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Dołączył: 10 Lut 2011
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Wysłany: Śro 4:51, 13 Kwi 2011 |
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Since his untimely death in 1993 Kurt Cobain has had hyperbole after hyperbole piled on to his name. One of his more popular titles, alluded to by Michael Azerrad in his April 16th, 1992 profile for Rolling Stone, is “the spokesman for Generation X”, a label that he was uncomfortable with and one that is too grand for any one person regardless of their achievements. Cobain’s legacy is filled with appointments like that one [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], grandiose proclamations that ultimately avoid any real definition of his impact on the world. In order to attempt a summation of his life and music, his legacy must be broken down into pieces before it can be reassembled.
A Grateful Student
When it gets down to it, Kurt Cobain’s greatest legacy won’t be his own work, but his support of musicians that came before him. This tendency toward acknowledging other performers’ efforts frequently manifested itself in Nirvana’s original material. Cobain was not a particularly original composer [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and their most enduring song is an example of this. “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, regularly regarded as one of the greatest songs of all time, is an admitted attempt at copying the Pixies’ soft verse-loud chorus dynamic with a refrain riff that is essentially the same as that of Boston’s “More Than a Feeling”.
Throughout the course of rock and roll there have been individuals and groups that have created such a legacy for themselves that they have attained on the status of modern gods. Elvis, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan are just a few of the artists whose musical careers have won them enough fervent fans to make them, in certain company, bigger than Jesus. Kurt Cobain has become the most recent rock star to become unanimously deified, and he now stands as one of rock’s untouchable figures.
Kurt is almost universally characterized as a tortured soul, the voice of alienated young people in America and beyond. This is certainly true to an extent, and one listen through In Utero will unequivocally verify this claim, but there is also a lighter side to his songwriting that is often overlooked. People often fail to look past punk’s snarling exterior to its often-humorous core. For every anarchic anthem there is a tongue-in-cheek composition. For every “Rise Above” there’s a “Six Pack”, for every “Anarchy In the there’s a “Submission”, for every “White Riot” there’s a “Protex Blue” [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and so on.
Read on
Top Ten Songs by Nirvana
Book Review
The trouble with turning men into gods is the revisionism needed to justify the transformation. Events are embellished and are flaws glossed over to make a person larger than life. Whether that person is a political leader, war hero, or rock star history is often filtered to show an individual in the best possible light. This, paradoxically, puts legacy in danger of growing stale. Embracing a person without airbrushing away their flaws it magnifies their great qualities by allowing them to be viewed in respect to their imperfect humanity.
A Very Funny Guy
Cobain, a faithful disciple of punk, understood this well. His pre-In Utero songs often display a pronounced sense of humor. Whether it is phrases, like “We can plant a house/ we can build a tree” from Nevermind’s “Breed”, or entire songs, like the faux-terrifying account of a stay at his grandparents’ house in “Sliver”, Kurt’s songs were just as likely to draw laughter from a listener as anger. This is something that unfortunately is not a prominent portion of his legacy.
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