What would have become of Nirvana?

[microlovebeat]

i think they would've had a bigger impact. Kurt probably would've been more involved in the music industry...probably started a label of his own, maybe produced some stuff.

Here's a question, maybe should be in it's own thread. What do you think would've happened if Jeff Buckley didn't drown?

i never liked buckley but it would have been interesting to see where he would have gone after Grace. was that his last album???

I'll start the list:

People who had music careers in the 90s, who had potential, but croaked:
Kurt Cobain
Elliott Smith
Jeff Buckely
The guy from Blind Melon
The guy from Sublime
add on.........

[sbessiso]

somehow pearl jam has fought their way to stay relevant and criticalyl acclaimed, but if courtney didnt kill kurt, the band would have flamed out very quickly and probably wouldnt have the same position they do now in the music world

death does that, look at elvis, already a parady of himself, if he hadnt died, things mightve been very different for him

[Somewhat Damaged]

i never liked buckley but it would have been interesting to see where he would have gone after Grace. was that his last album???

I'll start the list:

People who had music careers in the 90s, who had potential, but croaked:
Kurt Cobain
Elliott Smith
Jeff Buckely
The guy from Blind Melon
The guy from Sublime
add on.........

I think Jeff Buckley had been working on his follow up to Grace at the time of his death. I have no doubt that his future work would have been exceptional.
I don't think Shannon Hoon or Blind Melon would've accomplished a whole hell of a lot if he hadn't died. As for Sublime, they really benefited from Brad Nowell's death. If he hadn't died, I could see them becoming huge and obnoxious like Fred Durst/Limp Bizkit and being regarded with similar disdain.

As for why people still think that Kurt could have been murdered, it's due to the fact that there were no fingerprints on the gun and a handwriting analysis of his suicide note suggests that the last portion of the letter, the only portion that actually speaks to suicide (everything before it could be construed as an "I'm breaking up Nirvana and retiring from the public eye" statement), was written by somebody other than Kurt. True, it's very likely that he committed suicide: I'm not sure how much one's handwriting can change under the effects of drugs but Kurt could have written that final disputed portion of the note after taking a massive dose of heroin, and as for the fingerprints, some jackass joker could've deliberately wiped them off to create this kind of speculation as to what really happened. I don't know, nobody really knows for sure, but to completely dismiss the possibility of his death not being a suicide is short-sighted.

[Tylerdurden31]

i never liked buckley but it would have been interesting to see where he would have gone after Grace. was that his last album???

He was in the middle of writing and/or recording. They released everything he was doing as Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk.

[amyzzz]

courtney wants ryan gosling to play kurt in the heavier than heaven movie.

I'd see that. After Half Nelson, Ryan Gosling is one of my favorite actors out there. I still need to see Lars and the Real Doll, or whatever that's called.

(sorry, off-topic)

[PassiveTheory]

To add onto TD's post, basically Jeff had virtually one song completely done (there's 2 version of "Nightmares by the Sea" on the Sketches album, hence that assertion) for the next album. Real shame, because the work that his ex-band members and Chris Cornell put into Sketches shows that it could have succeeded Grace in terms of being a better album.

[menikmati]

somehow pearl jam has fought their way to stay relevant and criticalyl acclaimed, but if courtney didnt kill kurt, the band would have flamed out very quickly and probably wouldnt have the same position they do now in the music world

death does that, look at elvis, already a parady of himself, if he hadnt died, things mightve been very different for him

I don't understand these kind of arguments...it's basically saying that his death catapulted the bands success, and they are what they are today because of it...and if he hadn't died, they would of faded off and/or became a laughing stock. I have to totally disagree with this.

Why would of Nirvana just flame out suddenly? They were one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) band at the time, they were putting out great music, and had all the headlines....how is that a recipe for disaster? I think the opposite would of happened if they had stayed together, which is they would of continued writing even better music, and continued to influence and affect the music business around them.

I don't think Nirvana's legacy lives on because Kurt killed himself, I think it's because the music was actually art and meant something, and was different and challenged the norms (until it became the norm) unlike a lot of shit before/after their time.

[menikmati]

and here's my thoughts on the whole murder/suicide thing relating to the facts/evidence of the case.

