How overrated is Kurt Cobain and Nirvana??

[Twiztid Rodimus]

First off let us all get a refresher as to what the word 'overrated' means:
to rate or appraise too highly.
So just because one may not like something doesn't mean that it then becomes "overrated".

Anyway, and just as an example, almost 20 years ago the band released an album that skyrocketed to the top of the charts—usurping the reigning King of Pop in the process—and practically changed the entire course of popular music and western culture seemingly overnight and forever.

Not only did they kill the momentum of so-called "hair-metal" and early 90's dance pop (think Ace of Bass) but they, along with their Grunge contemporaries, also provoked reactionary music styles—it's said that the Britpop bands of the 90s were, at least in part, an attempt to counteract the pollutants of US grunge/alternative music that had been washing up on UK shores—that have had massive and prolific success in their own right.

Nirvana has sold millions of records (about 30 million worldwide for just the album Nevermind alone), has been noted as influential by countless musicians both major and minor and has had some of their works entered into the (US) National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. For these reasons alone I have to believe Nirvana is rated quite accurately.

And by the by, the whole concept of being "overrated" is fucking stupid. If you don't like them and/or prefer other bands then in fact that doesn't make Nirvana overrated, that makes your preferred favorite a bit underrated as per your individual opinion. On the other hand—and collectively I might add—both critics and fellow musicians have praised Nirvana's work and noted their influence and the public has voiced their opinion via the sales of tens of millions of albums thus rating and ranking the act among the upper echelons in the entire history of recorded music. How then can a band be overrated when in almost every conceivable way, be it commercially, critically, or artistically, they aren't rated or appraised too highly (again, the very definition of the word 'overrated')?

This, Agreed, and agreed. I refuse to read the remainder of the posts after I read this. As the remaining idea are rendered useless.

The term over rated, about Nirvana seems to be called that, by people probably too young to have been around or, they don't really know the impact that Nirvana had on the industry and Pop culture.

The ones that claim it was only after he died that they made an impact. Are very VERY short sighted, and frankly, wrong. And thats not opinion, its fact.

People confuse, Not liking a band, with the term Over rated. Constantly, and renders these debates nil.