Kurt Cobain left us on April 5, 1994. I remembered where I was (sort of): sitting at the bar of either John's Italian Cafe or Cafe le Gaffe on Baldwin St.
A number of years later, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would become one of my 1000 Songs entries, and a very thoughtful discussion followed, which would be continued sporadically in the months and years to come.
You can still find it in the FB Group, but the entire text follows as well: https://www.facebook.com/notes/1000-songs/song-192-smells-like-teen-spirit/10150228405286451/
Song #192: Smells Like Teen Spirit
By Jim Shedden on Monday, July 4, 2011 at 10:58 PM
Jim Shedden
1000 Songs in 1000 Days
September 2, 2008
Song #192: “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Nirvana, Nevermind, 1991.
Sometimes I feel so hopelessly unoriginal.
You know my story. Big pop and rock music fan from an early age, up until the early 1980s when, with few exceptions, I just shut off, owing to my perception that music had gone completely to hell. For me, 1984 was Depeche Mode, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Duran Duran, Wham!, The Bangles, a Meat Loaf comeback, Skinny Puppy, Banarama, Gary Numan, Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds, Hall & Oates (not the good stuff), Dead Can Dance, Talk Talk, The Thompson Twins, Alphaville, and on it goes. Tired releases by Foreigner, Styx, Don Henley, Nazareth, Toto, Donna Summer, Chicago (17). I ignored the fact that REM, Husker Du, the Meat Puppets, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Kevin Ayers, the Minutemen, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Flipper, The Smiths, Los Lobos, Robyn Hitchcock, The Gun Club, The Replacements, Robert Earl Keen, The Waterboys, Cyndi Lauper (yes, I like her), The The (yes, I like them), Roger Waters (mixed feelings), Prince (Purple Rain), Tina Turner (mixed feelings), Sonic Youth, Big Country, Talking Heads, The Fall. So it really wasn’t that bad, but that wasn’t my perception.
At the same time, it wasn’t 1979, or 1969, or 1959. I was convinced that it was over for me and I listened to anything but the new pop and rock for almost a decade. I got into jazz. I got into 20th century new music. I listened to Bach and Mozart. I got into Zappa. I got into world music.
As I thawed out in the early 1990s, I started hearing about “grunge”. Since the people I knew who were into this music also tended to be in punk – ie, especially the L.A. and D.C. scenes, and bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat, and the Dead Kennedys – I expected to hear that in the music. And it’s there, to a degree. But I immediately made the connections to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, 1970s “hard rock”, Led Zeppelin, and then The Dream Syndicate and the Gun Club, especially The Dream Syndicate, whose Days of Wine and Roses strikes me as the first “grunge” album.
But here’s where I’m 100% unoriginal. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” stopped me in my tracks. Got me back right back into rock music again. Gave me enormous hope that something brilliant was happening.
The funny thing is, album for album, 1984 might have been a far better year for music, but I’m actually fairly ignorant about most of the releases of 91. The tired releases by Queen, Sting, David Lee Roth, Rod Stewart, Gary Numan, Michael Bolton, The Rolling Stones, Pat Benatar, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cher, Joe Walsh, Simple Minds, etc. continued. And there was a lot of hip hop, which I’ll get back to: 1991 was a high point in hip hop history. There was good stuff like Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr., REM, Elvis Costello, Green Day, Tom Petty (his first “solo” album), Sarah McLachlan, Soundgarden, but all in all it seems like it was a pretty meager year.
So Nevermind really, really sticks out.
It’s not the beginning of grunge, but the end of grunge. It’s the album where Nirvana moved away from Sub Pop and the self-marginalizing Seattle scene, a scene that really defined itself in 1986 but had its heyday, as an alternative scene 1989-1991.
Nevermind, and especially the hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, weren’t “alternative” because it had too much appeal, it struck a chord with the mainstream. “Teen Spirit” was the song of the summer of 1992.
The song was written by Cobain and Dave Grohl (and also credited to Krist Novoselic, after his significant contributions to the rhythmic counterpoint of the song) and produced by Butch Vig. Cobain had admired his work for Killdozer and wanted to sound as heavy as them, and they pulled it off. Cobain has also credited the Pixies as an influence on this song: “We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.” I’ll have to return to the Pixies, a band I missed the first time around because of my closed mind in the 1980s.