1. No Fingerprints

It's a fact that no legible finger prints were ever found on the gun that Kurt allegedly used to kill himself. The argument for suicide is that when Kurt shot the gun, the action of the gun's kick caused his hands to smear any prints on around the trigger area. While that may sound decent enough, this is the exact gun that he had owned for three weeks and had handled. It's not like he only touched around the trigger area...what about the butt of the gun, or the barrel...if he was sitting there loading the gun, holding it, getting it in position (let alone handling it over that 3 week period), surely there would of been prints left behind from him, right? You can't tell me just because he shot the gun once, and his hands rubbed the trigger area, that is a good enough answer/reason to explain finding no prints at all.

PLUS...it wasn't just the gun that had no fingerprints. It's also a fact that none of the shotgun shells, shotgun shell box, or the PEN found at the scene (red ink pen - used to write the suicide note) had any fingerprints either. How is all that possible...with all that evidence of material that he HAD TO HAVE touched (in order to support the suicide theory), that there are no prints at all? That's REALLY fishy.

- another note about the gun...the shotgun was laying atop Kurt when he was found, with the ejection port facing to the right of him, but the actual shell from the blast was found on the left side of him. While I know, that admist a shotgun blast, the hands may let go, and the gun may fall and land differently than expected (having ejection port face wrong side)...it still kinda defies physics, especially if he was able to hold onto the gun long enough after the blast (without letting go) to rub off any usable finger prints. It's like the magic bullet all over again.

2. Credit card charges.

This is a really strange one, but it's known that on April 6th, and April 8th, 1994 (Kurt was said to have died April 5th - he was found April 8th), that two charges appeared on a credit card of his (which was not found at the scene of his body). One of the charges was for like almost $1,500, and the other was like $45 or so.

Well, suicide support says that the April 6th and 8th dates are only when the transactions were logged into the bank's database, and don't reflect the actual charge date (though normally, I think the dates are usually always the same). But if that's case, it's just so funny that once his body was announced that it had been found dead, no more transactions from April 8th or past are logged into the bank...suggesting that card action had stopped.

Plus, it was Courtney who placed a cancellation on his cards prior to his body being found, which I believe (because the cards had been canceled), stopped logging in other information about the transactions (such as location, and items bought). It's very confusing, but that's the way I've understood it from what I've heard.

It's just really odd.....his body is found, no card is found, but that card has transactions logged into a bank on april 6th and 8th (and most likely are logged in the same day as the transactions take place)...something is not making sense there. Kurt is dead right? So who is using the card, and for what? Hmmm....

3. The heroin/drug level in his body

It's also known that Kurt was found in the autopsy to have something like 1.53mg/liter of heroin (and another mix of drugs) in his system...something which experts say can kill a person 3 times over. Suicide theory says that Kurt had built a tolerance to this, and could operate with that heavy of a dosage...and while it may be true that maybe he had a high tolerance level...it's like trying to argue he was the king of king of all junkies...no way can I believe that he could operate normally under that an amount of drugs in his system....you're gonna tell me he shot that much up, rolled down his sleeves, loaded a gun, finished writing a letter, then shot himself?

Why not just OD then? Many people already believe he tried to OD a month prior in Rome....so why take large an amount and then decide to shoot yourself instead? That to me doesn't make sense either. It's one or the other...you either OD yourself, or just go shoot yourself...you can't do both, and I don't think Kurt would of done both.

4. The note.

There's also this whole suicide note thing, where the last 4 lines of the letter don't match the rest of the handwriting at all...as in, it's written much larger and way out of place compared to the body of the letter. Plus it's only these 4 lines that mention anything of suicide/death.

Honestly, Kurt was known to write a lot of letters, drafts, and thoughts about himself (just go read his Journals)...so it wouldn't be out of the question if Kurt had just written up some letter talking about his dislike for being famous and wanting out of the music business/band (which is basically what the body of the suicide note says). So you take out those last 4 lines, and you have something you could easily find in his regular notebook/journal.

I think Courtney or someone could of had access to that and other related letters very easily. And how do you explain the change in hand writing? At the very end, Kurt just decides to write much larger? Or was it the drugs affecting him? If so, then why wait until after you've loaded up on that much heroin, to write the final few sentences? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

It's also a known fact, that a week after Kurt was found dead, Courtney had her backpack checked down in LA, and a piece of paper containing hand writing samples and practices was found. Hmm...

