Kurt Cobain was best known for his voice, songwriting skills, and overall cult of personality as the frontman of the legendary grunge outfit Nirvana. However, he deserves a bit more credit for being an incredible guitarist as well. Let’s take a look at just four guitar tracks that prove Kurt Cobain was a top-notch grunge guitar player!
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1. “Negative Creep”
This Bleach track is a fan favorite for a reason. It’s a white-hot, aggressive track with a pummelling guitar riff from Cobain. “Negative Creep” also features some of Cobain’s most screechy and memorable vocals on the album, in our opinion. It’s your standard grunge riff that Nirvana helped catapult to mainstream popularity, and it still sounds so cool decades later.
2. “Breed”
“Breed” is only one of many stellar tracks on Nevermind, but we particularly love Cobain’s guitar riff on this one. It’s not as intense or inaccessible to non-grunge fans as other tracks on that album, but the guitar track is really well-written. And that fuzz-dense guitar solo toward the end? Absolutely incredible.
The guitar track on “Breed” isn’t too chaotic. In fact, it maintains the same apathetic vibe as Cobain’s vocals throughout the song. We’d be bold enough to say this is one of Cobain’s most underrated performances on that particular record.
3. “School”
This somewhat underrated track from Nirvana’s debut album Bleach features one of the best Kurt Cobain guitar tracks on the whole of the album. “School” isn’t the most lyrically dense piece on that record, but it also doesn’t need to be. The message behind this song about high school cliques and how they don’t change much in the music world is driven home by Cobain’s rebellious, pounding riff. We also love Krist Novoselic’s killer bassline on this track, too.
4. “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Kurt Cobain may have hated this track towards the end, but one can’t deny that it features one of his best guitar tracks. Cobain’s guitar riff is one of the most iconic riffs in the history of rock, and it’s easily recognizable after just a second in one’s ear. It’s simple but powerful. Newer rock bands just don’t do “raw” like Nirvana did back in the day.
Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage
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