REFLECTIONS ON THE NOT PARTICULARLY INTERESTING LIFE AND NOT ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT DEATH OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR A GENERATION BY THOSE "IN THE KNOW"
by William Detroit
SEATTLE --Kurt Cobain, who with his band Nirvana shaped modern rock music from he restless alienation of today's youth, was found dead Friday (April 8) an apparent suicide form a shotgun blast to the head. He was 27.
Following the announcement of Cobain's death, his mother, Wendy O'Connor told the Associated Press: "Now he's gone and joined that Stupid Club." She was referring of course, to the long list of celebs who have died by their own hand: Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, to name only a few. It was a bitter rejoinder. Suicide makes people bitter. It also makes them very antsy. The writer Joyce Carol Oates put it best: "The suicide does not play the game, does not observe the rules. He leaves the party too soon, and leaves the other guests painfully uncomfortable." Clearly, lots of people were very uncomfortable about Cobain's exit. Or at least it seemed that way at first glance. Upon closer inspection, however, it became abundantly clear that many people were using Cobain's suicide as a platform from which they could wantonly expound about virtually anything and everything.
The press had a field day with Cobain. The L.A. Times ran lengthy pieces all week. They put his wife, Courtney Love on the cover of the Sunday Calendar section. The L.A. Weekly , Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly plastered Cobain their covers. The Newsweek piece, "Why Do People Kill Themselves" featured a slew of "experts" making highly insightful statements about suicide ("depressed people are more likely to kill themselves"); the Cobain story was just a side-bar. Still, his picture on the cover no doubt sold plenty of copies. Cobain's death was the lead item on the nightly news of all three major TV networks for a week following his suicide. There really didn't seem to be all that much to say, but every night the story managed to have a new angle. After absorbing the glut of press for over a week and a half, it became clear that the Stupid Club comprised a much larger group of people than Cobain's mother had originally referred to. Of course, one expects a certain amount of stupidity to come from people like rock critics, who are clearly a non-intelligent life form. However, the sheer amount of gibberish that arose in the wake of Cobain's death cut across all age groups and cultural boundries. It included not just young, brainless rock critics, but also over-40 brainless rock critics. It included Nirvana fans and foes alike, record company execs, psychologists, sociologists, suicide counselors, disc jockeys, and a bunch of people with word processors who probably call themselves journalists. Just for the record, those who may detect a certain degree of, ah, cynicism in the following commentary might get the notion that I don't like Nirvana. This isn't so. Prior to writing this piece, I did a mini-Nirvana marathon of sorts; listened to all their CD's and read everything I could get my hands on about them. What can I say? They're OK, you know? When I was in high school I was in a band that played stuff that sounded alarmingly like Nirvana. I would venture to say that right now there are a multitude of bands in garages throughout the country that are as "good" as Nirvana. But "good" is not a particularly relevant term any longer when discussing pop music. In fact, it's nearly impossible to rate pop (sub pop, whatever) groups in any meaningful fashion, since what they do has everything to do with attitude and next to nothing to do with music.
On a musical level, Nirvana can't play (four chords seems to be their limit), and their lyrics --when you can decifer them--are inane. That doesn't mean they're terrible. What it means is that they aren't much different than hundreds of other bands who engage in all the same antics they do--playing out of tune, lurching ar
ound the stage looking stoned, throwing their guitars around, insulting interviewers --all the usual stuff. Frankly, the only difference between Nirvana and all the other groups that look just like them and sound just like them is that they sold10-million records and got rich because of it.
Thus they became spokesmen--at least Cobain did--for a generation. And there's the rub. Because once you're a spokesman for anything, you become the vehicle for the perptetuation of all sorts of bullshit. And when Cobain chose to check out, that's excactly what happened.
