Last Friday, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band Nirvana, killed himself with a shotgun at his home in Seattle, Wash Another crazed, drugged-out rock star does himself in - so what else is new? Just more fodder for Saturday Night Live skits, off-color jokes and ultimately, lots of money made from "rare, unreleased" Nirvana songs that will be issued in a few months. This is just one more thing for us all to laugh and snicker about.
Except it's not.
Though it may be difficult for the majority of students here at Dartmouth to believe, to a great deal of people between the ages of 14 and 25, Cobain's death represents a real tragedy. He wasn't just some drugged-out rock star. He was, in many ways, a symbol of a generation - a generation overcome with fear, disillusionment and cynicism.
Perhaps a little history is in order, considering that it is difficult for us to truly get a feel for pop culture way up here in Hanover ...
In late 1991, an unknown band named Nirvana, led by singer/guitarist/songwriter Cobain, released an album called "Nevermind." Almost immediately, it became the best-selling album in America and more significantly, paved the way for a number of bands - Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, to name a few-to enter the musical mainstream.
By the following summer, the Lollapalooza tour, made up of "alternative" acts, was the hottest ticket around. Michael Jackson and Garth Brooks had dropped off the Billboard charts in favor of the harder-edged Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam and flannel shirts had become a fashion statement.
A mixture of punk and heavy metal with pop sensibilities, "Nevermind" and its first single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," had created a cultural phenomenon: grunge (or alternative, if you like). More than just a sound or a look, it was an attitude. Alternative meant honesty, change and remaining an individual in an age where individuals are either scorned or copied ad nauseum (as alternative itself eventually was).
Almost three years after "Nevermind," alternative is now firmly entrenched as the mainstream. Though very different on the surface, the common thread that "alternative" acts share is a certain honesty, a sense that theirs is "real" music, as opposed to the shallow synthesizer-drenched pop music of the 1980s.
Nirvana, and a lot of what is considered alternative, actually means something to a lot of people. Before them, when was the last time that music of any substance became truly popular? REM? U2? There were a few isolated groups, but you have to go back to the revered 1960s to really find anything. Alternative music, led in large part by Cobain, has become our generation's answer to those fabled days of yore. We have finally found our own "classic rock."
The difference, however, is in the message. While our parents tripped out to songs of peace and love, Cobain delivered a much harsher view of reality. He sang about things that most of us can relate to - depression, anger, fear, disillusionment; emotions that are all too real to most people our age. Maybe we are the so-called "Generation X," searching for an identity. Maybe that's just a label placed on us by a generation that cannot function without categorizing everything. Either way, the future looks unbelievably bleak for those of us on the threshold of adulthood.
Cobain was the first popular musician to strike this nerve. The popularity of his music showed how prevalent these feelings were, and still are today, among a generation unsure of exactly who we are or where we are going. Cobain suffered from manic depression, which appears to be the cause of his suicide. It is only fitting that he was the spokesman for a manic-depressive generation.
The most important emotion that Cobain conveyed, however, was a cautious optimism. In his lyrics and in interviews, Cobain spoke of using music as an outlet to release and overcome the pain that he still felt as a child of divorced parents, an outsider as a teenager, and as a manic depressive. I saw this first-hand at a Nirvana concert last year. For the entire show, the audience of teenagers and young adults danced around violently in a mosh pit and screamed lyrics at the top of their lungs. To an outsider, it seemed that a riot was imminent. Yet after the lights came on, I sensed a feeling of fulfillment in the audience. Nobody was angry or vicious; instead there was only the sense that we had all shared something and felt hope as a result. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam once said about the influence of alternative music, "People sometimes ask me to help solve their problems, because I sing about things that I have dealt with and still deal with. I can't help them, but can give them music to help deal with it themselves, like I used music to help myself." This is the real tragedy of Cobain's suicide - that someone who helped other people so much and who so fervently believed in using music as an outlet, ultimately could not help himself.
Though it may be hard for many of us older, "more refined" Dartmouth students to believe, Cobain, Nirvana and alternative music symbolize the fears and frustration felt by the majority of young people in America today. To them, alternative music is a safety valve, a way to focus negative energy and emotion into something positive. If this is so, what does Cobain's suicide say about that message? Nothing quite like this has ever happened before. Cobain, arguably rock music's most popular and influential spokesman (along with Vedder), shot himself dead. No questions about accidental overdoses, a la Elvis, Hendrix and other cultural icons. Point blank with a shotgun. The suddenness, the finality, the sense of giving up ... what does it say about the fears and adversity that Cobain spoke of overcoming?
I never met Cobain. I know only what I read in interviews and listened to on recordings. I don't claim to know why he committed suicide. I don't grieve for him like I would a family member or a friend. But his death is disheartening. Cobain's songs have helped me and many others get through some hard times. He put a lot of what scares our generation and what is wrong with society into his music. By doing so, he gave us hope. Now that he's been beaten, can we ourselves still retain that hope?
Rest in Peace, Kurt Cobain. I hope you're happier now, wherever you are...
