Two years ago, the spunky Fender Mustang that Kurt Cobain used in Nirvana’s era-defining Smells Like Teen Spirit music video sold at auction for an unbelievable $4.5 million.
Now, 99.99999999999% of us don’t happen to own a football team, so owning a piece of actual Cobain-used gear is not within our reach. The next best thing, we reckon, is Fender’s excellent Vintera II ’70s Competition Mustang, the price of which has been slashed by $150 for Cyber Monday by Fender itself.
The styling – unsurprisingly, given that it’s the ’70s Competition Mustang – is quite retro, with a period-correct black and gold decal and retro ‘F’-stamped machine heads with aged white buttons, to name but two details. There’s far more to this guitar, though, than its Cobain association and nostalgic looks.
“If you’ve never had the joy of playing a short-scale Fender, we’d highly recommend seeking one out, as they are a lot of fun – and this one is no different,” wrote Guitar World‘s Daryl Robertson in his five-star review of the model. “The shorter nature of the neck results in a much more elastic feel to the strings and once-impossible bends are now a total breeze.”
Though the guitar’s grunge roots might lead one to believe that its quality is similarly, well, grungey, Robertson notes, “The build quality here is top-notch. The hardware feels robust, the tremolo unit is as smooth as you like, and the machine heads are perfectly responsive.”
The vintage-style ’70s pickups, meanwhile, “are sure to cover a lot of musical ground. Whether it’s clean chords or aggressive fuzzed-out solos, this Mustang takes it all in its stride.”
Now, we don’t have a ‘best guitars for grunge’ guide, but if we did, this would be at, or damn close to, the top. Marked down to $999 this Cyber Monday, this is a killer choice not only for grunge, but garage-rock, punk, surf-rock, and more.
Now, this particular Mustang – its retro touches especially – isn’t for everyone. If that’s the case, not to worry – there are plenty more Fender Cyber Monday deals to explore, not to mention the eye-watering bounty of all the Cyber Monday guitar deals we’ve managed to compile.
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