So let me repeat once again. The antipathy in the following commentary is not directed at Kurt Cobain, who may have been a swell guy--I really don't know. Rather, it's directly reserved for all the chest-beaters who elected to use the occasion of Cobain's passing to display their colossal ignorance. It's reserved for the hype machine, the media jackasses who perpetuate the mythology that music (I don't care whether it's "pop" or "sub pop" or "alternative"...the only difference between any of those categories is how many records they sell) can be "dangerous," or "subversive"--that it's anything other than product. The problem is, it's a bad product. It's a product designed not only to keep people hooked (and music is a drug, make no mistake about that), to sell its paraphenalia (in Nirvana's case that means lots of flannel shirts), but it's a product that pretends to have substance, when it fact it has none. It doesn't feed you. It's like eating the menu instead of the food.
Nirvana's music is stupid. Now there's nothing inherently evil about that. Youth is a period of one's life that is, more often than not, characterized a lot of good-natured stupidity. That's OK, too, because you grow out of it. The problem with the Stupid Club (most of whom are old enough to know better) is not only that they insist upon making an icon out of a not-especially talented guy like Kurt Cobain (and if you don't think this is sacred ground, brother, just try criticing the group to one of it's loyal legions) but that they are attempting to validate a product that's not only dumb, it's irrelevant. And in a culture that's fast becoming illiterate--that can no longer separate fact from hype, news from gossip--this is a dangerous business. I'd venture to guess that most of the kids who like Nirvana don't know anything about the historicity of music. Their musical knowledge probably dates back to Led Zeppelin or, if you're lucky, the Beatles. (Cobain's cites AC/DC and Black Sabbath as his mentors). If you asked one of them who Robert Johnson or Charlie Parker was, they'd probably look at you like you were nuts. The perpetuators of the Stupid Club are not only anti-historical and anti-intellectual, they're liars--because the fodder that they serve up is not based on anything except selfishness, immediate gratification and narcissism. It's the old ME GENERATION schtick served up in new clothing. Sorry, that stuff was boring in the Sixties and it's even more boring today.
But enough caterwauling. Let's get on with the show. Without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen....the Stupid Club.
STUPID NIRVANA ACCOLADES FROM ASSORTED ROCK CRITICS "In Nirvana, two million listeners have found a voice for their doubts and fears. Nirvana don't offer any answers; these days its an achievement just to pose the questions. If they have any message for the world it simply this: think for yourself. No wonder the music industry thinks they 're subversive. --Suzi Black, Nirvana, Omnibus Press This one's interesting because it contains many of the major cliches about rock music. That it poses no answers, just questions (what questions?) and that it is subversive. Every "badboy" rock group looking for a quick PR fix has latched onto these calling cards. The notion that Nirvana--or any group for that matter--that sells 10 million records is subversive" is of course, absurd. If they play your stuff (not to mention dress like you) in shopping malls, you're no longer subsersive. What you are is history. Next....
"Nirvana was the hottest rock band in the world." --unnamed critic No they weren't.
STUPID (LET'S MAKE THAT OVERUSED) ADJECTIVES COMMONLY USED TO DESCRIBE NIRVANA'S MUSIC bleak, uncompromising, eerie, challenging, thrilling, menacing terrifying, anguished, shocking..... Oh yeah, let's not forget angst (even though it's not an adjective) a term which virtually every rock moron writing about Nirvana manages to get into their copy.
STUPID DEPICTIONS OF COBAIN'S YOUTH, DESIGNED TO CAST HIM IN THE MANTLE OF VICTIM "For a sensitive, artistic child like Kurt, the town (where he grew up) might as well have been renamed Hell. He had deeper needs that Aberdeen couldn't satisfy. Soon he turned to vandalism and drugs." -- Chris Charlesworth Sensitive and artistic two of the big catchwords rockers (or anybody involved in "creative" endeavor) love to have attached to themselves. It's time to put these words out to pasture. They're finished. Charles Manson was probably sensitive and artistic too. So what?
