The band Michael Stipe said was lightning in a bottle: “True underground”As Nirvana hurtled to the very top of the cultural mountain in the 1990s, the circle of trust that surrounded Kurt Cobain began to shrink. One of those was REM’s Michael Stipe. To Cobain, Stipe didn’t represent some baseless hedonist who bounced between LA house parties; instead, he represented a true custodian of the Seattle grunge scene and the authenticity it promoted. Stipe experienced his own success as a band, and in Automatic for the People, wrote records that shaped the songwriting of Cobain. Stipe continued, “Krist Novoselic said Nirvana came out of the American hardcore scene of the 1980s – this was a true underground.