You could follow justinsane's advice if you aspire to be a player like Kurt Cobain, where slop doesn't matter, but if you want to serious take your guitar playing as far as it can go, do everything the RIGHT way first, becuase it's 1000 times more hard to go back and correct bad habits then it is to form good ones. Distortion may not hide you if you hit a wrong note, but to any of those who believe it doesn't hide anything, play a fast sequence (shred if you can) on a clean channel, no effects, then on distortion. Which one is harder to get a perfectly clear tone from?