STUPID (NOT TO MENTION INNACURATE) DESCRIPTIONS OF NIRVANA'S MUSIC "Cobain wrote music that was oddly melodic despite the abrasiveness of its lyrics."--David Gelman, Newsweek Incredibly, virtually every critic that writes about Nirvana describes their music as "melodic." I don't know what these guys were listening to but the fact is, there's next to nothing resembling a melody (without getting into a technical description here, let's just say a melody is something you can hum back to yourself) in any of the Nirvana music I listened to. Their music is decidedly non-melodic. There ought to be a law forcing anyone who wants to be a rock critic to take at least one year of basic music theory and harmony.
"Nirvana's music was everything that rock and roll was supposed to be."--Chris Charlesworth I didn't know that rock and roll was supposed to be anything. If someone can cite me a reference in the Rock Bible, I'd appreciate it.
"Kurt's cracked tenor always epitomized something about this region, this ethos, this ecosystem...even this generation--Gina Arnold This bitch sounds like she ought to be writing ad copy, don't you think?
"The band songs are laden with an incoherent rage. With Nirvana, every menacing riff threatens to bring on the depression and claustrophobia of a migraine headache. --Suzi Black So who wants a migraine headache?
THINGS DEPICTED IN A TYPICAL NIRVANA SONG WHICH MAKE ROCK CRITICS TEND TO SLOBBER OVER THEIR ALLEGED SONGWRITING ABILITIES "...the ennui of American youth in the Bush era, the terrifying consequences of macho behavior, the sheer terror of being alive, even the joys of romance." --Suzi Black Whoa, heavy stuff...
STUPID STATEMENTS BY AGING L.A. TIMES ROCK CRITIC, ROBERT HILBURN 'Cobain was a deeply sensitive man blessed with a songwriting grace that has been compared to Bob Dylan and John Lennon. --"Kurt Cobain, Poet For The Dysfunctional Age" There we go again with that sensitive stuff! And by the way, Bob-- what's the difference between someone who is deeply sensitive and someone who is superficially sensitive? As for comparing Cobain with Dylan and Lennon, the fact is--all three of these guys were capable of writing some pretty awful lyrics, but Cobain certainly took the cake in that department(see Stupid Cobain Lyrics). An amusing aside: Hilburn failed to mention that it was he, himself who compared Cobain to Lennon and Dylan, two Sixties relics who Hilburn is constantly slavering over.
"Cobain felt as confused and troubled as any of the millions of young people who had bought the albums he made." So fucking what?
"The rock world braced for the worst last month when Cobain was found in a near fatal coma in his hotel room in Rome, a result of a combination of tranquilizers and booze." I love this one because of its depiction of the "rock world" as this united community of like-minded brethren. Go back and take sociology101, Bob. There might be a "rock market," but as for the "rock world" --there ain't no such animal.
"He might be dismissed a a guy who was more lucky than talented, more indulgent than tormented. But he was so much more...." No comment.
MORE STUPID JOURNALIST ANECDOTES According to an observer, the journalists on the scene of the suicide immediately divided themselves into two camps. The "checkbook journalists" lead by "A Current Affair"--who offered $1,500 (a pittance by tabloid standards) for an "exclusive" to the electrician who found Cobain's body--immediately got whatever interviews there were to be had. The rest of the press, including representatives from Rolling Stone, Spin, as well as numerous local papers, were relegated to grabbing any kid wearing a flannel shirt and ripped jeans off the street and grilling him for juicy tidbits. Unfortunately, most of these fans were either too drugged out (or too stupid) to provide very good interview material. Ultimately the reporters with no money to spend wound up interviewing themselves.
SOME FAIRLY STUPID REACTIONS TO COBAIN'S SUICIDE BY NIRVANA FANS "OhmyGod! I can't believe it! It's so weird!" --Riva (fatboy)Dryan
"
Another one bites the dust."--Dr. David Besler
"If Kurt wanted to kill himself, it's nobody else's business."-Dougles Benton
"I thought the way he went out was way cool." --Tracey Wilsher
"I think it's a publicity stunt."--Ethan Reilley
"Kurt Cobain Was God." --Danny Benton I thought that was Eric Clapton...
