It usually surprises people to learn how much harder it is to be a frontman. To pull it off in the most effective way, an odd combination of genuine sincerity and showmanship must be mastered by few artists. Even when holding a guitar, Kurt Cobain possessed a captivating presence. However, as he pursued the punk dream, he harboured numerous grievances against what he saw as stale, outdated egotism.
Cobain was not amused by Axl Rose’s instrument-free, strutting schtick, which was an established style of the frontman. According to Cobain, the idea of a frontman using a guitar to express himself was nothing new. All it took to see that someone who could sing and lay down a mean rhythm guitar part was half of the greatest frontmen in history was to look at anyone from John Lennon to Joe Strummer.
However, it’s always about how you market it, and Kurt Cobain wasn’t trying to entertain his audience. Every time he picked up the guitar, he wanted to express himself, and that usually meant letting loose with all of his aggression or bringing complete chaos into many of his songs.
Consider the song “Breed.” Is there a really good solo in it? Yes, it does in theory, but judging from Cobain’s playing, the “solo” is really just him flying up and down the guitar neck while somehow sounding like he’s strangling his instrument. That’s not a bad thing at all, but it was a departure from the norm for most mainstream bands.
On the other hand, Guns N’ Roses were the kind of band that the 1970s could never produce. Hearing a rock band that truly sounded like a rock band was refreshing. This was especially true after listening to the countless hair metal acts taking over the radio. Rose embraced his role as a gutter punk with a heart of gold on “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”
Rose may have had good intentions when creating his songs, but Cobain saw through it all and said in Come As You Are, “His role has been played for years.” There has been an Axl Rose since the dawn of rock and roll. In addition, I find it boring. He perceives it as novel and fresh since it directly affects him. Being egocentric, he believes that everyone owes him something.
Rose wouldn’t take kindly to that statement. This is the same frontman who, in “Get In the Ring,” threatened to personally beat any journalist who dared to say mean things about him. Rose was a self-confessed Nirvana fan. Over the next few years, his hatred for Cobain intensified. It reached a point where he nearly got into a fight with him at the MTV Music Awards.
Rose’s beef seems ridiculous in retrospect the more you consider it, even though Cobain chose to laugh it off at the time. Nirvana assured massive global success, regardless of the circumstances. Despite Rose’s efforts to get even with Cobain, he continued to look like a conceited parody. He became the embodiment of a spoiled rock star.