The song basically consists of four power chords – F5, Bflat5, Aflat5, Dflat5 – played by Cobain in a syncopated sixteenth note strum. That’s my mind of song. Add to that that the chords were “double-tracked”. I can’t describe what happens technically any more than that. I will say that there’s an incredible drama created by the unpredictable presence and absence of the chords, the occasional suspension of the trajectory of the song, the alteration between quiet verses with lyrical guitar and Big Ass Guitar Chords. It all ends in Cobain’s strained voice singing “a denial” over and over again, finally closing with guitar feedback.
I was into Nirvana from that moment in for almost a decade. I like almost all their other songs, admittedly the better known cuts like “Rape Me” and “Heart-Shaped Box” the most. I also really like MTV Unplugged in New York, especially their covers of two favorite songs of mine, “The Man Who Sold the World” and “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”.
Mostly I’m grateful to Nirvana, though, for being a catalyst in me opening my mind and my ears again back in 1991.over a year ago · Delete Pos
Alan Zweig
It was a great song. I'm glad you didn't include the lyrics because I never had a clue what the song was about and I still don't. I saw some "behind the music" type doc recently where they explained the origins of the song but I quickly forgot it.
And it's time you stop beating yourself up about missing this or that period of rock music. That totally makes sense. To be honest, I think what makes less sense on some level, is that you ever came back.
On some level, you're not supposed to. You're supposed to grow up, right?
So if your story were, you grew up, you moved on, and then you heard this amazing song and it drew you back and once you were back, you could never totally get away again, that would be a lovely story.
As I write this, I'm going through a whole bunch of recently acquired "alternative rock/indie etc" stuff and maybe it's the road pavers outside my door driving me nuts but none of it is working for me today and I'm wondering whether this might finally be the end for me.
Dramatic maybe. Or maybe not. Sometimes I do think that you can get to the point where you've heard too much or seen too much and you have to distract yourself in new ways.
Or just stop completely paying attention.
Then again, somebody plays you something as great as this song and you'll probably be back.
I'm making a circular argument, aren't I?
Well then all I'm going to say is that it's interesting for me to see you trying to explain the song structure here.
As an aside, do you know that when they make a trough in your street, they don't just pave over the trough. First they completely remove the rest of the street's surface and then they repave the whole thing.
On the day they remove the street's surface, you should be somewhere else.
But I digress.
The thrilling thing about this song is what you're calling those "big ass guitar chords".
I like his voice too. And I think Cobain was a great songwriter. Maybe Grohl too. And the thing, I think, that distinguished Nirvana songs from other grunge songs, was that Nirvana was, I guess, poppier.
Other grunge - I'm thinking of Soundgarden, certainly Alice in Chains - came from more of a heavy metal/blues rock place. Nirvana on the other hand, reminded me more of a new wave band.
Pop music with heavy guitar.
I think you could dispute that. Cobain said he liked Killdozer. Fine I'd say. But you AREN'T Killdozer (who for me, existed for one reason and one reason only, namely their brilliant cover of "I am I said".)
Writing about some of your songs here, I've come to realize that I have a pretty consistent - if somewhat indefensible - theory of pop music running in the back of my head.
There's folk music, there's pop music and then there's this other thing I don't know what to call because blues doesn't say it. Let's call it "heavy" music.
And all so-called rock music breaks down into folk music with loud guitars, pop music with loud guitars and then this third less melodic, less poppy thing with loud guitars.
I think I'm just typing to get the sound of roadbreakers out of my head. So I'd better go.
But yeah, the big ass guitar chords in that song were big ass enough to restore your faith in electric guitar. And if that's what they did, that only makes sense.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Dan Bazuin
It's hard to imagine the impact of this song with out mentioning the video. It's one of a hand full of videos that made pop culture turn a corner. You get an almost perfect song, you got a vision of what life would be like in Grunge high school -sexy, smokey and loud ... it even gave you a picture of the school uniforms.
And over night the gods of flannel smiled down upon us and made Ben Hoffman look hip.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Rick Campbell
First of all, what the hell is wrong with Dead Can Dance? I've got two beers in me and am feeling feisty!
Secondly, "....this might be the end for me." Alan Zweig Sept. 3, 2008.
But not until you tell me what you think of Fleet Foxes, the album, and also their Sun Giant EP. Then you can piss off if you want to. But I will hunt you down like a dog and play great music for you until you come back.
Blitz AKA Michael Kaler introduced me to Nirvana. I always thought it was before I moved to Vancouver, but he must have played Nevermind in Innis Pub on one of my visits back. Although, I distinctly remember him going to a club at Ossington and College to hear Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. I saw the band All (a terrific offshoot of Descendants) with him there. I can't remember the name of the venue. Maybe that was before Nevermind came out.
