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Kurt Cobain 1967-1994

Nirvana begins to look much more like a plain old punk band that happened to exist at the heart of a cultural movement they wanted nothing to do with. Their influences-- not the classic rock roots of their Seattle brethren, but 70s post-punk and 80s college rock-- spoke to this categorization. Approximating Nirvana's sound with the time-honored [band] + [band] = [band] equation leads you to such dazzling dream-sums as Buzzcocks meets Sonic Youth, Vaselines meets Melvins, or Pixies meets RaincoatsThere will always be those who insist that Nevermind was more of cultural import than musical, but they will also be full of shit: Nirvana are, a decade later, still regarded as the greatest and most legendary band of the 1990s.
Ryan Schreiber