Music is disappointing today - Teens react to Nirvana

[Julius Seeker]

I say disappointing, because logically it would make sense that the industry would evolve into better things, but it hasn't.

Some interesting things came out of this video:
1. Thought music was better back then.
2. Reacted well to Smells Like Teen Spirit video
3. Girls all thought Kurt was really attractive
4. Were freaked out and confused by the Heart Shaped Box video - they were uncomfortable with KKK-girl - who, by the way, is Kurt's youngest sister.
5. They don't even think there's much in the way of rock music around today.
6. Most didn't know about the grunge movement.
7. Most didn't know that Kurt Cobain committed suicide.
8. Think the music is relevant because the problems of kids haven't really changed since the 90's.



I wrote a few more comments, but I didn't want to derail my own thread, so I put them in a spoiler message

Spoiler: show

The interviewer mentioned that Nirvana had 3 studio albums - this is a bit misleading since the majority of available Nirvana content released to the public was not those albums:
While the 3 studio albums - Bleach, Nevermind, In Utero - were their most major contribution, their other releases, during the life of the band and following Kurt's death, also helped with the impact. These other releases include a bunch of EPs and compilations including Incesticide, Outcesticide, Hormoaning, Bliss, the early Bleach compilation Blew, the video Live Tonight and Sold Out, Muddy Banks of the Wishkah (posthumous), Unplugged in New York (posthumus), and a huge number of singles.


The interviewer relayed one of the media created myths for Kurt's death: he was not overwhelmed by fame, nor did not kill himself due to it.

His ex wife, family, band members, and close friends all consistently report that it was due to years of severe heroin addiction; Krist has said that he just stopped caring about life. Heroin has the side-effect of making its users very apathetic towards even serious decisions; even things such as overdosing and suicide become trivial decisions. His family also believes Kurt suffered from bi-polar disorder.

Kurt was an oblivion seeker according to Courtney Love and confirmed by Krist Novosolec. Kurt would OD opiates or heroin, and people (mostly Courtney) monitored him so that he didn't die. Although one instance occurred while he was at his mother's home in front of her and Kurt's sister - not knowing what to do, they called Courtney. In 1994 Kurt was overdosing on his own, and this included a self-inflicted overdose on roofies, Courtney Love found him, and called the paramedics - this is actually believed to have been a suicide attempt in retrospect. Later, while high, he dropped his daughter, and this is what caused the intervention which included, Courtney, his band members, record executives, family and friends - the goal was to place ultimatums before Kurt in order to convince him to quit drugs. It's speculated by people close to him that he felt ganged up upon in the ultimatum, he either had to give up his heroin or everyone in his life - and it wasn't just about the ultimatum either, he dropped his daughter, he knew it had to be one way or the other - and he wanted both or neither; so after escaping rehab, he killed himself.

The true story may not be as sexy as the media myths of self-inflicted martyrdom and murder conspiracies, but it is darker.

[Shrinweck]

Teens today don't really have parents that would have been REALLY into grunge (a 15-20 year old REALLY into grunge would probably only just have had a child in the past 1-10 years) so they wouldn't have any way to learn about it other than random chance. Basically the second you're out of high school/college your taste in music freezes and your children learning of any music outside of that range or what's modern (for them) is basically impossible through anything other than some outlying possibilities that are going to miss the vast majority.