Stop the Nirvana lovefest, please

Vh1 had another idiotic special: "Top 100 songs of the 90s". Vh1 hasn't played music since 1999, instead they have LAME specials like "Top 100 One-Hit Wonders" or "Top Ten Celebrity Meltdowns". Anyways, this list (as you may have guessed) had Nirvana's Smell Like Teen Spirit at number one. Like I didn't see that one coming. It was a really good song back in the day; it was much better than most of the crap coming out in the early 90s. In fact, I have no complaints for most of their songs. They were notable rock songs chock full of catchy, simple riffs. The two biggest misconceptions about Nirvana is that 1) they were revolutionary and 2) Kurt Cobain was a 90s John Lennon.

Nirvana was basically a punk revival band. They followed the underproduced, stripped-bare model of the Sex Pistols and Stooges. But they took their biggest cues from the Pixies. The whole loud-soft-loud dynamic came from the Pixies and even if Kurt admitted that "smells like teen spirit" was a homage to their style. They brought the style back in an era of overproduced songs. That was a significant event in the early 90s, but it wasn't a one-of-a-kind thing at all.

Second, Kurt Cobain was nowhere close to a John Lennon. John Lennon was an activist and musician who transcended his time. Kurt Cobain was apathetic, in contrast. He would never write a song like "imagine" because he wasn't an idealistic man. He was more of an anarchist, if anything.

Third, Kurt was NOT one of the greatest guitar players ever. I see his inclusion in non-guitar magazines and it makes me sick. Basically, his guitar solos fell into two categories: following the melody of the song note for note or playing a dyssynchronous fuzzed-out mess. His rhythm parts were solid, but unexceptional. Nothing wrong with that because that was kind of the point of grunge music: straightforward and devoid of fluff. In short, he wasn't in the same ballpark as Jimmy Page or Eddie Van Halen, which is just fine.