Kurt, We Hardly Knew Ye

OpinionJournal.com ^ | November 20, 2002 | NANCY DEWOLF SMITH

[KC_Conspirator]

I agree. I expect that untalented Justin Timberlake to fall on his face real quick. I coudl'nt even tell you what the new type of popular music will be in the near future, but it won't be the Christine Aguilera and Backstreet Boys types.

[jjm2111]

I never listen to the POP 40 garbage. Too much better stuff out there. O.k. I see where you're coming from.

[Notforprophet]

Soundgarden and Mother Love Bone started the grunge scene in Seattle, and Nirvana was just a cheap knock off.

BTW - Chris Cornell's new venue with the former musicians from RATM, called "AudioSlave", is out now and quite good.

[FreeTally]

The sad thing is, people are taking these quotes and running with them, and we'll never know the context of them.

Exactly what context would make this....

"I like to make incisions into the belly of infants then ---- the incisions until the child dies."

....not seem pretty sick??

[skeeter]

Nirvana lost me when I watched their bassist throw his guitar in the air & catch it on the bridge of his nose during a TV performance a few years back. Knocked him out stone cold.

Pretty funny, if not high art.

[CougarGA7]

Someone once told me that I looked like Kurt Cobain. I asked him "Before or after he pulled the trigger?" Then I went and got a haircut.

[WaveThatFlag]

which made the synthesizer a viable rock music instrument.

You are not helping your argument there.

[jjm2111]

I have a question: I like all music from punk to opera; well not (most) country. Is there a website where you can listen to or download new stuff. Yahoo's videos are ok, but they just seem to be pushing what the record companies are pushing.

[FreeTally]

I coudl'nt even tell you what the new type of popular music will be in the near future, but it won't be the Christine Aguilera and Backstreet Boys types.

I wonder that myself. Over the past two or three years, there hasn't been one really "dominant" form of music out there. I have to at least say there is a good bit of diversity in "popular" music. I dont think that stuff like John Maher(sp) will be popular for too long. Popular rock is like a continual cliche. Something is popular for a year, and then it "sucks" according to the opoular media.

I just hope rap dies. It wont, but I can hope. The entire rap mentality is hurting society. I like some up through the early 1990's, but its been heading WAY down hill since about 1995. Its such a limited form of "music"(and I hate to call it that) that there is nothing original left to do.

[dirtboy]

You are not helping your argument there.

Oh, really? What songs had the biggest impact at the NY WTC benefit? Baba O'Reilly and Won't Get Fooled Again.

[jjm2111]

"The entire rap mentality is hurting society. "

It's not rap as a musical form that's bad; it's the glorification of thuggery that permeates rap music that's terrible.

The thug is probably one of the most despicable characters out there; right up there with the pimp. Dumb, violent, and cowardly; the thug preys on society's weakest individuals. The thug destroys his body with drugs and alchohol. The thug is a loser.

Like Curtis Sliwa says: "We be thuggin'"

[SamAdams76]

I agree with you. Nirvana was about much more than Kurt Cobain. Dave Grohl brought as much, maybe more, talent to Nirvana as did Cobain. I'm a big fan of the Foo Fighters too.

[proust]

The sad thing is, people are taking these quotes and running with them, and we'll never know the context of them.

Exactly what context would make this....

"I like to make incisions into the belly of infants then ---- the incisions until the child dies."

....not seem pretty sick??

Context as in, was it a free-writing or was it intended to become a song lyric?

Most creative writing courses and books say that you should write free associations for 10 minutes or whatever without paying attention to what you write, or judging it right away. Out of those pages there will be lots of nonsense, but you may stumble upon a line that inspires a lyrical direction.

Bob Dylan did the same thing when he wrote "Like A Rolling Stone."

[FreeTally]

It's not rap as a musical form that's bad; it's the glorification of thuggery that permeates rap music that's terrible.

Sure; thats what I meant by "rap mentality". Its not just the "Thug" image either. Its the entire "I have to own expensive crap I cant afford to have respect" mentality too.

[FreeTally]

Context as in, was it a free-writing or was it intended to become a song lyric?

Any person who has a thought about cutting infants and screwing them, whether written in free association or not, is one sicko. Why would such a thought even come to one's mind?

Nothing Dylan wrote was sick like that. He was an interesting lyricist.

[Taliesan]

I'm so proud at this moment to say I wouldn't recognize one Nirvana song, nor could I pick any of them out of a lineup. You could play Kurt Cobain in my earphones and I couldn't distinguish his voice from my uncle Phil's.

I attribute this bliss entirely to good taste.

[Notforprophet]

I think you can do that at CD Now. www.cdnow.com?

[Taliesan]

If you free associated for three days in your journal, would you say anything approximating a fondness for killing babies in an act of perversion?

Of course not. But then, you're sane.

[Taliesan]

What follows appear to be the scribblings and doodlings of a crazed and depressed drug-addict in the midst of what many in drug rehab are taught to describe as 'stinking thinking'. That is, the resentful, childish, petulant and selfish desire to accuse, blame and berate the world for all its wrongs, to wish to escape, or overcome (usually in fantasy), and finally to take no responsibility whatsoever for any part of the ultimate downfall.

That is more eloquent and insightful than anything Cobain could possibly have written.

[WaveThatFlag]

Actually I'd go with Springsteen's "The Rising," but "which songs had the biggest impact at the WTC benefit" has nothing to do with which band was more important. Synthsizers ruined Van Halen. And the 80's.