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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think Kurt Cobain was ahead of his time (feminism, racism, homophobia)

218 replies

AllisoninWunderland · 18/09/2021 22:58

I’ve just been watching the documentary about him (man I loved him).

Aside from changing the face of music and fashion in the early 90s, aibu to think he was way ahead of his time in his views?

This is from the liner notes of their album “Incesticide,” they warned:

“If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us — leave us the f- alone! Don’t come to our shows and don’t buy our records.” The liner notes to their next album, “In Utero,” echoed that admonition: “If you’re a sexist, racist, homophobe or basically an ahole, don’t buy this CD. I don’t care if you like me, I hate you.”

He was an extremely sensitive man, highly tuned into ‘the under-dog’, a supporter of people of colour, women and the LGBTQ community.

What a waste 😢

OP posts:
SpittinKitten · 18/09/2021 23:37

@Spysolation

I would really love to learn about a male musician who created incredible art without leaving a trail of destruction and women to pick up the pieces.
Liberace meets at least half your criteria...
Demelza82 · 18/09/2021 23:39

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Wotwhywhen · 18/09/2021 23:44

David Bowie, he was a pioneer.
Most artists, including musicians and actors etc are very liberal and accepting... In public..
But, as always, watch their actions, ignore their words.

Tana433 · 18/09/2021 23:49

He was just rhe most beautiful man wasnt he. I didnt appreciate him at the time, sadly i only discovered him after his death but i am a bit obsessed with him.

Warmduscher · 18/09/2021 23:49

God, some of you respondents are dumb as a bag of bricks. Nobody cares what YOU, a nobody with no talent or influence recall what you MAY have thought or would like to have thought you thought 30 years ago. Re-read the original post.

You sound nice.

SpittinKitten · 18/09/2021 23:49

@Wotwhywhen

David Bowie, he was a pioneer. Most artists, including musicians and actors etc are very liberal and accepting... In public.. But, as always, watch their actions, ignore their words.
Agree with the last sentence. I have no time for men who screw underage girls, so refuse to put Bowie on a pedestal for his "pioneering".
GADDay · 18/09/2021 23:49

Kurt Cobain was a fanfuckingtastically talented musician and lyricist.

He was also nihilistic in the extreme and he was an addict. His relationship with Love was mutually dysfuntional IMO. They fuelled the worst in each other.

No way of knowing if he was a total waster of a father - clearly the drugs had a stronger hold than his baby daughter did. The terrible tragedy of addiction.

It would be impossible to say he was a goodun.

AlexaShutUp · 18/09/2021 23:50

Goodness, most people I knew in the late eighties/ early nineties were feminist, anti racist and anti homophobic. His views were hardly ahead of his time. The fact that we seem to have gone backwards since then is a slightly different issue...

Spysolation · 18/09/2021 23:50

Bowie’s actions were hardly squeaky clean were they .

BettysGotMoxie · 18/09/2021 23:55

*Yes, he did share views that people had held for many, many years beforehand. But he was also a junkie cocklodger who rinsed his first serious girlfriend only to dump her when his career took off.

Don't put humans on a pedestal just because they made records you liked as a teenager.*

This, with bells on. From a huge nirvana fan.

Wotwhywhen · 19/09/2021 00:02

@Spysolation

Bowie’s actions were hardly squeaky clean were they .
No they weren't, but, the era he was first mainstream, the very early 70s, it'd only been legal to be gay for like 5 years. Then here he comes into TOTP, in front of 15million people, puts his arms around his guitarist, another man..
Areyousure90s20s21s · 19/09/2021 00:03

God, some of you respondents are dumb as a bag of bricks. Nobody cares what YOU, a nobody with no talent or influence recall what you MAY have thought or would like to have thought you thought 30 years ago. Re-read the original post.

Are you sure everyone here is a ‘nobody, with no talent or influence?’ 😉

LindaLooky · 19/09/2021 00:05

Loving the outrage at your nice post OP. "You calling us all homophobes?? ARE YOU??"
"He was not a perfect man therefore cannot be the things you describe."

Nirvana hated that sweaty frat boys latched onto their music. I like that they told them to fuck off in their sleeve notes, maybe it made some people reconsider their views. Not many people used their platform like that.

Coyoacan · 19/09/2021 00:08

How odd. So I must have been really ahead of my times being anti-homophobic, anti-racist and a feminist since the sixties. Actually I think people only think this is advanced because everything has gone backwards since his days

ColorMagicBarbie · 19/09/2021 00:09

Old school virtue signalling....

CatTerrier · 19/09/2021 00:11

My parents were born in the 1950s and they hold those views 🤷‍♀️

Ionlydomassiveones · 19/09/2021 00:15

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

CaptainMyCaptain · 19/09/2021 00:15

@WorkingItOutAsIGo

Seriously, you have the most ageist perspective. I write as a teenager of the 70s and my friends and I were all anti racist, anti homophobia, feminist, pro Third World, etc etc.
This. It was hardly new in the 90s.
Meh2020 · 19/09/2021 00:30

OP - I’m a bit confused! He wasn’t ground breaking in his/Nirvana’s views was he?

RiotAtTheRodeo · 19/09/2021 00:43

@LindaLooky

Loving the outrage at your nice post OP. "You calling us all homophobes?? ARE YOU??" "He was not a perfect man therefore cannot be the things you describe."

Nirvana hated that sweaty frat boys latched onto their music. I like that they told them to fuck off in their sleeve notes, maybe it made some people reconsider their views. Not many people used their platform like that.

Agreed. I feel sorry the OP is getting such a hard time. We're talking 30 years ago, and it can be hard to remember how much more enlightened (I may be deluded) things felt back then.
Joolsin · 19/09/2021 00:55

His views were pretty standard for that time and that scene, really. I was in my early 20s then and going to loads of gigs. I felt completely safe and equal among all the grunge guys. Clothes/hair was pretty unisex. People of different races/sexualities were universally accepted. Looking back, the freedom and lack of objectification was great. When my daughter started going out at night in recent years, I was appalled by her stories of being groped on the way to the dance floor so frequently it became an expected thing. This would simply not have happened in my gigging/clubbing days - if any guy had tried this, the others would have turned on him, it would have been social suicide.

randomchap · 19/09/2021 01:12

@Warmduscher

I love that he was a feminist.

Men can’t be feminists.

Really? According to Cheris Kramarae feminism is the the radical notion that women are people. I think both sexes can and do get on board with that.
Thistoastsucks · 19/09/2021 02:00

OP - you have had your cornflakes royally pissed on.

Embrace the warm fuzzy feeling you have for what it is and fuck what anyone else thinks Smile

PooWillyNameChange · 19/09/2021 03:29

Interesting so many here is saying 'standard for 90s' when this recently there was a great about Goves sexist/homophobic speeches in the early 90s and people in droves criticised that OP for holding him to a higher standard when "that was what it was like back then".

I was born in 1990...which is it MN?!

PooWillyNameChange · 19/09/2021 03:30

*thread, not great