What if Kurt Cobain hadnt killed himself?

Motley Crue

Ive always taught about this, and just wondered, what would have happened if Kurt Cobain hadnt commited sucide in April 1994. Any thoughts? I mean, in terms of the music industry, celebrity status for rock stars in general, and the popularity of Hole?

gustavo

I think he would have probably went solo at some stage , I know he was planning on collaborating with Michael Stipe .

MagnumForce

Motley Crue wrote:

Ive always taught about this, and just wondered, what would have happened if Kurt Cobain hadnt commited sucide in April 1994. Any thoughts? I mean, in terms of the music industry, celebrity status for rock stars in general, and the popularity of Hole?

Option One: he would have released one or two more nirvana Albums, than gone solo and went more and more commercial before fading away

Option Two: he would have OD'ed

Option Three: I would have killed him instead

Merrick

I think he would have tried a solo career, then burnt out and lost everything before ODing. The music industry in general wouldn't have been affected too much because everyone would have gotten sick of Nirvana anyway.

pbsuxok1znja4r

Who?


I remember a year or two ago the paper at my college did a short, humourous exploration of this hypothesis, whereby it was instead Billy Corgan who died, thus gaining an even more legendary status and success, while Cobain simply faded away into the abyss of talentlessness.

Autobot Killa

He would've dissapeared regardless. Even if he didnt kill himself, he would have become a recluse somewhere...

he would have faded away!

pbsuxok1znja4r

Funnily enough, Cobain's life has actually had zero impact on mine. I never listened to Nirvana. None of my mates listened to Nirvana. I'm pretty sure none of the bands I listen to are influenced by Nirvana. So either way he gets a big 'meh' from me.

Crucifix

I think Family Guy had a sketch somewhere in this vein which cracked me up.

Secretpint

"and remember say no to drugs"

sure if Kurt hadnt of died maybe we would have no Foo Fighters its a beautiful thought to me

JIZZLORD

he had all the makings of a tragic rock icon, where as i personally think he's over rated, you dont see moping teens wearing hoodies that say "Mozart- January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791".

John

JIZZLORD wrote:

he had all the makings of a tragic rock icon, where as i personally think he's over rated, you dont see moping teens wearing hoodies that say "Mozart- January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791".

I think I might just make such a hoodie!

If Cobain didn't commit suicide there would be more albums out that I wouldn't listen to (I reckon Grohl would eventually have formed a band regardless).

Gone West

John wrote:

I think I might just make such a hoodie!

If Cobain didn't commit suicide there would be more albums out that I wouldn't listen to (I reckon Grohl would eventually have formed a band regardless).

make 2.
I'll take one.

really.

John

I'll get back to you on that. Really.

Zombienosh

Nirvana wouldn't have been an overrated band, just a crap one.

evad_lhorg

coolsmileygirl wrote:

he would have faded away!

ooh I see it.... dont worry.

tj-music.com

Motley Crue wrote:

Ive always taught about this, and just wondered, what would have happened if Kurt Cobain hadnt commited sucide in April 1994. Any thoughts? I mean, in terms of the music industry, celebrity status for rock stars in general, and the popularity of Hole?

Nirvana were great, no doubt, but by no means should they be up there at the cult circles just because Cobain killed himself.

Beekay

There would have been no slayer!simple as that!

John

Beekay wrote:

There would have been no slayer!simple as that!

MagnumForce

Well, tbh, we wouldn't have this thread. And all these arguments, (What if Jimi, Janis, Jim, etc... had lived) are facetious because we never will know, if these legends could have amounted to anything in the end. But what I have problems with are the following:

MagnumForce wrote:

Option One: he would have released one or two more nirvana Albums, than gone solo and went more and more commercial before fading away

Option Two: he would have OD'ed

Option Three: I would have killed him instead

You are a musician yourself. Without Nirvana we wouldn't have the same opening for alternative music as there is now. Before Nevermind, what were we listening to? (I refer to option three)

scouser.tommy wrote:

Who?
I remember a year or two ago the paper at my college did a short, humourous exploration of this hypothesis, whereby it was instead Billy Corgan who died, thus gaining an even more legendary status and success, while Cobain simply faded away into the abyss of talentlessness.

