I was actually introduced to Nirvana by a friend of mine, I think. It was a while back, and I don't remember much. I had know the name before, but at the time, they were just like Aerosmith: one of those names that was mentioned all the time but nobody really knew who they were. I only learned Kurt Cobain's name about a year ago. Sue me.
I got into Nirvana just when I became more attracted to heavier music, with distortion and grunge. Nirvana just had a neat tone: their Nevermind album was the first I heard, and (as it turns out) the first one of theirs I got. The now classic song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" seems to be legendary as the one that started the entire Punk Revolution that has spawned so many popular bands today. I do like a lot of genre-breaking music, and I guess Nirvana is as well, although I didn't know it at the time. Kurt Cobain's amazing straining voice and the band's odd use of chords and bass guitar took a place in my musical preferences and still stay there.
At one point I found a bunch of stuff about Nirvana that made my respect level for them go down a notch or two. The constant references to drugs (and constant usage of drugs) raised the ick level, and then I found out that a song I had really liked for a while was about rape, and Polly Klas. No birds included. Kurt Cobain committed suicide under the influence of drugs, and in my opinion that's one of the worst ways to go. Someone once commented to me how sad it was that he committed suicide, but I didn't feel that way. He was an extremely good musician, singer, but also incredibly stupid, to go that way.
