Pinning an influential painter against a musician is a bit like chalk and cheese. Kurt Cobain fused hard with melodic, even though he wasn't the first person to do that, he still made brilliant recorRAB and brilliant songs. His lyrics were obscure and they touched a generation. I'd class him as a genius with in music for sure. Brilliant lyricist, brilliant songwriter.
Tortured geniuses
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Mannat Bhatia
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You're the one who brought up Mozart and Beethoven, I said Mozart was 1700s and Kurt was 1990s, I don't quite know how to compare string quartets to guitars and drums.. So, I didn't compare the two. I wouldn't know how. Comparing Gaga to Kurt is just laughable. Gaga makes pop songs suited to the mainstream, Kurt made rock songs and the mainstream came to them. Sure there are poppy elements which he took from his Beatles influence, but he didn't make pop songs.
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roflmao
I heard from a bird....
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Syd Barrett
yeah, exactly. i brought up mozart because almost three hundred years later people still acknowledge what he did. he wrote symphonies as a child; i'm sure i don't need to point out the huge disparity in complexity between writing a symphony and a rock song. of course complexity alone is not definitive of a genius, but did kurt cobain really create anything so different from what had already existed?
what has whether it was written intended for a mainstream audience or not got to do with whether it was genius or not????????
what has whether it was written intended for a mainstream audience or not got to do with whether it was genius or not????????
I don't know if he could be counted as a genius, but David Rubenstein from New York punk band Reagan Youth definitely lived a tortured life.
I'll give a quick rundown (of what I read on Wiki):
- Was lobotomised after being severely beaten by a drug dealer in an drug deal.
- Began dating a prostitute and pimped her out to fuel both of their addictions.
- Girlfriend was murdered by a notorious serial killer named Joel Rifkins.
- His father accidentally ran over and killed his mother in a parking lot.
- Rubenstein commited suicide by overdose.
What a horrible existence.
I'll give a quick rundown (of what I read on Wiki):
- Was lobotomised after being severely beaten by a drug dealer in an drug deal.
- Began dating a prostitute and pimped her out to fuel both of their addictions.
- Girlfriend was murdered by a notorious serial killer named Joel Rifkins.
- His father accidentally ran over and killed his mother in a parking lot.
- Rubenstein commited suicide by overdose.
What a horrible existence.
DallasCowboysRock
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I would call them both geniuses. Curtis, them worRAB - they get me every time.
Skyler--That Grey Box
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I don't know if Leonard Cohen counts as "tortured", but he is supposedly quite reclusive and much of his lyric content is self-effacing and lonely and sad. Def. genious anyway.
edit: I meant self-deprecating.
go ahead and start finishing sentences, it'll help. the first two are more widely regarded as geniuses and calling cobain a genius calls him into comparison with other geniuses, f.ex mozart & beethoven.
i was comparing the lyricism, yes. upon further inspection of lady gaga's lyrics perhaps i was wrong in that comparison but my belief that kurt is far from a lyrical genius still holRAB strong. i'd rather not dig up examples...
i'm not saying that. i'm saying kurt cobain isn't a genius because his creations/contributions did not imply such whatsoever. obviously your criteria for "genius" are much lower than mine, but to my knowledge "genius" identifies someone whose mind operates on a level that greatly surpasses simply being intelligent and creative, and their works show it.
let's see what outside sources have to say about genius:
From Wikipedia:
A genius (plural genii or geniuses, adjective ingenious) is an excellent intellect, excellent work or an excellent achievement. More than just originality, creativity, or intelligence, the adjective "genius" is associated with the achieving of unprecedented insight. This is called the spark of genius. The genius (the excellence, a noun) of a piece of work raises a perceiver's expectation.
From Dictionary.com:
1. an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc.: the genius of Mozart.
2. a person having such capacity.
You call cobain a genius because:
what does any of this have to do with genius, according to the definition of it? he wasn't even the first to do what he did, by your own admittance. touched one generation? good examples of geniuses i can think of off the top of my head have profoundly affected humanity for centuries.