Also, I just wanna point this out...Kurt had a daughter (Frances), who he loved and cared for very much. I know he adored her (from interviews I've read)...I really have a hard time believing he would wanna kill himself and leave her fatherless. I mean, if he had this daughter he loved so much, and then he writes this last letter of his, the last words anyone will ever read of him before he dies, why wait until the VERY last line (the same line that mentions death and of course in different handwriting) of the letter to mention his daughter briefly? That really doesn't make sense....I mean if you're gonna write a suicide note, and you have this beautiful daughter that you care so much about....you don't mention her at all until very end for one line and that's it? That to me is even more misunderstanding than some of previous evidence.


I know Kurt was depressed, and probably had suicidal thoughts before, and I'm fine with people thinking he killed himself based on those reasons...but my whole point here is to just point out facts of the case, which can sway to one side or the other. Granted, maybe just a lot of weird coincidences happened and he did shoot himself, but there's a lot of evidence here that makes me stand back and re-examine stuff, because a lot of this case really makes no sense at all (credit card, fingerprints, etc...), and surely doesn't lead to an automatic suicide ruling.

[woogie846]

If Kurt Cobain didn't kill himself, Nirvana wouldn't be nearly as big as they are today.

[fasttrack]

nirvana encyclopedia indeed.

[microlovebeat]

I'd see that. After Half Nelson, Ryan Gosling is one of my favorite actors out there. I still need to see Lars and the Real Doll, or whatever that's called.

(sorry, off-topic)

agreed. half nelson is great, plus it turned me on to broken social scene.

[microlovebeat]

i tend to believe a lot of people make up their minds based on what book they read first.....

[thelastgreatman]

That amount of heroin is highly unlikely to be lethal in someone with Kurt's length of habit. Just sayin'.

[vinylmartyr]

3. The heroin/drug level in his body

It's also known that Kurt was found in the autopsy to have something like 1.53mg/liter of heroin (and another mix of drugs) in his system...something which experts say can kill a person 3 times over. Suicide theory says that Kurt had built a tolerance to this, and could operate with that heavy of a dosage...and while it may be true that maybe he had a high tolerance level...it's like trying to argue he was the king of king of all junkies...no way can I believe that he could operate normally under that an amount of drugs in his system....you're gonna tell me he shot that much up, rolled down his sleeves, loaded a gun, finished writing a letter, then shot himself?

Do you mean 1.53 grams? 1.53mg sounds pretty small. I know people who have used 10 grams a day and took benzos and probably could run a marathon. If 1st place was more dope.

[microlovebeat]

none of you guys are acknowledging that he tried to kill himself a month before he was found dead.


remember: he took a huge amount of pills combined with wine or something in Rome AND left a suicide note....


what about that?

[thelastgreatman]

You're talking about weights of street heroin, which is relatively impure. Gimme a sec and I'll find an exact conversion, but that's somewhere around 75 mg of pure heroin.

[thelastgreatman]

Whoa hey, nevermind. My math slipped. That's above 200 mg of heroin. Hmm. Still, for an addict of that length I'd say he could handle it, but it is well over the claimed "lethal dose" for a heavy user. Still, I've known people that shot 300 dollars worth of dope a day.

[sbessiso]

I don't understand these kind of arguments...it's basically saying that his death catapulted the bands success, and they are what they are today because of it...and if he hadn't died, they would of faded off and/or became a laughing stock. I have to totally disagree with this.

Why would of Nirvana just flame out suddenly? They were one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) band at the time, they were putting out great music, and had all the headlines....how is that a recipe for disaster? I think the opposite would of happened if they had stayed together, which is they would of continued writing even better music, and continued to influence and affect the music business around them.

I don't think Nirvana's legacy lives on because Kurt killed himself, I think it's because the music was actually art and meant something, and was different and challenged the norms (until it became the norm) unlike a lot of shit before/after their time.

am i remembering correctly? wasnt it soundgarden or pearl jam that had taken over by the time that trigger was pulled?

i think theres a chance they wouldve stuck together, but as one person said, grohl was itching to do his other thing and as well all know now, grunge kinda died

[TomAz]

I don't understand these kind of arguments...it's basically saying that his death catapulted the bands success, and they are what they are today because of it...and if he hadn't died, they would of faded off and/or became a laughing stock. I have to totally disagree with this.

