He, as well as Jeff Buckley, Eddie Veder and Trent Reznor influenced a whole new generation of fans and aspiring rock star musicians. So, I guess it comes down to if you are a fan of Cobain or not?

Well I certainly am, but I'm also always interested in the context surrounding anybody's comet-trail.  Does anybody really write in a vacuum, uninfluenced by others?  Does anyone who makes it big really do it on his/her own merits, or is it more likely that enormous raw talent finds filters and counterbalances in the people around?  I think Lennon benefitted quite a bit from Macca's influence, and vice-versa.

Nirvana benefitted greatly from the same great big machine that makes and then chews up rock stars, then remarkets them to us ten years later.  That machine tends to make little gods out of the singers who front the bands, and tends to cloud the impact of any others who may have been vital to the work.

Or am I out on a limb, here on the Baerwald board?

You are right to say that my comparison to Ringo was unfair. Here's my final 2 cents on the matter:Both Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, as we know them, would be different without each other. Any band changes when one member is thrown into or out of the mix. Without Nirvana there would be no Foo Fighters, without Grohl, Nirvana still would have been great.

Well maybe.  But I still think the band would have needed somebody in Grohl's shoes who could tame the excesses of Cobain enough to make recordings that remained wild enough to be interesting, yet structured enough to be played on the radio.

Or maybe you're saying that the band would have been great, but perhaps without as much commercial success . . . and I could certainly see that.  Many of the poet wannabe's out there are great, in my opinion, but only a statistically insignificant few get paid much for their writings.

Herring405

PS:  you don't hear the Pogues?