STUPID FAN LETTERS WRITTEN TO NEWSPAPERS "What is it about being 27 years old, extremely talented and having no reason to live? Scientists must have an explanation. How can somebody so uniquely talented think life isn't worth living!?" --Karen Benton Amazing how many people assume that someone is "uniquely talented" simply because they've managed to get a record out. Christ, everybody's got a record out.
"Hear me out, all you Nirvana fans who are buried in confusing and grief and hear me out all you talented people who don't think you can go on because your own passion and trueness are in jeopardy. The biggest creative buzz of your life comes from saving yourself and filling up with gas for the next run."--Pamela Lawson Serious New Age damage here. Still, she deserves an "A" for effort.
Kurt's songs were vicarious form of primal-scream therapy. When you head Cobain's pure-id howl, you could feel his pain, which was also your pain. And the cathartic effect was undeniable." --Tyler Caraway Vicarious primal scream therapy? This guy sounds like he's read too much Timothy Leary or Alan Ginsburg.
STUPID (THOUGH POSSIBLY ACCURATE) STATEMENT BY COBAIN'S WIFE, COURTNEY LOVE "Oh, he's such an asshole. I want you all to chant asshole!" --recorded message to the crowd assembled at candlelight vigil held for Cobain. Note: The crowd eagerly complied.
STUPID POLICE REPORT FILED BY COBAIN'S MOTHER Several days prior to the discovery of his body, Cobain's mother had filed a filed a missing persons report with the Seattle police department. The report described Cobain as "not dangerous, armed with a shotgun, and may be suicidal."--L.A. Times
UNFORTUNATELY TYPICAL STUPIDITY EXHIBITED BY POLICE INVESTIGATORS "Three weeks earlier police had been called to Cobain household by his wife, Courtney Love, who said her husband was locked in a room with his guns and threatening to kill himself. Police confiscated four guns, 25 rounds of ammo and an undisclosed substance. However, Cobain was allowed to keep possession of his shotgun."--L.A. Weekly
PORTION OF STUPID, SELF-INDULGENT SUICIDE NOTE FOUND NEXT TO COBAIN'S BODY "I thank all of you from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the last years."
STUPID CROWD ANTICS AT CANDLELIGHT VIGIL FOR COBAIN "And then, a beautiful thing happened--some 5,000 people, mostly between ages of 18 and 21, dressed in requisite plaid flannel over Nirvana t-shirts and carrying flowers and candles, broke ranks. Instead of crowding round the flag pavillion as they had been told to do, they ran over to the fountain where the music was playing louder and suddenly....they jumped in the water, danced and moshed and flung one another around until city officials turned the fountain off. But the crowd refused to budge. Instead they sang "Lithium" and "Polly" and "Rape Me" and "Milk It". They spelled out words like "Kurt" and "fuck" with candle wax on their bodies." --Gina Arnold, reporting from Seattle Smells like teen stupidity to me....
THE ROCK CRITIC AS PSYCHOTHERAPIST "The fact that Cobain was clinically depressed is self-evident from his actions"--Gina Arnold Really? I take it you consulted his medical records before you made this diagnoses...
"Though his condition had not been diagnosed, he had begun to show signs of narcolepsy, an incomprehensible illness which strikes its victims asleep as they stand. Working for a few weeks as a hotel janitor, Cobain spent more hours asleep in the unoccupied rooms then he did in the sweeping and cleaning that was supposed to be his vocation."--Suzi Black Did you ever consider that maybe he just liked to sleep on the job?
LITTLE KNOWN FACT ABOUT NIRVANA The group originally called themselves (perhaps more appropriately) Fecal Matter.
STUPID STATEMENTS FROM KURT COBAIN "We were afraid to play pop music because we were afraid people couldn't accept it." How about because you only know four chords, Kurt?
"America may be the land of the free, but there are definitely more ignorant people there. Most of the population are semi-retarded." More ingnorant people than where?
