Apparently there was a journal of his published in which he named his 50 favorite albums. The journal also included letters, sketches, etc. I can't confirm that this list is authentic, but it looks to be. I'm pretty certain there is a list, and this would seem to be it.
really interesting list!
i'm surprised that meat puppets II isn't on it since they covered three songs for unplugged. but still, i'm having fun checking out some of these obscurer ones.
I wonder if Kurt would have like Belle and Sebastian. I know he's rather fond of the Scots and he seems to love twee but B&S weren't as punky as the twee bands he used to listen to.
"Shonen Knife, the Vaselines, Beat Happening, BMX Bandits, the Pastels "
Hmm, I never thought of those bands (except for the Pastels) as twee, but I suppose they are. I have a BMX Bandits album but I haven't really listened to it yet.
I need to hear a lot of these albums on Kurt's list. He seems to share the same tastes as a lot of AM'ers. He likes fresh sounds but doesn't seem to stray too far from pop music. I know I'm in that boat.
How many of these records has everyone heard? I've got 12-15 of them & am looking into some of the bands I haven't heard of. Its nice to see the love for POD. I dont know where I would rank it but it would definately make my personal top 50 if I was going to make one; same with Surfer Rosa.
I saw he listed 2 Black Flag records too. I listened to Damaged once a while back and thought their bigger, hit songs were alright but I couldnt get into the rest of it. I think it was because of Henry Rollins' vocals(I do like him as an actor/tv personality though).
Also I just listened to Shonen Knife's Burning Farm for the first time and can't get enough of it, wish I heard of them sooner.
Is it eligible? Well, I only include lists from single writers if they were published in a book (by the author) or have become famous/well-known (like Elvis Costello's list in Vanity Fair for example). Otherwise there would be thousands of lists for me to include.
This might be one of the more famous/well-known lists, although I wasn't aware of it until I read this thread. Your advice is appreciated.
Some of his choices for individual artists are odd. Combat Rock for Clash when I would have expected him to go with one of the raw sounding pre-London Calling ones. Meet The Beatles for the Beatles.
I feel so proud that I was able to bring something new to AM :)even if it isn't included. As for whether it should be included or not--my reservations about including it would revolve around the amount of thought he put into it. It came from a personal journal, so it might have just been how he felt that day. Who knows? He might have been shooting heroine when he wrote it. Not to mention, he probably didn't intend for it to be published.
I just read the AMG review of the Vaseline's "A Complete History." Read the review, and I doubt you'll be able to not go download it. I know I'm getting ready to.
It's funny; when I first looked at this list I thought all the stuff I hadn't heard of would have been hardcore punk, but, yeah, he does have alot of twee stuff on here. I'm checking out alot of the stuff on Amazon and I think he's got alot of good stuff on here.
I remember Courtney Love calling this list bollocks. She said that this wasn't at all what Kurt Cobain listened to, it was what he wanted other people to think he listened to.
I guess he never claimed that this is the only music he listened to; he just said it was his 50 favorites. He probably grew tired of them before he met Courtney Love. I mean, he lists Aerosmith, so it's not like he's afraid to look uncool. And, given the type of music he produced I can't imagine he was a closet Boys II Men fan.