Why would of Nirvana just flame out suddenly? They were one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) band at the time, they were putting out great music, and had all the headlines....how is that a recipe for disaster? I think the opposite would of happened if they had stayed together, which is they would of continued writing even better music, and continued to influence and affect the music business around them.

I don't think Nirvana's legacy lives on because Kurt killed himself, I think it's because the music was actually art and meant something, and was different and challenged the norms (until it became the norm) unlike a lot of shit before/after their time.

I agree with this 100%.

If Kurt Cobain didn't kill himself, Nirvana wouldn't be nearly as big as they are today.

that's idiocy. Nirvana was huge -- huge -- when Kurt died. I mean, I was a guy in a suit in a 43rd floor office building in downtown Houston, and the news just ripped through the office that day. Even the old guys knew who he was. At the time, Pearl Jam had hits, yes, but no one over 21 took them seriously, they were like Foreigner or something. And Soundgarden was good but they were still playing clubs.

am i remembering correctly? wasnt it soundgarden or pearl jam that had taken over by the time that trigger was pulled?

i think theres a chance they wouldve stuck together, but as one person said, grohl was itching to do his other thing and as well all know now, grunge kinda died

first, see above

second, so what? the sex pistols lasted an album before they split up. punk kinda died. but no one claims they're remembered today just cuz sid died.

[sbessiso]

im not anti nirvana, im a fan like you guys

[chiapet]

I don't know whether I believe he was killed or killed himself, but dying was inevitable. He was going to OD or kill himself eventually IMO. Sort of like how Layne's time was always clearly limited.

If he hadn't died, Nirvana would have become less relevant just like other similar (and some better) bands of the same time and same tone. Kurt's death turned himself and the band into icons. Were they groundbreaking? No, but maybe commercially groundbreaking. I don't like the word "grunge" as a genre name, but say it, and almost everyone would immediately identify Nirvana. How many similar bands from that time frame does the average, casual music listener know of?

[menikmati]

the correct info the drug level is:

it was a mixture of a tranquilzer, and a mixture of heroin in his blood at a level of 1.52mg/l (miligrams per liter).

That's a very large amount. And I doubt he would wanna take that much, THEN decide to finish a note and shoot himself.

[TomAz]

I don't know whether I believe he was killed or killed himself, but dying was inevitable. He was going to OD or kill himself eventually IMO. Sort of like how Layne's time was always clearly limited.

If he hadn't died, Nirvana would have become less relevant just like other similar (and some better) bands of the same time and same tone. Kurt's death turned himself and the band into icons. Were they groundbreaking? No, but maybe commercially groundbreaking. I don't like "grunge" as a genre, but say it, and almost everyone would immediately identify Nirvana. How many similar bands from that time frame does the average, casual music listener know of?

can you not read? do you live in a hermetically sealed tube?

[thelastgreatman]

Yes, Nirvana would have lost all its influence. Just like Radiohead. And Pearl Jam.

[menikmati]

i tend to believe a lot of people make up their minds based on what book they read first.....

If you're trying to infer that I read "Who Killed Kurt Cobain" or any other similar book, you're wrong, as I never have nor plan to read any of that garbage.

[TomAz]

also, Nirvana may have been "grunge", but their music was so good it transcended the genre. It didn't matter what "genre" it was, it was just fucking good. And i thought this before Kurt died.

[microlovebeat]

If you're trying to infer that I read "Who Killed Kurt Cobain" or any other similar book, you're wrong, as I never have nor plan to read any of that garbage.

haha relax man. i wasn't saying you were, but don't you think a lot of people do???

[menikmati]

Nirvana was a lot more than just "grunge".

[TomAz]

jesus fucking christ there is more idiocy in this thread tonight than in the rest of the board combined. people who were 4 years old at the time trying to tell me what was going on then.

edit: not you menik.

[chiapet]

I didn't say they would "lose their influence", just be less relevant today. I really don't think we'd be seeing Cobain solo albums or fronting other groups 10+ years later.

TomAz, I wasn't discounting "grunge" - I don't like the term (it's applied too liberally and non-specifically), I like/liked almost every band that would have fallen under that label though.

Edited: sorry, I realized you quoted before I edited to say I don't like grunge as the name of a genre. Because before it looked like I was saying I don't like the music.