I believe you are a troll, so I won't rise to your bait

JIZZLORD wrote:

he had all the makings of a tragic rock icon, where as i personally think he's over rated, you dont see moping teens wearing hoodies that say "Mozart- January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791".

Yeah, but Mozart died when he was 35. Thats so not the magic 27 is it?

AlcoholicA wrote:

Nirvana wouldn't have been an overrated band, just a crap one.

And I'll accept your point bar the fact that there are so many bands we now know because of Nirvana. Screaming trees, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains et al. After Nirvana "Made the money" the majors (or at least indies with major backing) took an interest in a phenomenally burgeoning underground scene.
The first time I heard of Leadbelly was through Nirvana. And I'll always thank them for that.

But back to the original topic...

What if Kurt Cobain hadn't killed himself?
We don't know. And never will. I was in third year when it happened and will never forget the moment I found out. The fact is he did. Which is why we probably still talk about him. Maybe because we want to know what else lay in is his mind and whether he could ever match our expectations. What would have happened to Jimi, Janis, Jim etc... had have lived?

il gatto

I was 17 when Kurt Cobaine died, and to be honest I didn't care. Papa Smut, before Nevermind we were listening to the Pixies, Sonic Youth, MC5, the Ramones and Iggy and the Stooges, just like Kurt Cobaine was. A couple of catchy tunes, memorable production and a bit of attitude wasn't amazing at the time and hasn't improved with age. There was a trawl of Grunge-alike bands that got on the gravy train, even though, if grunge could properly be defined, they probably weren't it (Soundgarden,Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots et al).
If he'd lived, I think he'd run out of ideas really quickly and all but vanish off the fame radar. Best thing I can remember about Nirvana was when Chris Novaselik said something to Slash at the MTV awards and Slash hit him over the head with a Les Paul. That was the same year Novaselik threw his bass in the air and it hit him on the head and he was concussed.

Mr Moon

Motley Crue wrote:

Ive always taught about this, and just wondered, what would have happened if Kurt Cobain hadnt commited sucide in April 1994.

I would've seen them play their concert in the point!

s8n

Mr Moon wrote:

I would've seen them play their concert in the point!

I think you mean the RDS ??

Doctor J

At the core of it all, Nirvana were just a ****ing good rock band, something that seems to get lost in all the ****e that sadly accompanies every media saturated mention of the band. Man, I remember the first time I heard them, on the TV show Raw Power I think it was, in between the Poison and Tigertailz (look them up and you'll understand why Nirvana were a breath of fresh air at the time) videos, there was a little interview with the three scruffy bastards (again, look up Tigertailz) sitting there saying "Don't buy our album, tape it off a friend" which made me laugh and then Smells Like Teen Spirit came on.

It blew me away.

It was so different to what was predominant at the time. It was real music. Perhaps hindsight has coloured how people look upon it now, but for me, hearing it at the time with all the ****, real **** music that was around, it was a revelation. It's been trendy to love them and hate them at various stages, but at the end of the day they were just a simple rock band who got caught up in the mainstream and became fodder for the likes of ****ing Hello magazine and their ilk which, in truth, they never wanted to happen and were never comfortable with. When they got big, it really was on the strength of the music. Geffen pressed only 50,000 copies of the album initially. They didn't push it, they didn't expect it to sell. As a result of thier unexpected success, people tend to get too caught up on the media aspect of it, focusing on the personality of Cobain and his private life instead of the music, which is the part that matters. He wrote some catchy rock songs and the songs were played by a good rock band, it's that simple. They weren't really revolutionary as a band but they were a revolution, believe me. Good music in a time of overproduced, formulaic image driven nothingness. Good music. All the other stuff is irrelevant.

As to the where would they be now part... I just think it's ****ing tragic that anybody reaches a point in their life where they feel the need to kill themselves, regardless of their talent or level of public exposure. The guy had a child. That is just tragic. I can't speculate on how the world would be, it's as irrelevant as all the other **** that surrounds the band.