"We break things all the time. But that's just us compensating for the frustration of being on the road." Er, excuse me, but isn't this out of the Rolling Stones manual of How To Be A Badass Rock Star,Volume 1?
"People just don't do things very often anymore. I'm kind of disturbed by it." Say, what?
STUPID STATEMENTS FROM OTHER NIRVANA MEMBERS "Were heavy, but we're not heavy metal."--drummer Dave Grohl. Oh, I see.
DESCRIPTION OF A TYPICALLY STUPID NIRVANA PERFORMANCE "Nirvana ended a devastating performance as Cobain leaped into the crowd, Novoselic threw his bass at Grohl then Cobain returned to the stage and leaped into the middle of Grohl's drumkit." -- Chris Charlesworth Yawn.
STUPID NIRVANA LYRICS Sell the kids for food,weather changes moods, strangers here again, rape the duck a glance, he's the one who likes all our pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, and he likes to shoot his gun, but he don't know what it means, don't know what it means, we can add some more, nature is a whore, bruise is on the fruit, tender reds and blues (repeat first verse)--"In Bloom," from Nirvana CD, Nevermind
PC LINER NOTES WRITTEN BY KURT COBAIN "If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of a different color, or women, please do us one favor. LEAVE US THE FUCK ALONE!"
STUPID ATTEMPTS TO WAX POETIC BY WRITERS COVERING COBAIN'S SUICIDE "Friday Night April 8...the evening of the day that Kurt Cobain's body was found....the very first night of the rest of our lives." --Gina Arnold One, two, three...gag
"They inhabit a strange pantheon of the suicidal, prowled by brilliant troubled ghosts. Some came to grief in the nightfall of acclaimed careers, some in the withering high-noon glare of public adulation. There are Hemingway and Plath, Monroe and Garland, Presley, Morrison, Hendrix and Joplin....and now there is Kurt Cobain." --David Gelman, Newsweek Four, five, six....wretch
"These children, with their pagan hearts, had somehow spontaneously captured the very essence of Kurt's spirit: the big 'fuck you' to life itself that had clearly raged through his very being. And then shirtless boys and wet haired girls, obviously to the weather, held their candles aloft and chanted, 'Asshole, asshole, asshole.' You could hear their gleeful voices all the way up on the Space Needle. They sounded like a prayer."--Gina Arnold Seven, eight, night.....(double) puke.
GLOOMY SEATTLE WEATHER AS METHPHOR FOR DEATH EMPLOYED BY CRITICS WHO WISH THEY WERE REAL WRITERS
"Ominously dark rain clouds were lowering themselves over the far off Olympic Peninsula, an area often noted for having the highest suicide rate in the United States."--Gina Arnold
"A steady drizzle fell from chilly gray skies." --John Balzar, LA Times
"A gray drizzle cast a pall over the town last weekend..." --Dana Kennedy, Benjamin Svetkey, Entertainment Weekly Hey guys--it's always raining in Settle.
FRIGHTENINGLY WOODSTOCKIAN STATEMENTS FROM SYCOPHANTS AT COBAIN WAKE "You guys are our family. Being here tonight is the best possible way for celebrating Kurt's life and his true spirit."--Jonathan Poneman, Sub-Pop (Cobain's first label) owner to assembled throng I wonder if this guy is any relation to John Sebastian...
MIND-BOGGLINGLY STUPID STATEMENT BY RECORD EXECUTIVE FOLLOWING COBAIN DEATH "I believe there will be a pre-Nirvana business and a a post-Nirvana business. The group's Nevermind album will be looked back on as a seminal record in the history of rock." --Gary Gersh, Capital CEO
EVEN STUPIDER STATMENT BY ANOTHER RECORD EXEC "First River Phoenix, and now Kurt. It really does speak for a ceartain generation...and the outlook is not good." --unnamed Geffen Records exec
STUPID ATTEMPTS AT SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION RE POPULARITY OF NIRVANA BY PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACT THAT THE RECORD INDUSTRY CAN MAKE ANYBODY POPULAR "Cobain put to music not simply the anti-establishment rage of the 60's but the malaise of the 90's generation, many of them products of broken homes who were denied the promise of a better life and who found themselves questioning the meaning of life itself."
