LAST EDITED ON Oct-13-14 AT 07:58 PM (EDT)
 
>Is it wrong that I'm really glad I'm too young for Nirvana to have
>been at all relevant to me?

Yes.
Well, not so much wrong, but it shows an underdeveloped sense of history.

>I mean, they were fine music-makers and all. But Christ on a bike,
>Gen-X'ers talk about Cobain like he single-handedly saved music as we
>know it. And it's like "is this a cultural thing? Would I be part of
>your weird cult too if I'd been born in the seventies, talking about
>the pilgrimage I made to Kurt's grave in '97 and still muttering
>angrily about Soundgarden's breakup?"

TL;DR - Yes, it's cultural/generational, at least for the musically inclined.

I would argue that what you are seeing is residue of the fall of Rock n' Roll from the primary mainstream popular form to a secondary one, replaced by Rap, Hip-Hop and their descendants. Similar to, if less extreme than, what happened to Jazz and Swing. Grunge was one of the last gasps of primary Rock popularity, so it and its representative bands stand out in their memories. It was particularly hard for many Gen-Xers as there was no time in their experience when one Rock form or another wasn't primary so they had no memory of previous transitions to help them accept it.

You see similar stuff in different cohorts: boomers arguing Beatles/Stones, their parents arguing Bop vs. Swing, Rap fans and East Coast/West Coast, mourning for Buddy Holly, etc.

-VR
"If you think that you are too old to Rock 'n Roll, then you are." - Lemmy Kilmister
"They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."

edit: typo patrol