Nirvana Déjà Vu
If I had a pound for every time I've seen a kid younger than me sporting either the nefariously clichéd Nirvana hoody or t-shirt with that smiley face on it, I would be a rich lady. Nirvana have been everywhere for what seems like forever, but is there such a thing as Nirvana déjà vu?
Here's my theory; When we've seen and heard about a band so much and for so long, we will get sick of them.
Every April around the time of Kurt Cobain's suicide (or murder, whatever you want, just don't spam up the comments section about his death) every rock ‘n’ roll weekly/monthly publishes a series of articles giving you the 'Inside Info' on Cobain. All of them printing the pathetically predictable articles with Novoselic/Grohl/the nanny with the same hype that's been kicking around since 1994.
I am sick of Nirvana and the media carnival that surrounds him, his kid and his wife. Cobain advertising Dr Marten Boots! Cobain in new video game! Cobain, secrets unearthed from the grave! Cobain speaks to fan through Ouija board and cures blind man! Okay, I made that last one up, but you get the picture.
Despite his death, his widow continues to whore him out (did you know that Bono owns something like 40% of Nirvana's catalogue? Punk as ****) and he is in every music paper I seem to read.
He's dead guys, leave him to it. There will be no more Nirvana albums but an endless revolving door of pulp fiction novels of 'The Real McCoy' stories of Cobain's life, his band, the downward descent into a life of drugs, all for our pleasure on E! Entertainment channel. . . we've heard it all before.
Leave the man be, let that band be, we've heard all their songs a million times before on the radio.
2 Comments – Post a comment
gesture
Commented 24 months ago - 17th May 2010 - 11:31am
Kurt Cobain said once that wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are, in my opinion the magazines etc are turning Kurt into someone else, we all know about his problems but as you said they are dragged up too often and by too many.
Do you think these kids that wear these shirts etc are trying to be someone that grew up with Kurt, true he was a great musician and a very troubled man but I think people are looking too much into with all the stories. I knew someone that had his suicide note in their bedroom, a very macabre thing, don't you think?
I didn't know about Bono owning 40% of the back catalogue, that shocked me a bit.
oh and btw there was a comedian (Jon Bishop) who was on a show with Courtney Love, afterwards he said this "I was only with her for half an hour and I could see why that cobain guy did what he did", brilliant piece of comedy
CLICryan
Commented 24 months ago - 18th May 2010 - 18:01pm
"don't spam up the comments section about his death"
I am instead going to spam up this area with my own conceited recollections of Nirvana - merp!
Firstly, I had no idea the kids were still worshipping at the feet of Cobain.
I am old now, but I happened to be taping - yes, taping - The Word on Channel 4 one Friday night 1n 1990(?), when Nirvana made their UK TV debut. Clip is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgxkAXqP6kY
I couldn't believe what I was hearing / seeing so the next day I caught the bus into town from Llanedeyrn and went into HMV to see if they had anything by this unknown band. They had one copy of Nevermind sat on its own under the letter N with other random stuff that hadn't sold well.
It's the version without the hidden track (Endless, Nameless) on the end which makes it one of the first run of CDs before the hype kicked in. Within a few months Nevermind and Bleach had their own rack space with shedloads of CDs in.
I didn't rate next album In Utero highly - as, I suspect, Cobain didn't want me to - but I did like the covers album they put out (Incesticide). I also had a ticket to see them in Cardiff Ice Rink but he died before they played. I got my refund and went to see Motorhead in Newport Centre instead.
I sympathise with your irksomeness, as when I was in Coleg Glan Hafren doing my A-levels there was an all-out competition to see who could be most 'into' The Doors: who could own the most music, who could recite the most facts, who could sing their stuff out loud the most confidently, and worst of all, who could point out the most historic inaccuracies in Oliver Stone's Doors movie. I used to quite the like Morrison and co, but since then I can't hear Riders In The Storm without shuddering.
That is all.