It’s pretty much a rite of passage for any new band these days to cut their teeth on Nirvana covers, and it’s a testament to the band’s universal influence when musicians from all genres (and even the bands who influenced Nirvana to begin with) are more likely to play Nirvana songs than those of any other band. Today is Kurt Cobain’s birthday. He would have been 45. Here on the KEXP blog, we wanted to share a diverse selection of covers of Nirvana songs and were overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. Here is just a small sampling of the indelible stamp Kurt Cobain and Nirvana made on all of rock ‘n’ roll that followed:
EMA - Endless Nameless
Meat Puppets - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Casper Baby Pants - Sliver (double whammy... it’s Presidents Day!)
The Polyphonic Spree - Lithium
JEFF the Brotherhood - Something in the Way
Horse Feathers - Drain You
Jay Reatard - Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle
John Frusciante - Lounge Act
Dee Dee Ramone - Negative Creep
Hole - You Know You’re Right
Surfer Blood - Territorial Pissings
The Flaming Lips - Pennyroyal Tea
Ben Gibbard - All Apologies
Foxy Shazam - Drain You
Miley Cyrus - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Frank Turner - On a Plain
5 Comments
The brand-new Amanda Palmer cover of “Polly” is quite stunning:
http://youtu.be/lg0dWANc3mo
greetings from fortaleza, brasil!
thnks for the memories of our dear kurt cobain!
ps.: placebo has a great version of all apologies too :D
scott weiland has a great version of frances farmer too
Good collection, even Miley Cyrus was tolerable today. But you missed one. Kristin Hersh doing Pennyroyal Tea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bObLmKmx2hQ (It may be under the name Kristin Hersh, but this is really Throwing Muses.)
Hi from Greece
For those who don’t know it, Greece is a country where rock is very popular and the audience is big.
I personnaly, beeing 30 years old now, i am part of generation X, “raised” with NIRVANA!
It’s one of my favoutire bands and as it is natural, i have searched many things.On this search, i came across thiss radio station, KEXP. The fact that it is a Seattle radio station is very important-symbolicaly-because Nirvana and Seattle go together.
So a big “Hello” from Greece, and a wish: always... come AS you are