Erlandson, he mentioned Radiohead.
Casting his mind back, he said: “I didn’t know if anyone knew who they were, but I knew that the first Radiohead record was popular in Kurt and Courtney’s house. And I mentioned Sean and Paul, and Courtney goes, ‘Wow, Boston. The Lyres.’ I mean, it wasn’t even a band they had worked with, but she was very aware of the lineage of the music she was part of. The next thing we did was put them on the phone. And then it happened.”
It’s crazy to think, but the fact that Kurt Cobain’s love of Radiohead’s debut inspired the quality of Hole’s magnum opus reflects how crucial cross-pollination and cultural overlap are to music’s development.
