Nirvana is Gay

Kurt Cobain, Sapphic icon.

Most of the headlines from FireAid I’ve seen this morning focused on Nirvana’s special guest-laden reunion as the headlining performance, which is wild considering the stellar amount of top artists (Stevie Nicks! Stevie Wonder! Lady Gaga!) that performed as part of the all-star event. Kurt Cobain wasn’t physically on the stage, yet his music is still among the most exhilarating to experience 31 years after he left this plane.

Maybe he’d fucking hate that, but I like to believe he’d be happy with his bandmate’s choices of queer and feminist frontwomen singing his songs about refusing conformity. St. Vincent shredding on “Breed” (“Even if you have, even if you need/I don't mean to stare, we don't have to breed”) and 66-year-old Joan Jett leading “Territorial Pissings” (“Never met a wise man/If so, it's a woman”) is as close to embodiment as Kurt can be.

This wasn’t the first occasion the band invited female singers to front the remaining members for a few songs — St. Vincent, Joan Jett, and Kim Gordon already did that in 2014 when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — so last night was essentially a re-up with a substitute in for Dave Grohl’s daughter, Violet, instead of Lorde (nepo baby FTW). Violet (whose name I find hilarious, considering her father’s long-time frenemyship with Courtney Love) did a fine job on “All Apologies,” a song that includes the classic Kurt line: “Everyone is gay.”