Musical Artists Desperately Trying to Sound Like Kurt Cobain

[Mal Shot First]

In this thread, we collect songs in which vocalist try their very best to sound like Kurt Cobain. Just to preempt Goiter's posting of that Seether song, I'll start us off with it (in before Goiter).

[Mal Shot First]

There's also "She Hates Me" by Puddle of Mudd.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

[Nickelback song goes here.]

[Early Silverchair song goes here.]

[That one Vines song goes here.]

[Space Tycoon]

Me on open mic night. Either Cobain, or Jim Morrison.

I do a better Morrson.

[Mal Shot First]

[Nickelback song goes here.]

If Chad Kroeger is actually trying to sound like Cobain then he's failing (as if that were a big surprise). I never thought he got anywhere close to that sound. If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have never thought that's what he was going for.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

People always bring up Kroeger and Nickelback when talking of Cobain and Nirvana ripoffs. I didn't quite hear it at first, since I wasn't all that familiar with their stuff, but by actively trying to listen for it, I began to hear how it was a goal they were shooting for. They miss the mark the way you'd expect them to miss any mark.

It's easiest to hear in songs like "How You Remind Me." They borrow the loud-quiet-loud dynamic that Nirvana borrowed from the Pixies in that one. The thing about Nirvana borrowing it, though, is that they infuse it with enough idiosyncrasy for it to sound uniquely them. "How You Remind Me" sounds like any number of entries into the generic post-grunge catalog. It's vaguely Nirvana-esque, but the lyrics are unmemorable, the vocals are too polished, and the music has a dull and metronomic quality. It's Nirvana by way of 3 Doors Down. (3 Doors Down, in turn, strikes me as a Plain Janing of the already Plain Jane sound of bands like Matchbox 20.)

Here's "How You Remind Me" for anyone who can stomach it:



* * *

Here's some clearly Nirvana-inspired stuff from early in Silverchair's career:





I guess their stuff is a little more forgivable. Their first album was recorded when they were all fifteenish. Most of them were still teens when they recorded their third album. They also moved away from this sound eventually.

Here's where they would eventually go with their sound:





It seemed like there was always some talent there, but with their first couple of albums, it felt like they'd only ever listened to one band. It reminds me of the situation with the Beatles copycats from the late sixties.

I guess the lesson with Silverchair is this: do your best not to get a major record deal until after you've put on some years and broadened your range of influence.

* * *

Here's that one Vines song:



It came under fire for sounding too much like a Nirvana ripoff. I can hear it, but I almost hear more Hole than Nirvana. It also has a mini bridge (1:23-1:30) that sounds pretty un-Nirvana like.

The same album the above song was on also had songs like this:



There's more Beatles there than Nirvana.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

If this thread goes on for a while, I imagine we'll eventually arrive at the "Kurt Cobain borrowed/stole lots of shit, too!" point. Boston's "More Than a Feeling" will be mentioned, as will Killing Joke's "Eighties," Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla," the Cure's "M," and the Pixies in general.

[Mal Shot First]

"Lie to Me" sounds like they were aiming for something like Nirvana's "Tourette's." "Tomorrow" sort of sounds like Cobain singing a Pearl Jam song.

And yeah, wow, "Get Free" almost seems like it was intended as a pastiche of Nirvana. The vocalist's grimacing in the video is pretty funny - I wonder if it was intentional.

[Mal Shot First]

If this thread goes on for a while, I imagine we'll eventually arrive at the "Kurt Cobain borrowed/stole lots of shit, too!" point. Boston's "More Than a Feeling" will be mentioned, as will Killing Joke's "Eighties," Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla," the Cure's "M," and the Pixies in general.

I'm not saying that no band ever "borrowed" anything from another band, but I think Nirvana's borrowing usually extends only to the music. I feel like that's often less obvious than trying to copy another band's vocals, especially when the voice is so characteristic.

For me, that's often what stands out the most about any memorable musical act. For example, I'd recognize Eminem right away by his voice. It seems somehow more pathetic to emulate that part of another band's sound than the actual music.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I didn't think you were saying that. I was referring to the general direction threads like this take on message boards across the Internet.

Vocal copycatting is inevitable--especially when somebody with a unique sound arrives on the scene and makes a big splash. These guys all hit within a couple years of one another:









You occasionally even had situations like the one with Ricky Nelson, where he started out having one look and sound and then morphed to be more Elvis-like once Elvis hit it big. Here's some post-Elvis Ricky:



It's hard to find clips of pre-Elvis Ricky Nelson singing, but you can find some pre-Elvis (and prepubescent) clips from Here Come the Nelsons. His look and his speech patterns were obviously Elvised some time in the mid-fifties. I think there may even be mention on his Wikipedia article of him consciously trying to ape Elvis to impress a girl.

There are other artists, like Buddy Holly and Charlie Feathers, who appear to owe at least some debt to Elvis, the same way Elvis owes at least some debt to Carl Perkins. You see a lot of unabashed Elvisness it in Early Rockabilly. There were some artists who distinguished themselves from the pack in a big way (Jerry Lee Lewis comes to mind), but others seemed content to stay deep in the groove cut by Perkins and Presley.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Might as well add Michael Pitt's and Jared Leto's conscious copies: