I just saw a special on Bravo about “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It was funny that I was thinking about that song the other day. I suppose if you had to pick anthem for my generation that would have been it. The part that really surprised me was that this half hour special invoked a lot of emotion. If you’re over 35 or under 24, you probably have zero clue what I’m talking about, so you can just stop reading now.
Now for those of use who “came of age” during the explosion that was eventually named grunge, we can appreciate what a trend it turned into. Even today, you can look around and see elements of that time in fashion and music. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what a change that movement ushered in. The great part is we also remember what the world was like before the first time we saw the anarchy cheerleaders and heard that glorious riff. Mariah Carey dominated the radio and youth culture looked to Arsenio Hall for cues. Nirvana changed all that.
While you can argue that Cobain wasn’t a great musician, nor did his songs tell you a story, I don’t think many folks will try to counter either argument. What he did do was take a song of punk rock anger and make it catchy enough to get on the radio. At that time, it was widely believed that young people didn’t care about anything and had no opinions or interest in much. In some very real ways that was true. Yet I think we wanted to care about something and we wanted to feel that passion and I think Cobain had the art of capturing that unsettled sensation in his lyrics.
The down side to this is that for a few years it looked liked the world was really going to change. People were dressing down and growing their hair long and greasy. Music that said more than “lalalalala” was on the radio and a generation had something to finally get behind. The ultimate irony was that much of that spirit died in April 1994. I’d say perhaps for people my age, who were graduating high school in a few weeks and heading out into the world, that anti-climactic ending to a youth movement was like seeing the boat coming to rescue you sink just off the shore.
Since Cobain’s death we’ve been looking for someone else to carry the torch and lead us out of the darkness. The funny thing is we don’t know the way off the island, but we do know every nook and cranny of it. Here we have sat for the last decade praying under are breath that there is something more to life than the suburban mundane existence we were once promised we never had to endure. The worst part is this ending was the only foreseeable one.
If whatever the early 90s represented was allowed to fade out, then it would have been a trend. Instead, it ended tragically and left no hope for closure. That in and of itself left things exactly where they were when the whole change started. Of course now, flannel and power chords are a little more commonplace. Maybe the follow up anthem will never come. I’d imagine it would be titled “Calm Down People, There’s Nothing To See Here” and it would be sung lovingly by a bunch of 30 year olds wearing Old Navy closes reassuring us that its OK to like life and buy stuff.
Maybe it’s not so bad after all. We just have to quiet that inner dialogue that says otherwise. The first time anyone stayed true to their punk rock ethics and still “made it” was suppose to show us that you can stay true to who you are and maybe affect the world in a positive way. Instead it became a feeding frenzy of trendy clothing lines and record companies signing bands that were just fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. The heroes of that era all managed to self-destruct in one form or another and the rest of us managed to assimilate. The ultimately irony is that we finally achieved some appreciation for what our parent’s generation went through when the ideals they held dear became questions on “Jeopardy.”
Now for those of use who “came of age” during the explosion that was eventually named grunge, we can appreciate what a trend it turned into. Even today, you can look around and see elements of that time in fashion and music. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what a change that movement ushered in. The great part is we also remember what the world was like before the first time we saw the anarchy cheerleaders and heard that glorious riff. Mariah Carey dominated the radio and youth culture looked to Arsenio Hall for cues. Nirvana changed all that.
While you can argue that Cobain wasn’t a great musician, nor did his songs tell you a story, I don’t think many folks will try to counter either argument. What he did do was take a song of punk rock anger and make it catchy enough to get on the radio. At that time, it was widely believed that young people didn’t care about anything and had no opinions or interest in much. In some very real ways that was true. Yet I think we wanted to care about something and we wanted to feel that passion and I think Cobain had the art of capturing that unsettled sensation in his lyrics.
The down side to this is that for a few years it looked liked the world was really going to change. People were dressing down and growing their hair long and greasy. Music that said more than “lalalalala” was on the radio and a generation had something to finally get behind. The ultimate irony was that much of that spirit died in April 1994. I’d say perhaps for people my age, who were graduating high school in a few weeks and heading out into the world, that anti-climactic ending to a youth movement was like seeing the boat coming to rescue you sink just off the shore.
Since Cobain’s death we’ve been looking for someone else to carry the torch and lead us out of the darkness. The funny thing is we don’t know the way off the island, but we do know every nook and cranny of it. Here we have sat for the last decade praying under are breath that there is something more to life than the suburban mundane existence we were once promised we never had to endure. The worst part is this ending was the only foreseeable one.
If whatever the early 90s represented was allowed to fade out, then it would have been a trend. Instead, it ended tragically and left no hope for closure. That in and of itself left things exactly where they were when the whole change started. Of course now, flannel and power chords are a little more commonplace. Maybe the follow up anthem will never come. I’d imagine it would be titled “Calm Down People, There’s Nothing To See Here” and it would be sung lovingly by a bunch of 30 year olds wearing Old Navy closes reassuring us that its OK to like life and buy stuff.
Maybe it’s not so bad after all. We just have to quiet that inner dialogue that says otherwise. The first time anyone stayed true to their punk rock ethics and still “made it” was suppose to show us that you can stay true to who you are and maybe affect the world in a positive way. Instead it became a feeding frenzy of trendy clothing lines and record companies signing bands that were just fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. The heroes of that era all managed to self-destruct in one form or another and the rest of us managed to assimilate. The ultimately irony is that we finally achieved some appreciation for what our parent’s generation went through when the ideals they held dear became questions on “Jeopardy.”
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home