NIRVANA

Y'know I almost didn't write this.  I didn't want to write it.  Even as I'm sitting here typing, I don't want to write it.  I wonder if I'll post it.  I wonder, if I do post it, if I'll take it down.  Edit it.  Forget it.

The thing is, I hate Nirvana.  Well, that isn't true.  I hate Nirvana as a band.  Or maybe that isn't true.  Maybe I just hate Nirvana as an image, an idyll, one that may not be entirely accurate, given how carefully it's hair's been tousled before it goes in front of the camera.

Or maybe it's just Cobain that I hate.  But, no, that isn't true either.  I never knew the guy.  Still, I must confess ... there were certain things I hated about him.  The ratty, old man sweaters.  The creaky speaking voice.  The drugged-out, mascara'd look he adopted for photos.  No doubt about it: Cobain was the first rock musician I ever dug musically who disgusted me.

And yeah, I do dig Nirvana musically.  Some.  Enough that, when they first came around, I wanted to like them.  I heard the early numbers ("Stain") on college radio and thought they were pretty good. When "Teen Spirit" hit I found it a good record.  Still do. But even then I was a bit saddened that these guys had made the Top 40 while Husker Du, the Mats, et al had already crashed against the rocks and sunk.  And I was more saddened, disappointed, when Nirvana turned out not to be the start of round two of a generation of great Amurrican rock bands, but a rather erratic outfit (though in this they were no different than any of their precursors, few of whom were really consistent) who, far from kickstarting a positive musical trend, merely dragged into the limelight a horde of phony art-metal poseurs who promptly became the new hierarchy of rock for a generation (not for me!).  Sure, some said, it was better than Motley Crue.  I guess.  Me, I found Eddie Vedder and Billy Corgan just as insufferable as Nikki Sixx any day.

And I was more saddened when hordes of rock critics - ones who knew a lot better welcomed them as the second coming:

The teen spirit that is always a component of the ether can hover for years without coalescing into anything more than a haze — that vague, uneasy, something-in-the-air feeling rising like swamp gas as a byproduct of living young and unsteady in a hostile world that hasn't yet made its intentions clear. But it can also go off with a spectacular atmospheric bang. The catalysts that ignite such cultural explosions rarely survive the experience, and the havoc they instigate is invariably all out of proportion to their efforts. But the changes so wrought can be vast, leveling the land and ushering in an era to which old rules no longer apply. 

So writes Ira Robbins over at Trouserpress.  And I call bullshit.  What cultural explosion?  A generation of kids in ripped jeans and flannel shirts?  Armies of glum, pretentious pop-metal (aka "grunge" and "alternative") bands?  Look, even Everett True, who wrote a pretty flattering bio on the band, said of their legacy:

Smashing Pumpkins. Puddle of Mudd. Silverchair. Bush. Muse. Ash. Courtney Love. Better Than Ezra. Pearl Jam. Stone Temple Pilots. Live. Staind. Creed. Candlebox. Some legacy!

And that's coming from a fan of this stuff!   Thank you. Ev.

But if I want to condemn Cobain for his failures of person, or artistry, or integrity (all of which there were many), then I must condemn every other artist on this blog, for all of them stand guilty.

And I cannot ignore the truth.  To a whole generation plus, Cobain is a legend, a hero, an icon.  It doesn't matter that that same generation never got to know D. Boon, or Henry Rollins, or Bob Mould, or Paul Westerberg.  Cobain was their first fuck, and that's the end of the story.  As I watched those kids in their punk`n'grunge dress, weeping while Courtney Love (I could condemn him for her, too) read his suicide note and swore, I felt a lot like I imagine Pete Townshend felt, looking at a crowd of neo-mods in 1980.  "We don't have much in common with you lot," he said.

The criteria for inclusion here is simple: if I like an artist enough to own/have owned a recording and/or seen them perform, they're in. And, yes, I own a Nirvana CD.  It's a comp I burned, the best of.  And I had to stretch a little to fill it.  But, as much as I don't want to, I think "About A Girl" is a great song with a nice Rubber Soul feel to it.  I think "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" is one of the finer covers of "In The Pines" (as the song is better known) around.  I think "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam" and "Molly's Lips" smoke The Vaselines', and I think the Meat Puppets covers on Unplugged are definitive - because, in truth, much as I want to like the Meat Puppets, I've always liked their songs best when someone else was covering them, and giving them the kick in the ass I've always felt they needed.

Links

The two best pieces I've read on Cobain are this one by Billy Bob Hargus, who, even though he cuts the boy some slack on his essential phoniness assesses him, I think, fairly; and this one by Dave Marsh, who, even though he couches the whole sorry mess in far more heroic terms than is likely true, and overrates him as an artist, does a good job putting him in much-needed context.

"Essential"

There are a score of books about the band.  The one I read, by Everett True, is an amusing if at times self-serving chronicle of the band and the early-90's Seattle-region scene. Michael Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life is pretty good and insightful, thus it's possible his Come As You Are might be as well.  But I haven't read it.

As to the recordings - you're on your own, man.  Three albums, a compilation of outtakes, a live "unplugged" album ... those I culled from.  Unplugged probably ended up the most represented on my personal comp.  Make your own.  A lot of people consider these classics.  Since then there's been a live album and a boxed set out of outtakes, but these guys weren't a compelling enough to get me to check into them.  Good luck.