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The pop music press is constantly looking out for and promoting the next "spokesman for a generation," instead of looking for and promoting just plain good rock music. The fact that Lennon, Dylan, etc. became "spokesmen" was an accident of history; there was no precedent for them.
And Nirvana paid the price for this misreading of history. As the first decent rock band to get a real promotioanl budget from a major label (Geffen's fake "indie: label, DGC) in a long time, Nirvana by default beacme the first decent rock band that a lot of young people heard that didn't sound like their parents's taste in music. There were many other major label abortions from that period whose creators were worthy of being huge. Nirvana lucked out and recieved a larger budget for promotion from their label. Added to this were KUrt's extra-musical attributes, like his charisma, his willingness to speak his mind in interviews, etc. which in turn fomented Nirvana as a "media presence," not a BAND of musicians.
So the smokescreen came up, and a (w)hole lot of young people embraced this media presence, knowing full well that they were playing the corporate media's game...but the music here was mainly secondary to these young people's concerns, or at least that's what the corporate media would have you believe. We heard a lot of blather in those years about "slackers," about the anger we all supposedly were directing towards boomers, about "generation X" (remember that one? What a sad chuckle one must emit when reading that phrase...). Nirvana were the supposed "spokesmen" for this phenomenon.
Whither the music, though? The music was pretty good, although not that original. Not that orignality is the best criteria by which to judge music, but Cobain had indeed synthesized his influences quite well. Added to that, there was genuine emotional pain in his voice. That voice was a powerful instrument. And Grohl's drumming was indeed wonderous. They were a pretty good rock band.
But when people speak ill of Nirvana, what they are reacting to is the revulsion caused by media overload. We were literally forcefed the "image" of Nirvana in those years, the image of "generational spokesmen." Go back and read their reviews and feature articles; usually a word or two about the music, and reams and reams of words concerning Cobain's persona, his SIGNIFICANCE, his IMPORTANCE, his iconic stauts as a generational archetype. There was great music being avoided in favor of fluff. Media whores since the demise of Dylan's mid-sixties persona have alays been looking for another stooge to fill his shoes, and in the procees they are spared the expense and toil of having to actually talk about the music...Talk about his mythic upbringing, his importance to a generation, etc, not about his guitar playing, etc. So naturally there follows a backlash.
This is why we're seeing threads like this, about who's "better," NIrvava or the Foo Fighters. The media calls the tune, and we all dance; in this case, we fixate upon Grohl's presence at awrds shows, or Cobain wearing a defaced T-shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone. These are extra-musical concerns. In the end, we are left with two decent-to-great major label rock bands whoboth made some distinctive music. The Cobain-haters have been so effected by the media that they are reacting to the "image"'s overexposure. Without the smokescreen, I'm sure they could appreciate Nirvava's music as MUSIC, not as iconic paragons of a mood and an era.
Okay, that's my rant, good night.
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