Alright, I was being a bit harsh when I said I didn't think he deserved a spot but I think he gets too much credit. Bands like Screaming Trees and Mudhoney, who influenced Nirvana a great deal, don't really get any credit and yet both came before Nirvana did. Had there been no Mudhoney, I doubt Nirvana would have sounded like they did. Don't get me wrong, I own every Nirvana CD, but I really only find myself listening to four or five of their songs whereas I can listen to all of Mudhoney, half of Screaming Trees, and all of other bands like Soundgarden. I believe that Kurt's such vast influence was merely chance. For whatever reason, which I still do not understand, they were the ones who got the majority of the grunge credit so to speak. You can talk about raw emotion, but I'd argue that both Eddie Vedder, while I can't stand him as a person, and Layne Staley both put out a lot more emotion than he does.
Indeed, Kurt did show the world that you can make beautiful music out of simplicity, I believe that his influence, while it is vast indeed, was all sheer chance. Had, say, Screaming Trees broken out as the grunge front men, I'd be arguing the this the complete opposite way.
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