Ph3n0m

s8n wrote:

I think you mean the RDS ??

Nope Nirvana played the point in 1991 as far as I remember

Doctor J

Weren't they scheduled to play the RDS very near to the time that he died?

Ph3n0m

Doctor J wrote:

Weren't they scheduled to play the RDS very near to the time that he died?

yup 1994, in fact it was literally a few days after he topped himself they were scheduled to play.....didnt get my money back

MagnumForce

Papa Smut wrote:

You are a musician yourself. Without Nirvana we wouldn't have the same opening for alternative music as there is now. Before Nevermind, what were we listening to? (I refer to option three)

firstly, there were plenty of bands which opened up the way for alternative music, such bands appear all of the time, if Nirvana hadnt existed then it would have been another band, anyway the hypothosis isnt about what it would be like if Nirvana hadnt existed at all, so your point is fairly invalid.

And yeah im a musician but im in no way influenced by Kurt Cobains music, i had my little phase when i was like 13/14 but i snapped out of it a few months later when my cousin gave me tapes of KISS, Whitesnake and W.A.S.P. and i realised, jesus why the hell was i listening to that Nirvana crap, this is so much better! im only 20 now so i wasnt really keyed into the music scene in 1994 when i was eight, i listened to whatever was in the house (a mixture of soft rock from the eighties from my dad, and then current pop from my sisters) so at the time i didnt even know Nirvana existed really.

Dragan

Sorry folks, but Terry Pratchett said it best in "Soul Music".

I suggest you read that and it is all the "what if XYZ never died" question answered.

MagnumForce

Dragan wrote:

Sorry folks, but Terry Pratchett said it best in "Soul Music".

I suggest you read that and it is all the "what if XYZ never died" question answered.

Ive read it but unfortunatly cant remember anything about it, except the "Music With Rock In". and im not a fan of reading books more than once, give me the jist to remind me there

phasers

to be honest,he did more for himself committing suicide than he ever did with his music.
I like nirvana,but they are extremely overrated.
he ould be a nobody somewhere,perhaps Dave Grohl's butler?

Earthhorse

Uncut have a little sidebar timeline in this month's issue covering this very topic. Unfortunately, they duck the issue by basically having him never release any music again.

Personally I'd like to think that had he lived he might have cleaned up, released an album that was bad or mediocre, either through Nirvana or as a solo effort, and realised that doing so wasn't such a big deal after all. There was a nice quote from Neil Young in an interview he gave to Time recently where he says he wishes he'd had the chance to talk to Cobain and just say, "Keep recording music. Or don't. Whatever." In other words, to maybe not take the whole thing so seriously.

What happened to Cobain was tragic. As Doctor J says, when this happens to anyone it's tragic. I have little interest in anything Scott Weiland's done since Tiny Songs...but I sure am glad he's alive and I'll bet his family and friends are too. I think the very people who resent the fact that Cobain's suicide made him into an icon are perhaps more guilty of viewing him this way themselves, rather than simply being able to strip all that back and see him as a human being.

StormWarrior

If Kurt Cobain hadn't killed himself, then there would be alot more really crap music in this world.

gustavo

StormWarrior wrote:

If Kurt Cobain hadn't killed himself, then there would be alot more really crap music in this world.

:rolleyes: I suppose he was just unlucky that their album sales were so high , if they were more obscure people like you would be hailing them as genii

StormWarrior

gustavo wrote:

:rolleyes: I suppose he was just unlucky that their album sales were so high , if they were more obscure people like you would be hailing them as genii

Not at all. Some of my favourite bands are the big names like Europe and Def Leppard.

JC 2K3

Ph3n0m wrote:

Nope Nirvana played the point in 1991 as far as I remember

Nope. They supported Sonic Youth on their Europeon tour and played in the Top Hat club in Dublin(now apartments) and somewhere in Cork just before/as they were getting famous. Never a big headlining show when they were famous though.

