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The David Bowie album Kurt Cobain listed as one of his favorites
David Bowie was one of the most prolific and versatile musicians that ever existed, he not only changed his music as the years went but he also changed his image. He really was a unique artist and influenced countless artists worldwide. Active from the 60s until 2016, when he passed away at the age of 69, Bowie sold an estimated amount of more than 100 million records worldwide.
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Curiously, one of the artists he inspired was the late legendary Nirvana singer, guitarist and songwriter Kurt Cobain. He once listed a David Bowie album among his favorites of all time.
The David Bowie album Kurt Cobain listed as one of his favorites
Back in 2002, Kurt Cobain‘s journals were published and showed the world a little bit more about his taste in music. He had made a list called “Top 50 by Nirvana”. One of the albums listed was David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold The World”, released on the album of same name in 1970. Besides the famous title-track, that record also had songs like “All The Madman”, “After All”, “She Shook Me Cold” and “The Supermen”.
Bowie’s band had Mick Ronson (Guitar, stylophone), Tony Visconti (Producer, guitar, piano), Mick Woodmansey (Drums, timpani) and Ralph Mace (Moog synthesizer). Nirvana covered the title track in 1993 during the MTV Unplugged in New York City. It became a hit for them. An example of the success of their version is the number of times the songs were heard on Youtube. Nirvana’s version has more than 500 million streams, while Bowie’s has only more than 7 million.
In an interview for the Dutch TV back in 1996 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) “It’s a very sad rendition, of course. Because it’s so tied with his own life and death. So it takes all these different shades for me. Because I always remember fairly clearly my state of mind when I was actually writing it. I guess (it was) near to a mystical state that a 19 year old can get to.”
He continued:
“I remember that at the time, I was sort of studying buddhism, my 50 minutes of buddhism. So, it’s interesting that it really had two mystical states, the time that I wrote and recorded. (Then) the time that he (Cobain) recorded and the things that led up to his end. So I guess it still retains for me that mystical (feeling),” David Bowie said.
Kurt Cobain tragically passed away back in 1994 at the age of 27. Bowie died 22 years later, in 2016 at the age of 69.
