On this anniversary week, we recall the impact he had on popular music via some choice quotes: On being a "Sub Pop" band before signing to DGC for Nevermind, as told to Dirt in 1990.

"Well, when someone walks up to me and says, 'You're my favorite Sub Pop band,' I think -- geez, we're you're favorite out of five bands? What about the rest of the country? I don't know. It just scares me. I wonder whether they like us because we're a Sub Pop band or because we're ourselves."

On being called an "alternative" or "underground" band via Recalling Memories of Kurt Cobain in 1991: "What's alternative? What's counterculture? What's cool? Who knows? Who cares? If chasing cool is important to you, you're an idiot! What can you say about people who wait to be told what to like, what to do and how to do it? It's like apathy in action… Look at the mediocrity and blatantly unacceptable stuff we do to each other and the planet. Look at what we accept in our lives by just saying it's out of our control, we can't do anything about it, and it's not our fault. I'm not into ambition or salesmanship, we're not some new trend. We never meant or tried to be cool, or be a "buzz" band. It never even entered our minds."

On the difference between Bleach and Nevermind, as told to Kerrang! magazine (via NirvanaClub.com) in 1991: "I think we've been focusing on dynamics a lot more on this record [Nevermind]. With the Bleach album, everything was just straight ahead and simple, and it becomes boring to play that kind of music all the time so we decided to break things down without songs. I mean, we showed signs of doing that on Bleach, but I think we're way more focused now with both of the elements of soft and pretty and hard and aggressive."