Oh, and I'd never have heard of the Meat Puppets had Kurt not killed himself, and Meat Puppets are like, the greatest band ever - so thank you Kurt.

Dragan

MagnumForce wrote:

Ive read it but unfortunatly cant remember anything about it, except the "Music With Rock In". and im not a fan of reading books more than once, give me the jist to remind me there

Sorry for taking so long to come back to the thread!

His point was that part of the mystique and the appeal of an artist who "lives fast, dies young" is the songs they never get the write, the whole "what if scenario" is in fact, what makes them great.

The greatest songs they ever wrote were the ones they never got to write, but we desperately wish they had a chance to.

And yet, if they got to write them, they never could have lived up to the expectation we have for them.

red_ice

this post should be renamed 'what if courtney love didnt have kurt killed'...

Acid_Violet

red_ice wrote:

this post should be renamed 'what if courtney love didnt have kurt killed'...

YOU sir, (unless being cleverly sarcastic) are an idiot! She revived him several times when he OD'd? Why would she have killed him when she threatened to prove that 'she would follow him to hell and back' and thus held a gun to her head? He had a kid, there was something seriously wrong with him if he wasn't able to think clear enough to see that he was

If Kurt was still alive, there'd be a few less kids hanging around central bank and a few less suicides and self-imposed depression. Contentious as that is, I stand by it. Nirvana are totally over-rated because although they were good people want to feel like there was so much more to them but they were robbed of it by his death.

Also, does anyone else notice the bitter irony that he didn't want to be a global icon or a commercial pretentious poster-boy, yet millions have been made by putting his face on hoodies and t-shirts. He's a bit like Ché Guevara in that way. Even his journals, the first lines of which denote that he didn't want people to read them when he was dead, were published and made millions.

Acid_Violet

scouser.tommy wrote:

I remember a year or two ago the paper at my college did a short, humourous exploration of this hypothesis, whereby it was instead Billy Corgan who died, thus gaining an even more legendary status and success, while Cobain simply faded away into the abyss of talentlessness.

Do you mean that what would've happened to KC happened to BC? Pumpkins are my favourite band ever. Love them to bits, and Corgan is definitely one of the most talented song-writers of our generation at least.

senordingdong

I read a few murder conspiracies myself.
Good entertaining read...can't make any statement about the 'fact's involved anyway.

byte

Ph3n0m wrote:

yup 1994, in fact it was literally a few days after he topped himself they were scheduled to play.....didnt get my money back

At that stage though, the concert had already been rescheduled for mid-May.

red_ice

Acid_Violet wrote:

YOU sir, (unless being cleverly sarcastic) are an idiot! She revived him several times when he OD'd? Why would she have killed him when she threatened to prove that 'she would follow him to hell and back' and thus held a gun to her head? He had a kid, there was something seriously wrong with him if he wasn't able to think clear enough to see that he was

Were you there? I dont fking think so. I take it you know all the details then... about kurts plan to work with lanegan and the screaming trees and how kurt was according to a number of people 100% depression free. that bitch is an attention seeker, and around that time it was known she wasnt happy with kurt. Theres loads of evidence that says he didnt kill himself - jesus, read a fkin book. Ignorance is bliss, but if you wanna make a point back it with valid facts, ill be on the edge of my seat when the sh1t hits the fan on your arguement, dont worry i wont point and laugh... then again, you could be the type of chap who will just say 'no it didnt happen' out of pride. Its possible he did kill himself, but facts are facts.

Acid_Violet wrote:

If Kurt was still alive, there'd be a few less kids hanging around central bank and a few less suicides and self-imposed depression. Contentious as that is, I stand by it. Nirvana are totally over-rated because although they were good people want to feel like there was so much more to them but they were robbed of it by his death.

