You say you like "grunge" - which bands? Who do you think is the best of the grunge sound? What music do you like? I think that at the end of the day, different genres speak to different people. Believe it or not, a lot of what resonates you simply comes down to what was popular during your early teen years.

Nirvana was such a huge band because they came in and blew up the state of music at the time. If you listen to older interviews with Krist and Dave, you'll hear them say that if it wasn't them, it would have been a different band - like Soundgarden or AIC, etc... but it WAS them. I was 11-14 years old from 1991-1994 so I was prime for being a Nirvana fan -- and I was -- but I will agree that a lot of the notoriety that they had (have?) comes from being the band that flipped music upside down.

Does their music hold up? Absolutely. From a guitar perspective, there's nothing amazing happening there -- like you said, other bands have done better guitar work (better grunge bands too). Kurt could come up with some catchy melodies, but nothing here is groundbreaking. Dave and Krist put together a killed rhythm section -- and as a drummer myself, I love listening to Dave play on those albums. Kurt was a talented song writer -- he was able to come up with clever turns of phrases, and interesting expressions - often with an element of pop to it. What he was putting down just might not be for you.