How strange to have my memory so wrong!
Anyway, I moved to the Pacific Northwest just as grunge became the big movement it did---Sept. 1990. And let me tell you, it is the closest I'll ever get to feeling like being in Swinging London. Only with the flannel instead of the paisley Edwardian thing. But that was great too. The thing was that all my clothes that I've pretty much worn (my style I should say) since around 1975----excluding when I want to make an impression in show business, which is what it's all about isn't it?----STUPENDOUSLY came back into fashion.
In short it was okay to dress like Neil Young. In fact, a lot of people were dressing like Neil Young again. This was very exciting for about four people. But I was one of those four people! It also proved my theory about musical trends. Could a Sex Pistols reunion tour "sell out" be far behind? NO! Beautiful. Check and mate.
But beyond all that crap was how much I loved the music of that scene. I loved Nirvana (who always sounded like The Beatles to me), I liked the Zeppelin/Sabbath/Crazy Horse panache of Pearl Jam, and the metalish tinge of Soundgarden. I liked the misanthropy of Mudhoney and the Doorsy dour of Screaming Trees. I thought "Rooster" by Alice in Chains was just what I needed the first time I heard it. And I still hear grunge in Queens of the Stone Age (and their affiliates) and many other bands today. Even Seattle's Fleet Foxes, who have about as much to do with grunge music as the poor, lovely Seattle pop band of the grunge period, The Posies did), remind me of what is at the heart of the Pacific Northwest scene cannot be replicated elsewhere. That DIY spirit. That sound of rainy winters and too much rain that I hear in all their music. I saw virtually everybody while I was there EXCEPT Nirvana.
I was also lucky enough to see The Pixies during this period. They opened for U2, when their Achtung Baby tour came to town the first time, the hockey arena tour, before the stadium Zooropa thing and the irony got to be too much. What a fantastic set The Pixies played. A nice healthy set too. Respect to U2 for that. I saw Kim Deal in Vancouver a couple of years later with The Breeders. "Cool As Kim Deal" is one of my favorite pop songs.
I was one of those who was genuinely upset and bereft when Cobain killed himself. I thought that In Utero was a masterpiece. I loved its uncompromising quality. As much as Butch Vig's production on Nevermind is stunning, I loved that Cobain stuck to his guns (sorry) and made that record. It was brave. And if you listen closely to "Serve the Servants", you can hear how much he was influenced by The Beatles. Just speed that song up a bit, add some polish, and it wouldn't be out of place on the Beatlemania album.
I remember the video for....oh god I can't remember the name of it, and I won't wikipedia now...the video where they're playing on an ersatz Ed Sullivan-type show better than "Teen Spirit". A wonderful song too. I remember Crazy Al Yankovic's superb parody of the "Teen Spirit" video better. That was the high water point of video. I doubt that Sarah MacLaughlan and many others would have had the careers they had without video. Now it's all so trivial and dull. I find it astonishing that much of the new music I still love I heard/saw for the first time on MuchMusic. Remember the death metal videos they'd show? IN THE AFTERNOON??
Nirvana were a superb trio. Great attitude. Great players. I truly regret not seeing them in 1993 at the PNE. Or earlier. I had a few chances. I was so happy that people were playing rock music again, or that , beyond hardcore, and straight edge, which I liked (thank you Blitz) there was something that spoke to me, back in the mainstream. Something less ideological. More universal.
The song itself remains awesome. Tori Amos' version is superb too, and strips the song bare of it's Pixie-construction to reveal a stunning piece of pop. I love her for recording it that way so we could see where Cobain is coming from. Cobain himself was a musicologist of the first order. Too bad we lost him, but I hear his spirit in the voices of some of the people who write for MOJO and on this site.
Pop and rock is better off for having had Nirvana. And that's all I can say without getting maudlin. Or maybe I did already. I'm going back to Fleet Foxes.
Rick Campbell
It occurred to me that perhaps my little note to Alan at the beginning there might be misconstrued. That it might not be seen as being written with warmth and yes, a little affection.
It was.
Alan Zweig
I meant finished in terms of keeping up with indie rock. I'm not quite finished keeping up with you and your joyous rants.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Dan Bazuin
*Ben Hoffman is the legendary flannel clad gnome and owner of the Record Peddler, the first(?) punk new wave record store in T.O. I could never determine Ben's actual tastes, but he seemed to love Lemmy and co. I didn't make the connection at the time but Neil Young may have been his sartorial guru.over a year
Alan Zweig
Oh, you mentioned the Record Peddler. Hated that place.
