On the trail of Nirvana 30 years after the death of Kurt Cobain: the mystical influence of a unique group remains

In the film Last Days, by Gus Van Sant (2005), which captures what could have been Kurt Cobain's final moments, there is a very allegorical and strange sequence. When an electrician discovers Blake's corpse (a transcript of the Nirvana leader in the film), a spectral, naked body emerges from it and ascends. The filmmaker thus shows how, on April 8, 1994 (he died on the 5th, but they found his body three days later), the man died and the myth was born.

Thirty years later, Nirvana remains arguably the last great classic rock group. But not only because of its symbolic achievements – the most visible, dethroning Michael Jackson from number 1 on the US charts and making the so-called alternative rock hegemonic at the beginning of the nineties – or even because its leader died so quickly, at 27. years, after committing suicide by shooting himself. “I'm sure the way Kurt passed away has some sort of attraction for some people, but it's not a key component of the group's legacy. Even when Nirvana existed, everyone knew they would be legendary. It was a great band that played great songs that evoked deep, powerful, complicated feelings that no one had articulated before. “Those kinds of things usually last a long time,” explains the American journalist. Michael Azerrad, author of the biography Come As You Are: The Story Of Nirvana (1993, published in Spanish by Contra publishing house in 2021) and co-producer of the documentary Kurt Cobain. About A Son (2006).

Paco Pérez Bryan, who informed all of Spain in real time about Nirvana's career in his program, expresses himself in similar terms. From 4 to 3, on Radio 3. “His album Nevermind “It was already part of the history of music, although Cobain's death shocked us all,” he says. “Nevermind It was something unique. Every time she put it on she felt the feedback unique characteristic of a means of communication like radio in that time before the streaming: I knew that thousands of my listeners were enjoying it like me.”

The journalist keeps his first contact with the group vivid in his memory. “I saw them live in London, at the National Kilburn venue. I was lucky enough to see almost everything, but that night was something similar to an earthquake in the world of Rock And Roll. All the ingredients came together: rebellion, wild energy… Years later I saw them again in Honolulu the day before Cobain's wedding with Courtney Love and it still seemed the same outrage as the first time,” he recalls. At that concert, held in February 1992, there was also a young fan from Madrid named Amparo Llanos, whose life changed that night. Months later, her shock wave led her to form, together with her sister Cristina, the group Dover, the best-selling Spanish alternative rock of the nineties.

Everyone talks about the energy and attitude of the Seattle band, their melodies and their lyrics, but there are other less obvious factors in which their influence was decisive. “I think they came to show that another way of making music was possible outside of the 'cool, handsome, cool, flirty, rock star' vibe that was so fashionable at that time with Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe, etc. . For the first time, there was a certain interest in topics such as equality or feminism from up there,” explains Anxela Baltar, vocalist and guitarist. from the Galician group Bala, who was 10 years old when Kurt Cobain died and who, from that moment, became obsessed with his music until it became his favorite band. “There is another thing that I owe you and that changed my life: through Nirvana I reached the riot grrrl [movimiento de punk feminista], with whom they were very connected. And there a new world of references that were absolutely unknown to me opened up to me, doing things that girls were not supposed to do.”

Nirvana promoted in a similar way the Spanish-American singer-songwriter Irene Tremblay, who had her moment of notoriety on the scene indie Spanish with the three albums and as many EPs that she published under the name Aroah between 2001 and 2007. Proof of this is the version of Smells Like Teen Spirit with which he opened his tribute album to Nevermind that those responsible for the radio program put into circulation The island of enchantment in 2011. Tremblay was 11 years old when the original album was released. “For me it was the beginning of everything, and the first time I saw music as a form of self-expression, beyond entertainment,” he says. “I also think that for someone young who has a true passion for music it can be a great discovery, because of the timelessness of Cobain's songs. If they existed now, I think they would have succeeded too. “It would be through current media and they would sound very different, perhaps with the same energy and knowledge of the world that young people have.”

All the voices interviewed agree that Nirvana's influence on current music is not defined because there are groups that sound stylistically like them, but rather it is exerted on a more spiritual level. “When Nirvana became a massive hit, the recording industry did what it always does: it signed a lot of artists who sounded like them,” Michael Azerrad recalls. “Those bands started to disappear in the late '90s, and then something else happened: a new generation of musicians were inspired by Nirvana without sounding like them, and that's a great legacy. “Its basic idea, playing music from the heart and with passion, can manifest itself in many ways, and I see it in MIA, Lil Wayne, Lana del Rey, Dirty Projectors, the late Lil Peep, Radiohead, Post Malone and many others,” says the American critic.

It is difficult to decide whether the large number of Nirvana t-shirts that are currently seen on the street, worn mostly by people who were not yet born when the group existed, also corresponds to a claim that goes beyond aesthetics or to real listening. . Her monthly listeners on Spotify are just over 30 million, half of those of, for example, Olivia Rodrigo, but one can sense that we are dealing with something more than the display of a powerful logo. Baltar, from Bala, highlights that there is a connection with today's youth due to “the nonconformity, the anger, the turbulent and difficult context. Kurt didn't have money to pay the rent at the time he signed with a multinational, and there are few things more on the agenda than that. Kurt wrote from his core and it is easy to identify with that speech today. That nihilism is still very present, that rage of someone who does not know how to explain in words the unfairness of the reality that he is experiencing. “How wonderful that someone finds those words for you!” adds the artist.