Spring is here again, and you know what that means: love is in the air, roofies are in the drinks, and every music publication from here to Istanbul is busy piecing together its annual "Anniversary of Kurt Cobain's Death" cover story. No foolin'; April is the one month of the year during which the Barnes and Noble periodical section looks like the family portrait wall at Ma Cobain's homestead in the Pacific Northwest (provided Ma Cobain adorns her entire living space with nothing but press photos of her late son, which I'm sure she does, just as sure as I am that she actually goes by the namesake "Ma Cobain").
As you read this, there hangs on my wall a ratty old cover of Hit Parader magazine from April 1998 which reads, "FOUR YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH, WE REMEMBER KURT COBAIN," and features a blurred picture of the former pioneer of Seattle's supersonic making a fake-angry face and badly in need of a shower. The story advertised by this cover was a four-page Nirvana career retrospective, augmented by a forum for editorial gossip about Courtney Love as well as the usual fodder about Cobain's personal life (rags-to-riches story, tortured childhood, "was it really a suicide?" etc.), and even independent of the fact that it yielded a totally bitchin' wall decoration that's been keeping me company for the past eight years, the article was a decent, if a little dry, rundown of what Nirvana, and indeed Cobain himself, were all about.
Yet annoyingly, though perhaps not unpredictably, Hit Parader and/or any given number of its journalistic contemporaries have been annually publishing this exact same article since about 1995. Never mind no real legitimate new information regarding Cobain's life, death, or music ever seems to surface, or the articles themselves are seldom anything more than ritual recitation of commonly known trivia, the face of a dead rock star on a magazine with the word commemorative written somewhere on the cover is — to borrow a phrase from the man himself — a guaranteed unit shifter, if not necessarily a radio friendly one.
We Americans love our dead rock stars, especially our dead rock stars whose deaths come with an asterisk (suicide, drug overdose, mysterious drowning, shot to death by the hired goons of a rival rapper, etc.), because this gives us the chance to theorize, to formulate wildly unfounded hypotheses, basically to play a real-life version of Clue: Master Detectiveusing nothing but our handy Internet search engines and timeworn copies of In Utero. These things, for the most part, are harmless; it generally fosters entertaining if not enriching dialogue to sit around with people who have nothing better to do on a Saturday night and guess how the fourth proper Nirvana album would have sounded, or speculate what music in general would be like in 2006 had Kurt Cobain not whacked himself in 1994.
Article comments
1 - Michael J. West
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a trailblazer, opening the floodgates for countless rock bands to do what they do and expect to have a fair chance at being accepted commercially.
Funny thing is, that's the way it seemed, but it wasn't the way it worked out in real life, so far as I can see.
Nirvana was the second coming of Punk; on that I think we all agree. But the same thing happened as happened on the first go-round: the musicians came in pointing the way to the future, saying, "Be who you are! Be yourself! Do whatever you want and make your music that way!"
The followers heard it as, "Be who we are! Be like us! Turn up the guitar amps on the hooky pop numbers and make your music that way!"
Rock may have been VERY different if Cobain lived, but only because he might have taken a different direction than we heard and caused the legions of imitators to go that way.
2 - Guppusmaximus
Are you kidding me with this sh!t?? Mr. Cobain commercialized the use of Heroin and the way it ends your life!! The only thing Nirvana's music did was line the pockets of the conglomerate to kill "Hair" Metal...As for pioneering rock....PUHLEEZE, Spare Me!! Let's celebrate all the smelly neo-hippies and their drug ridden three chord garbage...*Smirk*
3 - Kyle
Nice work, really enjoyed this piece.
With the Lights Out contains quite a few gems in my opinion -- White Lace and Strange, D-7, Old Age, Blandest, Verse Chorus Verse, Pay to Play (early version of Stay Away) to name just a few. The rough version of Do Re Mi is essential listening for fans, I'd loved to have heard what the final mix would have sounded like.
(A minor error, Christopher Cross did not write the biography Heavier than Heaven, it was Charles Cross)
4 - Grace
Your article reminded me of the first time I saw Nirvana. Nirvana play back up for Sonic Youth in Dublin, Ireland before Nevermind came out. They were a funny looking band with Cobain so small and petite and David so much taller and larger. They were extremely ugly with their greasy long hair and dirty hand me down clothes. All three members looked as if they needed showers for sure. All three looked like skinny junkies. Courtney Love was back stage with Kurt wearing a wedding dress of sorts, something antique looking. She was also bigger and taller than Cobain. They cuddled and kissed and looked like a happy couple. Courtney seemed to talk endlessly as Kurt listened. They reminded me of Sid and Nancy. Nirvana played so loud it hurt. Nirvana also played far better than Sonic Youth. Thank you for your article. You are right Kurt did kill himself leaving his junkie wife to care for his daughter on her own. I have always thought that he was rather selfish in doing such a thing.
5 - buzz
If you're gonna talk about the "Legend" man...
You didn't mention the Journals or the Fender Jag-Stang. Or even the SLTS action figure ;)
6 - Tim
Very well-written and insightful article. As both a musician and a class of 1992 alum, I still ponder the significance of Cobain and Nirvana. My current conclusion (though still open to revision) is that popular music has a long heritage of "sucking", with only a few breaths of fresh air scattered throughout the timeline. We'd like to think that Nirvana could have kept popular music fresh and exciting for decades to come had Cobain not pulled the trigger. But, it's easy to see that throughout rock history there are only short bursts of originality followed by long periods of disappointing imitation. I have to admit, however, that I miss the days between the mid-80's and early 90's where it seemed as though even quirky, left-field bands could get a shot at a gold record and a decent following. That sort of thing seems all but extinguished in present-day popular music.
7 - arhg...
polly, molly, penny royalty....yeah....
8 - Sean
Kevin,
Great article. However, I think you might want to rethink your view on the apparent suicide of Kurt Cobain. I'm a reasonably intelligent man of 32 and I have to say, there are many more questions than answers surrounding Kurt's Death.
That being said, I was not a Nirvana "Fan" per se, I bought "Nevermind" but that's it. I have absolutely no stake in proving Kurt didn't kill himself. I'm just stating what I believe to be the obvious; there are too many weird coincidences, oversights and anomalies surrounding his death.
By the way, when the doctor debunked that 3x the amount drug claim in the video you referenced, there were many problems with the way he did it. Apparently, he used methodone, not heroin. Yes, same effect, turns to morphine in the blood, but, one BIG difference: that doctor had his subject swallow it, and Kurt SHOT IT UP. BIG DIFFERENCE. That amount when ingested will not leave a person incapacitated immediately. Shooting it, absolutely WILL and probably before the person even gets the needle out of his/her arm, not to mention that Kurt somehow neatly put the needle away and THEN shot himself.
-S