10 Best Alternative Rock Bands Of All Time

2. Nirvana

Quintessential Lyric: (From 'Pennyroyal Tea')

"Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld / So I can sigh eternally"

Anthem : Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle

It is always difficult to pick a stand out track from such a successful band who burned too bright for a short time. Yet Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle catches Nirvana at their best by stripping back without losing any of their signature sound. While Cobain's lyrics are rather muted in terms of his penchant for linguistic flourishes, the song's message is simple and effective, with the vocal delivery carrying the emotion. The repeated chorus line of "I miss the comfort in being sad" is haunting.

Defining Album: In Utero (1993)

The world unfortunately lost Kurt Cobain too soon for Nirvana to have an extensive back catalogue with just three studio albums and compilation album Incesticide (1992). While it was 1991's Nevermind that propelled Nirvana from Seattle's underground to the headphones of Gen-Xers world wide, In Utero is the album commonly considered to capture Nirvana's essence, the grittiness of Bleach (1989), the pop sensibility of Nevermind, and the growing greatness of Cobain's darkly poetic lyrics that pack universal appeal.

Contributor

An English Lit. MA Grad trying to validate my student debt by writing literary fiction and alternative non-fiction.