HATED.
I can laugh about it now.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Rick Campbell
I was not a fan of that place either. I really wanted to like it but never bought a single thing in there. Too cool for school.
And Alan, I know what you meant, which was why I mentioned Fleet Foxes which, if you haven't yet heard them, may get you back on the road. But you must do it old school. You must play their Sun Ginat EP in its entirety. You must play the eponymous album in its entirety. No sampling. No jumping away after the first minute and a half of a song.
Yeah, I can hear you now. "Don't lay your Establishment trip on me, old man."
I'm guessing but, happy thing day that we must ignore.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Rick Campbell
Okay, the Ep is called Sun Giant, not Sun Gnat.
Sun Gnat. Good name for a band.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Dan Bazuin
I'm curious, was that the queen street store, or college street store? I think I remember our first conversations were at the Queen street store. When Charlie started the bookstore, he shared a door with the Record Peddler and Ben Hoffman, one of the owners, was always good to us. He helped us import a book from Britain that paid the rent for 2 months. The store moved across the street and I joined up a year later as something of a casualty of the counter-culture and the counter-counter-culture(punk?) We were neighbors of the record peddler and did some import and bootleg business with them, but now, looking I back I realize that most of the staff were a pain in the ass. We also did business with Steve at Records on Wheels on Yonge Street. More fun.
I have the same knee jerk reaction when someone mentions the Funnel.
Rick McGinnis
The Peddler. The Funnel. Impulse magazine. The staff at the Rivoli. Toronto was such a friendly place, so full of welcoming people who needed to share.
It was all very intimidating for a naive working class kid from Mt. Dennis who'd barely seen a half dozen subtitled films in his life at that point. I'd never been to a store where people seemed to find my money distasteful before, or who handled their own stock as it passed over the counter like it was smeared with mucus.
I bought quite a few things from the Peddler, even briefly dated a girl who worked there, but I always felt depressed whenever I left the place. I hate to say it but I was actually kind of happy when it closed - one more miserable relic of a time when even the supposed outsiders let me feel like an outsider.
And yeah, I really liked the Nirvana record, too.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Rick Campbell
Anyway...to rip off TS Eliot, this song proves that one can totally "get" the meaning of a great song without understanding the lyrics.
The other video I mentioned which, as it turns out, looks to be a parody of American Bandstand, is for the song "In Bloom".
I told MY favorite "Steve at Records on Wheels story" somewhere else on this site. That was a great era. I remember when that store first opened. It was if a prayer had been answered. When I go into She Said...Boom I'm reminded of those days.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Steve Campbell
At the time that grunge was ruling the world, which effectively came from this record, I was turning it off in my brain. Naturally, I hadn't really "listened" to any of it. There were a couple of excellent bands in the UK, Blur and The Auteurs who had written coded two finger salutes to grunge mainly because they were pissed off that no-one was listening to bands in the Uk anymore. On top of that quite a few UK bands were trying to be either Nirvana or Pearl Jam or the Pixies and it was just PISSING US OFF!
This is an attitude that is easy to take the piss out of for lots of reasons all based on what happened next. What happened later was that Blur's best selling song was effectively a grunge song right down to the quiet loud structure. It was especially big in the US. I wonder if the band found that ironic. I know it only lasted one album (and really only existed in that one song). More importantly what happened next was Brit-pop and all its excesses creating some of the best but also some of the most execrable english pop music of the 90's.
But the reality was that in 1991, Britpop was just a twinkle in Noel Gallagher's eye as he roadied gear around for The Inspiral Carpets and danced to the fag end of the Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays down the Hacienda. Gallagher sick to death of American music permeating the English conciousness, quit his job, grabbed his brother and formed a british pop band; the only decent music around being made by a bunch of Creation bands (My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream and Teenage Fanclub) that's where he ended up.
So yeah, without listening, I bought into the two fingers and avoided grunge for another year or so. Funnily enough it was not Nirvana that got me listening to America again but The Throwing Muses. They'd been around for years but I'd never really heard them before they appeared on my telly with some video off the Real Ramona (a great record). I was taken by misses Hersh and Donnelly and promptly went out and bought it. When I heard that Donnelly had left for some other band called The Breeders, I thought I'd better have a listen to them as well and Hey presto, this US rock scene sounds pretty good to me!