Your talking sh1te. Let it go. Self imposed depression isnt as straight forward as 'i listen to nirvana, so im gonna be depressed'. self imposed depression would be more related to someone who looks for a reason to get sad, not because of a record. Get a clue, your the exact chap that says stuff like 'eminem said gay in a song, so his records shouldnt be played'. I hate eminem - off topic. Nirvana were the first band that i ever listened to when i was a kid. I thought the songs were catchy and all that lark... i took a few years off only listening to a couple of their songs every now and then, then about a year ago we stuck on the album and gave it a listen through. Those songs are very deep, and the average teenager wouldnt have a clue whats being sung about. Musically, they are amazing, and lyrically kurt told a great story in a vivid but charming manor. His voice imo, is one of the most classic voices there is in music.

this post is rushed coz its late, ill continue on tomorrow.

John

red_ice wrote:

ill continue on tomorrow.

Is that a promise or a threat? lol

honru

JC 2K3 wrote:

Never a big headlining show when they were famous though.

They definetly played The Point the following year or 1993.

If Kurt Cobain lived, I'd say they Nirvana would have splitted up before the end of the noughties, while Grohl would continue to work on Foo Fighters. Cobain would return with a solo jobbie. Or make one of those supergroups that have been the trend recently.

That's enough hypothesis for tonight.

Nightwish

If Kurt Cobain had lived, I dont think we'd have kids who were born after 1994 wearing Nirvana hoodies.

Doctor J

Acid_Violet wrote:

YOU sir, (unless being cleverly sarcastic) are an idiot!

And YOU will be banned if you resort to personal abuse again. If you can't make your point without being civil, you won't be around here for long.

Motley Crue

i think Hair Metal might have continued a little longer, or at least the artists it contained, if it was for the fact that Cobain killed himself (or was murdered). For one thing, Nine Inch Nails and Hole etc rose to promience after his death and despite the fact that bands like The Bulletboys and Firehouse were released well taught out records and expanding on their songwriting abilites major labels were loosing intrest

Doctor J

It wasn't just labels that were losing interest, it was the record buying public too. A lot of those bands mysteriously ditched the huge, clean productions too, the saccharine power ballads and started wearing flannel shirts and non-designer ripped jeans . This was happening long before Cobain died.

360*

Doctor J wrote:

It wasn't just labels that were losing interest, it was the record buying public too. A lot of those bands mysteriously ditched the huge, clean productions too, the saccharine power ballads and started wearing flannel shirts and non-designer ripped jeans . This was happening long before Cobain died.

As much as you like Hair Metal Motley, I have to agree with Doctor J, I remember my brother was listening to Warrant (back in 96/97 when theyd gotten rid of Joey Allen and Steven Sweet for the first time) and thinking Jani must have been on something to dress that ridiculous, in flannel, and sing a song called 'A.Y.M.' which just sounded like him ripping off Alice in Chains. My brother wasnt too impressed, and dont think you would be either, but I got to say if you really want to know why Hair Metal topped itself all you have to do is check the link below. Im sorry if this is off topic I just taught id share this with the 'class'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nySlMPEm2Y

Motley Crue

360* wrote:

and thinking Jani must have been on something to dress that ridiculous, in flannel, and sing a song called 'A.Y.M.' which just sounded like him ripping off Alice in Chains.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nySlMPEm2Y

i hear what your saying both saying I actually do have that album. Note to Doctor J, not only do I know who Tigertailz are, I have their albums!lol! And note to 360* the guy from that clip playing Guitar actually married Lita Ford

On the subject of Kurt, I think that this forum has opened up a great discussion, I originally posted here because I read his wikipedia profile and it had all the discussion about him being murdered and I wondered would he have made that good of a politican for musical youth in general if he hadnt comitted suicide. The fact is he had enough heroin in his body to kill a horse when he died, and yet asides from drugs the media brought 'depression' into the fold. Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison both od'd and at the time they were musical spokespersons as far as the youth were concerned. The fact that Kurts death is so, and will remain so, puzzling is prob the thing that draws us closer to it.

My friend also said that apparently Kurt's nanny and a b/f or g/f where in the house the day before he died, and heard footsteps, called out his name and got no response and were so creeped out they left the house...he was found dead the next day. Is there any truth to this? And Layne Staley is supposed to have died of a heroin overdose in Argentina 8 years to the day after Cobain