Kurt Cobain admitted to stealing the loud quite technique that is prevalent in most pixies songs.
For example, let's take a popular upbeat Nirvana song:
The verse being very mellow and quite and then once the "Yeahs" come in it is much louder and the guitar is more distorted.
Let's take a look at these popular Pixies song as well:
Although they might not sound similar what with Cobains style of singing and such, they are pretty similar.
Nirvana's In Bloom comes across as a heavy song but people tend to not realize how upbeat and pop-like it is, almost like power pop.
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