"Nirvana, with their stringy hair, plaid works shirts and torn jeans, appealed to a mass of young fans who were tired of false idols like Madonna and Michael Jackson." I'd love to have one of these bozos to explain the difference between a true idol and a false idol, but that's probably asking too much. "Cobain and his band hated the slick MTV driven rock establishment." --Jeff Giles, Newsweek Absolute, unmitigated horseshit. The "slick MTV driven rock establishment" made Nirvana. Whether or not they said they hated them (which would be the fashionalbe thing to do) is irrelevant.
STUPID RHETORIC DESIGNED TO EXHIBIT SELFLESSNESS BY NIRVANA PEDDLER "I kind of feel it's in bad taste to encourage or glamorize the fact that someone shot themselves." --Virgin Megastore floor manager Jon Nelson Nelson made this self-serving utterance after refusing to play Nirvana records over the PA after Cobain's death. However, that didn't stop VirgIn from stocking up on Nirvana CD's to meet the expected rush on product following the suicide. "We ordered as many copies as we could," Nelson admitted. "Hey, that's business."
STUPID ATTEMPTS BY ASSORTED LOW-RENT PSYCHIATRISTS AND SOCIAL WORKERS TO EXPLAIN COBAIN SUICIDE, ALL POINTING TO THE FACT THAT PSYCHOLOGY IS SIMPLY ONE STEP UP FROM THE "SCIENCE" OF WITCHDOCTORY.
"Suicide is the result of stress."--Emile Durkheim
"Suicide is most often the result of depression."--Dr. Douglas Bresler, University of Chicago
"Noone dies of depression. It's not a tenable entry on the death certificate."--Dr. Edwin Shneidman, emeritus professor of thantology at UCLA
"Clinically depressed people are at a 50% greater risk. Unfortunately, doctors can't agree on whether suicidal depression itself is s state of mind or a result of chemical deficiency."--David Gelman, Newsweek,
"Antidepressants and intervention are the best methods of battling suicide, according to the experts." David Gelman, Newsweek
"However, some (antidepressants and intervention) treatment may actually increase the rate of suicide."--David Gelman, Newsweek
"All we really know about the subject is that we really don't know." --Irving Zane, Suicide Prevention Hotline Oh, well.....
CLEVERLY HOPPING ON THE SUICIDE PREVENTION BANDWAGON TO GAIN HUMANITARIAN BROWNIE POINTS "Don't do it!" --Kurt Loder, Rolling Stone writer-turned-sanctimonious-MTV host MTV, as well as numerous radio DJ's put on suicide prevention "specialists" (who the fuck are these guys?) all week, playing Nirvana videos and CD's in between. Great scam for increased rating share. A host of suicide-prevention benefit concerts are obviously just around the corner.
A BONE FOR THE ANTI-GUN FOLKS "A study comparing adolescent suicide victims who had no apparent mental disorders with kids who didn't' commit suicide found only one difference: a loaded gun in the house."--Jeanne Gordon, Newsweek
UNFORTUNATE BIT OF PR ABOUT THE FUTURE OF NIRVANA RELEASED SHORTLY BEFORE COBAIN'S DEATH. "The beauty of Nirvana is that no one--least of all the band themselves--knows what will happen next." Ooops.
AMUSING (BUT NONETHELESS STUPID) INTERNET POSTINGS FOLLOWING COBAIN SUICIDE
Guess what Kurt?
You're dead.
>BR>
William Detroit is a pseydonym for a well-known Los Angeles journalist who does not want his name associated with this stupid (though highly enjoyable) magazine.
©reprinted from Rolling Stone Magazine, 1996.
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