The Contradictions of a Generation or: Why I Now Consider Kurt Cobain to be the best Anti-Hero of the 90's.

By Max Kath

I have been spending the past few weeks doing a few different things: reading a lot, going through an existential crisis of identity, going to my Grandfathers funeral, and trying my damnedest to figure out something of any value to write here in this blog that Chase has so graciously set up for me to be an editor of. And while I don't know if this can really be considered a post of any value I think I may have finally had a breakthrough in most unlikely of forms: Kurt Cobain. But before I get to that let me backtrack a little bit: most of the reading I've been doing is the book "Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth" by David Browne (which I recommend to anyone who has ever been interested in the old New York underground art movement of the late 70's through the 1980's) which has started to make me feel nostalgic for a version of the 80's and 90's that I never experienced. I grew up in the 90's and I got to hear a lot of the bands that were performing on the top 40 radio stations but I never got to experience the wonders of the grunge movement, or the excitement of going to the first Lolapalooza tour, or to listen in amazement to the sounds that Sonic Youth and Nirvana were making with their most popular albums that were coming out at that point. I'm old enough to remember all of those things, but not old enough to say "I was there when Nirvana broke big" or "My friend brought over this really good album called 'Gish' by some band called Smashing Pumpkins" but I can revel in the fact that there was this show on MTV called Total Request Live (or TRL for you purists) that boosted the sales of *NSYNC and had the number three spot reserved for the band Korn when they released their "Freak on a Leash" video.

But I digress. The other book I've been reading off and on for the past few days is a collection of dramatic work from the author Samuel Beckett. Beckett was a published poet, author, and playwright who would often write in the style of existentialism (which for those who don't know states that all things in life lead to one inevitable conclusion: death). His work has been some of the most challenging and well written things I have ever had the pleasure of reading and his philosophy is one that greatly influenced me in writing this entry (for no other reason than because I needed to find someone who could kick my lazy ass out of bed and make me leave my mark on the world). While at Target the other day I happened upon the movie "Kurt Cobain: About a Son" and decided to buy it along with the documentary "Grizzly Man" (which I also highly recommend) because I had heard good things about the movie and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Throughout the film we see numerous locations throughout Washington state and hear an audiotape of an interview done with Cobain before he died. Throughout the narration he shares many stories about his childhood and his family life and how he came to meet a bunch of people who would inspire him to form a band etc. The movie was pretty good with some moments of great insight to the man that most people have elevated to the realm of martyrdom. For the record I am not one of those people, but I can't deny that because of the Sonic Youth book my fascination with the myth that surrounded not only Cobain but all of Generation X has once again been rekindled; the idea that there was a large group of 18- 20 somethings that were so pissed off at the establishment set up by Ronald Regan and George Bush Senior (and to a certain degree Bill Clinton) that they had too find creative ways of expressing themselves to protest the bullshit that the establishment was piling on top of them (the 1960's anyone?). The reason I call this a myth is that the movement only last for about six or seven years before it imploded on itself, giving way to the whinny bitch movement of Nu-Metal and subsequent rise in pop radio hits that were so upbeat and friendly that they brainwashed a whole new of generation of kids. The people who were prevalent in the movement promised to be our undying symbols of protest and change through out the country, giving hope to all the disenfranchised youth who had lost their place in the world. This brings me to the one and only Mr. Cobain and his glorious contribution to the world.

Cobain represented, for most of the Gen-X crowd at least, someone who had grown tired of the corporate lifestyle that was taking over America's youth (and still is); the lifestyle that tells the kids how to dress, what music to listen too, where to go to get your morning cup of coffee etc. and Cobain hated all of it... especially when he became part of it. There is a classic Rolling Stone cover that has Cobain wearing a shirt that says "Corporate Magazines Still Suck," his attempt to justify being on the cover of a magazine that represented everything that he hated at that moment in time. The only problem was he probably didn't hate it that much at all, sure he was pissed that he had sunk to the low of dumbing the world down even more but at least he was getting paid to do so. In the film we hear a snippet of an interview where Cobain talks about the pressures of putting out a new record and then goes on to say that he would gladly take a check written to him by the head of the label. Granted he said that because he was wanting to put some money away for his daughters' future, but the scene acts as a glimpse into the true meaning behind Kurt Cobain: he was a human being who was no better or worse than anyone else and had been just as brainwashed as the kids who were going to see him in concert. Cobain came to represent everything he was railing against when he first got into making music, that part everyone knows, but what no one really thinks about is the fact that it happened to him in a very Orwellian way. He was systematically broken down by the very system he hated. He came to love corporate America just as much as Winston came to love Big Brother at the end of "1984." I may be exaggerating a little, but not by much, Cobain was very much the prototypical anti-hero because of what he came to represent in later years. Gen-X imploded on itself by 1998: most of the people in Gen-X were starting to go to collage or graduating from it and going out into the real world, they would trade in their flannel shirt, ripped up jeans, and Doc Martin boots for a three piece suit. They would move out of that dingy, dank apartment and move into a two story house in the suburbs with their girlfriend or fiance and have a few kids. They would go on to become successful business men or women and forget about all the idealism that they had growing up in the time of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. They would all go on to become yuppies and their kids would grow up listening to music like Korn and Marilyn Manson who will someday become the music that they look back on and wonder where all the good music went. And their martyr, their man upon the cross, the man who was the voice of a generation shot himself in the head to die for all the sins they were about to create.

And all the while I'm here feeling nostalgic for the version of the 90's that I never had, never will have, and will never exist again. Next time I think I'll talk about the nostalgia that I have for the 90's I do remember.