It won’t be new to anyone who owns a copy of Kurt Cobain’s Journals, but for the rest of us, the late Nirvana frontman’s hand-scrawled list of his all-time favorite albums is a sight to behold. In our era of obsessive and narcissistic list-making (see: Pitchfork’s People’s List; clearly, this site isn’t immune to the allure of the listicle, either), it’s nice to know that even Cobain succumbed to the compulsion to itemize and rank the music he loved. Titled “Top 50 by Nirvana,” it includes plenty of selections that will be familiar to the band’s fans: The Vaselines, Sonic Youth, The Raincoats, The Wipers, Leadbelly. But there are some fascinating surprises, too, from Public Enemy to Mazzy Star to Rites of Spring. We were particularly tickled by the inclusion of Swans.
[via Everybody Loves Our Town]