Obviously, exposure to Deal led me to The Pixies and then finally after reading something about Nirvana having ripped off the Pixies quiet loud schtick, I listened to Nevermind, probably a tape from my brother. During 1991 and 1992, I remember arguing with Rick about how grunge was too big RAWK sounding, how it had no nuance. By 1993, I was listening to Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins, the Screaming Trees and even giving the odd UK version of the music a chance (Bivouac).
Retrospectively, my shutting out this stuff for the best part of a year or more seems ridiculous to me, especially considering that I was not of an age where I would have expected to have such a closed mind to music (this wasn't 1979, it was fuckin 1992!) but anyway, pretty soon it was all over. By the time I was getting into it, grunge was going commercial and sounding less punk. Nevermind was the deathknell and Cobain knew it.
However, his ultimate reaction was as ludicrous as any other rock and roll suicide (although who knows what really was going on). The best reaction was In Utero and there was no reason why he couldn't have just carried on ignoring the business and playing what he wanted. But what do I know, fame is a bugger.
Finally, I just have to say that I couldn't agree more to the Beatle comparison. Back a long time ago I did a compilation tape where I placed About a Girl next to I'll Be Back. It seems pretty obvious to me. Nirvana were a pop/punk band. I don't know if Cobain had a problem with that (see In Bloom) but he did have a penchant for writing wonderful melodies.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Mark Brownell
Round Records on Bloor was my favourite place.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Rick Campbell
I still think it's funny that Blur's "grunge song" gets played at North American sporting events. I remember being at a hockey game and hearing it just when had come out and thinking Blur just beat Oasis. But I was wrong. America still couldn't care less about either one of them----well...maybe Oasis in some major centres.
But I think Blur's 13 album was more influenced by the then American Indie scene----bands like Pavement and Sebadoh. Wasn't it?over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Steve Campbell
Absolutely, that's why I say that their grunge moment only existed in that one song. I have to say that for me, Blur will always be a far more interesting band than Oasis. They constantly changed and demonstated a restlessness that was quite unique in the music scene in Britain at that time. Damon is quite the clever fellow (if still up his own ass so much that it must hurt) and still putting out interesting music.over a year ago
Sara Lewis
I'll preface my mumblings by stating outright that a) I'm wearing a Nirvana Bleach t-shirt and b) writing this in my dining room, directly beside the wall with two framed sepias of Kurt holding an infant Frances Bean.
I don't just love the 'DC, y'know. :)
Having said that, the last time I listened to Nevermind was...was....was...I can't remember. It's my least favourite Nirvana record, by far.
Bleach was released in 1989 and that's when I saw the band play at the Danforth Music Hall. They were a notoriously spotty live act, but that night, they were incredible. Kurt pretty much embodied every guy I ever liked in high school, and that attraction coupled with the fact that Bleach is an enormously hooky record cemented my forever-love for Nirvana.
Nirvana's a band that for me is all about the sum of its parts - unlike, KISS, say, which is all about Ace. Individually, they're decent musicians, and Dave's certainly gone to do some listenable (yet hardly groundbreaking) stuff with Foo Fighters. RS ranked Kurt in their Top 100 Guitarists of all time, and as much as I love Nirvana, I felt that was stretching it, to put it mildly.
When Teen Spirit came out, I felt a wave of disenchantment. To my ears, it sounded like the Bon Jovi of grunge. Slick, overproduced, and made for the masses. Even the band hated playing it.
I get why people like the song, and there are some decent tunes on Nevermind (I like Lithium the best, if only for the lyrics and the best loud-quiet-loud this side of The Pixies) but after the shadowy-grey raw shine of Bleach, Teen Spirit was a letdown for this fan.
Sara Lewis
One more thing:
The Peddler. The Funnel. Impulse magazine. The staff at the Rivoli. Toronto was such a friendly place, so full of welcoming people who needed to share.
It was all very intimidating for a naive working class kid from Mt. Dennis who'd barely seen a half dozen subtitled films in his life at that point. I'd never been to a store where people seemed to find my money distasteful before, or who handled their own stock as it passed over the counter like it was smeared with mucus.
I bought quite a few things from the Peddler, even briefly dated a girl who worked there, but I always felt depressed whenever I left the place. I hate to say it but I was actually kind of happy when it closed - one more miserable relic of a time when even the supposed outsiders let me feel like an outsider.
WORD!!!!!!
:)over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Sara Lewis
I lied.
