Remembering Kurt Cobain on his Birthday, Feb. 20

Today is Kurt Cobain's birthday. BTW, who is he anyway? He was the frontman of one of the best grunge band in history, NIRVANA. Well, I think he started the grunge rock band (sort of punk rock, I believe) during the late 80's and early 90's.

He was born Kurt Donald Cobain Feb. 20, 1967 in Hoquiam, Washington and began developing interest in music at the early age of two years. (9) Love you forever and forever. He was a fan of Beatles (me too) and his favourite song was Hey Jude. His life changed at the age of seven with the divorce of his parents. He began to hate the world (most youth of today feel this way, dunno why). But at the age of 14, he had his first guitar and learned very hard to perfect and master his style. He began to "jam" with other local youth band and met Krist Novoselic on the way. Formed a band, NIRVANA. They rotated with some other musicians and found Dave Grohl as the perfect drummer. And the rest is history. He killed himself (many of his fans don't accept this) by blowing his head off with a shotgun on April 5, 1994.

On this post, I don't want to remember Kurt Cobain with his biography, you'll be able to find it anyway through internet. Rather, I would like to remember him as one of my musical influences. My influences are the Beatles, Nirvana, Metallica, Rock & Roll and 90's rock band, mainly because I learned guitar and "basics" of music with Beatles songs and Rock & Roll, I was in my adolescent and early adulthood during 90's and played mostly Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Guns & Roses, etc. But Nirvana influenced me the most, especially on Kurt's guitar playing skills and his lyrics. I'm very amazed till now how he sang with that "magical voice" (just shut up with the descriptions I used, hehe) and played his electric guitar so skillfully. I even like how he trashed his guitars and things on stage after every concerts, hehe. Musically, he wrote his own songs and melodies, and created most of their song's arrangements. If you want to really know just how musically capable Kurt Cobain is, just listen to these songs (my favourites):

1. Heart-Shaped Box (In Utero, 1993) - MTV Video Music Award in Best Alternative Video and Best Art Direction (1994)
2. Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nevermind, 1991) - MTV Video Music Award in Best New Artist and Best Alternative Group (1992), Dubbed as Anthem for Apathetic Kids of Generation X, most critically acclaimed song
3. All Apologies (In Utero, 1993) - Nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, 1995
4. Serve the Servants (In Utero, 1993)
5. Polly (Nevermind, 1991) - a very sad song
6. Scentless Aprrentice (In Utero, 1993) - great arrangement
7. Floyd the Barber - (Bleach, 1989) - creepy song
8. Sliver (Incesticide, 1992) - happy but sad song (wtf)
9. Negative Creep (Bleach, 1989) - self-hatred song
10. Oh, Me (Nirvana MTV Unplugged in New York) - cover of Meat Puppet's song from their Meat Puppets II album. A self-searching song.

As an amateur musician, I just hope that Kurt Cobain's influence in music lives on. Happy Birthday, Kurt.