PS. i don't listen to much classical music either, outside of a few contemporary composers - whom i'm not even sure if people consider "classical" (contemporary classical is a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it) since i know little about it besides general things.
i've thought out argumentative posts & replies and you've come in here and said nothing but a personal attack and i'm the troll? shut the fuck up.
yea thats actually me in the avatar and i wont take no white boy fronting on the internet so watch yoself
i was comparing the lyricism, yes. upon further inspection of lady gaga's lyrics perhaps i was wrong in that comparison but my belief that kurt is far from a lyrical genius still holRAB strong. i'd rather not dig up examples...
i'm not saying that. i'm saying kurt cobain isn't a genius because his creations/contributions did not imply such whatsoever. obviously your criteria for "genius" are much lower than mine, but to my knowledge "genius" identifies someone whose mind operates on a level that greatly surpasses simply being intelligent and creative, and their works show it.
let's see what outside sources have to say about genius:
From Wikipedia:
A genius (plural genii or geniuses, adjective ingenious) is an excellent intellect, excellent work or an excellent achievement. More than just originality, creativity, or intelligence, the adjective "genius" is associated with the achieving of unprecedented insight. This is called the spark of genius. The genius (the excellence, a noun) of a piece of work raises a perceiver's expectation.
From Dictionary.com:
1. an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc.: the genius of Mozart.
2. a person having such capacity.
You call cobain a genius because:
what does any of this have to do with genius, according to the definition of it? he wasn't even the first to do what he did, by your own admittance. touched one generation? good examples of geniuses i can think of off the top of my head have profoundly affected humanity for centuries.
PS. i don't listen to much classical music either, outside of a few contemporary composers - whom i'm not even sure if people consider "classical" (contemporary classical is a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it) since i know little about it besides general things.
i've thought out argumentative posts & replies and you've come in here and said nothing but a personal attack and i'm the troll? shut the fuck up.
yea thats actually me in the avatar and i wont take no white boy fronting on the internet so watch yoself
Flappy Hoohah
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Mzdandylion0527
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Nick Drake
I didn't compare them, you did.
You said he wrote pop songs, comparing him with the likes of Lady Gaga. That wasn't the case.
If you're saying Kurt Cobain isn't a genius because he isn't up there with Mozart then he isn't doing badly. Plus that'd write off a lot of musicians and songwriters, a lot of geniuses probably don't measure up to classical music. Although I can't say I can compare the two, I don't listen to classical music.
You said he wrote pop songs, comparing him with the likes of Lady Gaga. That wasn't the case.
If you're saying Kurt Cobain isn't a genius because he isn't up there with Mozart then he isn't doing badly. Plus that'd write off a lot of musicians and songwriters, a lot of geniuses probably don't measure up to classical music. Although I can't say I can compare the two, I don't listen to classical music.
Da Vinci was an artist, not a musician, so that comparison is a little shaky. Anyway, we're talking about the word genius as applied to the modern music scene...so here, its really a matter of opinion.
Ohh, but speaking of which. Ludwig Van B suffered from manic depression. Gets a Grade A+ from me in both torment and genius!
Ohh, but speaking of which. Ludwig Van B suffered from manic depression. Gets a Grade A+ from me in both torment and genius!
mandormark
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Morrison?
ok. look at it this way: did kurt do anything that really, in the large scheme of humanity's creative output, stanRAB out? he only died less than twenty years ago. maybe his output seems important now, with the influence it's had on modern rock, but centuries later are people going to talk about his contrubitions to music like they do about mozart or beethoven? i don't think so.
not exactly genius material.
leonardo da vinci was more than just an artist. that's partly why he was a genius...
yeah, it's all a matter of opinion. of course. "everything is subjective." ad nauseam. if kurt cobain is a genius then so is lady gaga. hmmmMMMMmmmmm
not exactly genius material.
leonardo da vinci was more than just an artist. that's partly why he was a genius...
yeah, it's all a matter of opinion. of course. "everything is subjective." ad nauseam. if kurt cobain is a genius then so is lady gaga. hmmmMMMMmmmmm