One more thing:
I guess another reason why I dislike Teen Spirit so much is because of its utter cynicism. Kurt became a whining misanthrope, and it really bugged. The whole "I hate being a rock star" ethos rubs me the wrong way. Quit the band; go live in a cave. Pull a Syd Barrett. Who cares.
When a band does a complete 360 - from Bleach to Nevermind, goes with Butch Vig as a producer, and makes a radio friendly unit shifter (later the name of a track on In Utero - cynicism, thy name is Kurt Cobain) like Teen Spirit, it becomes difficult to take the self-involved "I never wanted this" angst all that seriously.
Can you tell that this record really pissed me off?
:)
over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Lorna Bell
I never liked this song, because I didn't understand what the lyrics were, something about a potato, and don't be stupid.
I thought it was cool when Paul Anka did a remake....then I could understand the lyrics, and I like his musical arrangement of the song....'runs and hides'.over a year ago · · Report · Delete Post
Jim Shedden
You know what I like about all of this? First, that people seem to be comfortable going back in the 1000 Songs time machine and putting some more meat on the bones. Makes me feel less anxious about posting the next one, though I will get to that tomorrow I promise.
More importantly: it seems clear to me now that, when it comes to pop music, we can completely agree on facts, and even on interpretation, but ultimately part ways where judgment is concerned. Reading your take on this song and this album, I have to agree with your observations. But I love the song and I love the album, but my situation was different and I have completely different associations I guess.
That's what I love about pop music.over a year ago · Delete Post
Rick Campbell
Maybe it's because I'm a fogey but I don't condemn people for their contradictions or else I'd have tossed out all my John Lennon albums years ago. I do, and this is probably wrong of me---life is too short--- condemn people like John Lydon who, (apparently) like to put on an act at other's expense, but I'm even getting over that now.
Nirvana gave me much pleasure. And I just heard Teen Spirit again and remembered everything I like about it and that record. And it was a getway song for a generation and that made me very happy (see above). And without it there would have never been an In Utero which is a magnificent record. Let's face it, whatever shit he was complaining about (and I don't think TS is about how hard it is to be a rock star AT ALL), he was troubled, made decisons on the fly like we all do and later regretted them, as we all do. He could have chosen his friends (and wife) more carefully.
Also, if someone comes out condeming the ethos of hair band culture or whatever and gets famous doing it then I have no problem with that either. Again I direct you to the man who died twenty-eight years ago today. One of the great hypocrite rock stars of all time.
But I wish he and Kurt were still here making their thrilling music.over a year ago
Sara Lewis
Having had to work with John Lydon on more than one occasion, I can assure you, it's no act.
TS isn't about how hard it is to be a rock star; the whining about hating rock stardom commenced after TS became a huge smash. I think it's hypocritical to make a shiny near-pop record like Nevermind, release it to the masses, and then whine about how you hate fame.
And Courtney's a decent songwriter, Rick. A lousy guitar player (they cut her sound more than once up at Molson Park it was so terrible) but a decent songwriter who inspired a lot of young women just like I once was to pick up a guitar and write a tune. I don't blame her for Kurt's unhappiness; I blame Kurt for sticking a needle in his arm the first, second, third, fourth time.
One thing we agree on here - In Utero's a magnificent record. Filled with self-loathing, and a difficult listen, but a magnificent record. But not nearly as great as Bleach
Don Busbridge
Dan TheMan
Dan TheMan Listened to it a zillion times. I was 18 in 1990. First time I heard it was Leaside High School upstairs boys bathrooms. Great song.
Alice Lenore Sellwood
Alice Lenore Sellwood I made the horrible mistake of using the term "world music" in a review I wrote last year. I got quite the unforgettable lecture from my Professor regarding its generalization. I guess it is a little vague. What "world music" were you listening to in those days?
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Rick Campbell
Rick Campbell World beat was the monicker when I worked at Sam's in the mid-90's.
Jim Shedden
Jim Shedden We knew world music and world beat were "problems" back in the day (hey, I even worked on the last WOMAD in a minor way) but it worked. Language is funny that way. If I said "world music" in the early 90s it could certainly mean any of African, Latin American, Indian, Caribbean, American regional (Tejano, Cajun, Bluegrass, etc.), Celtic... It was clear that it wasn't classical/renaissance/baroque, jazz (unless...), rock (unless...), pop (unless...). I don't use either term today, because everything is so much more available, so much less "exotic", and so much more integrated. This is all good.