2.
Contents:
2.3 Grunge Attitude
In this part of my work I want to talk about the attitude of the grunge
musicians, above all towards the media, the publicity and the hype they
are exposed to. I've read a lot about Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder and
so I want to concentrate on these two great songwriters. First of all I
must say that I left out the fact that Kurt Cobain is dead in the following
text. That way I didn't have to differentiate between past and present
because Kurt Cobain used to do what Eddie Vedder did and still does today.
I've written all these things which Vedder still does now and which Cobain
did until his death in present tense.
There are great similarities between these two musicians:
1. They are the vocalists of two of the main grunge bands Nirvana and
Pearl Jam.
2. They both had a spoiled childhood.
3. They were labelled "spokesmen of generation X" by the music media
4. They don't want to be stars
5. They are key figures in a new generation of songwriters and therefore
often imitated
6. They hate the media
2.3.1 Spokesmen Of A Generation
As I already mentioned above Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder were called the
"spokesmen of generation X" by the music media. But they don't like that
name and I also think that it is wrong to call them like that. Vedder once
said in an interview:
"We [he and Kurt] had similar backgrounds [...]
I think that's something that comes out in what we wrote in our songs, definitely.
[...] But what makes it more similar is the way the people responded to what we wrote
and sang about, the intense identification. And I think it was maybe a shock to both
of us that so many people were going through the same things.
[...] we kind of wrote these songs for ourselves really. Then all of a sudden,
there's all these other people who connect with them and you're suddenly the
spokesman for a fuckin' generation. [...]
Any generation that would pick Kurt or me as its spokesman - that must be a pretty
fucked up generation." 1*).
So this is the story of how this myth came up and how its "victims" think
about it. I think that it is wrong to call any person the spokesman of
a generation, first of all because there is no uniform generation with
the same interests and problems today. What is called generation X isn't
a generation in its original sense. It is not a collective of all people
born at about the same time but it unites many single individuals who have
this no-future feeling which is typical for it. But still Cobain and Vedder
aren't spokesmen for generation X because they hadn't got the intention
to summarize the mood of any kind of group in their songs. They wrote their
songs for themselves and not to reflect the alienation and anger among
their generation. This gets obvious when you look at their lyrics. In the
songs there are neither political nor religious messages. If there is a
message in a song it usually goes out to a dead or lost friend (/girlfriend
as well as fellow), like in the songs on Temple Of The Dog for example
(see 2.1.5), and therefore is only dedicated to
a very small circle of people and not to a whole generation. But after
the massive media exploitation some bands wrote songs with a message for
or against the media. Usually the lyrics of grunge songs have very personal
themes like experiences from the writer's youth or about the problems of
his friends or acquaintances. Eddie Vedder's lyrics for example reflected
the loneliness and confusion of growing up, often with frequent physical
and psychological abuse. So the rage, the anger and the bad experience
from his childhood is reflected in his songs as you can read in my interpretation
of Pearl Jam's song Alive under point 2.5.1.
These people wrote their songs to deal with their problems and to digest
their experiences. They wrote them for themselves and not for a whole generation
so they can't be called spokesmen of a generation. It is nevertheless possible
that a lot of people have gone through similar situations and therefore
it might be right to say that Cobain and Vedder have hit the spirit of
a lot of people but they didn't do that on purpose.
2.3.2 Superstardom
Although the grunge musicians never wanted to be stars but just wanted
to make music they became extremely popular. But the media wanted them
to be big stars. They wanted heroes whom they could commercialise. So they
were made superstars by the music business against their will. Here are
two statements from Vedder about this subject:
-"I'm not a fucking poser, and I'll fight for that. That's
something I take seriously. I'm not up there [on the stage]
playing to get women. I'm not up there playing to get money.
I'm not interested in that. So what am I doing?
I'm playing for the music."
-"The one thing about going from the audience to the stage in just three years
is that you know how it feels to be down there." 1*)
So for him being a star is synonymous with being a poseur and this is also
something he hates. It is very important for him to stay himself and not
to be changed by the popularity. To express this attitude he still wears
the same clothes that he wore before the great success and still drives
the same old car. The next thing he says is also true for Cobain and most
of the other grunge musicians. They aren't in to get rich by their music
but play just for fun, as a hobby or to have created something which gives
their lives a sense.
In the second statement it gets obvious that Vedder doesn't feel like
a star. He doesn't think that he deserves all the attention he gets and
feels a bit embarrassed about it. He prefers to play in little clubs than
playing in front of a giant audience in a football stadium for example.
First of all because of the club atmosphere and also because such a small
club is much more personal. There he can go or jump down from the small
stage and join the crowd which is impossible at big shows because the stage
is too high and it is too dangerous to dive down into the crowd.
Being a star means standing in the spotlight of the mass media and
as it is very hard to cope with the consequences of this, it is probably
one of the things that led to Cobain's suicide.
2.3.3 The Media
The media are the biggest enemies of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. There
is something special about the relationship of these two grunge poets and
the media. Cobain and Vedder hate them but they love the musicians because
they win them a lot of money. They tried to make them stars against their
will by for example labelling them "spokesmen of generation X". Like Cobain
and Vedder did, a lot of grunge poets feel raped and abused by media attacks
like this one. But it goes even further: their privacy is raked and intimate
stories are published and mixed with a lot of falsehoods. They called this
the media machine because it really was kind of a machine programmed to
exploit the musicians and make a lot of money. The media didn't care about
the fact that it destroyed the lives of the musicians. They only saw their
profit. That's why the poets hate them. Cobain and Vedder both tried to
find their own ways of getting out of the spotlight and away from the trouble
with the media. Kurt tried to escape from this hard reality by taking drugs.
It didn't help him much but rather made it worse and when he couldn't cope
with it all anymore his last exit was his suicide. After Cobain's death
the whole media attention was fixed on Vedder. But he found better ways
of escaping from the media machine. He and his bands did everything to
be as uncommercial as possible. They gave no interviews, cancelled their
tours and made no music videos to support their albums Vs. and Vitalogy.
This strategy seems to have worked as today the attention of the music
industry is focused on other musical styles like British pop music for
example.
2.3.4 The New Generation
There is a massive difference between the attitude of the old and the new
generation of grunge bands. Most bands of the old generation (especially
Pearl Jam and Nirvana) had a very uncommercial attitude as you have already
read in 2.3.3. They defied the mainstream culture. But
the new bands like Silverchair and Bush rather embrace the music media.
They joined the mainstream and now bathe in the success this brings them.
So they are much more trend conscious than their predecessors. They have
become instruments of the music media. They copied the way the old grunge
bands made music but they formed an alliance with the business. Both sides
profit of this relationship. But they still pretend to have the grunge
ideals like smashing their instruments and wearing torn clothes. For me
they are poseurs but that's only my opinion.
After all we can say that grunge is neither an ideology nor a religion
(although there are some fanatical Nirvana fans who idolise, adore or even
worship Cobain but they are an exception). The Hippie movement was for
peace
and love and against the Vietnam War. But grunge isn't even a movement.
There's something like a grunge ethic, which includes the clothes and the
attitude, but as the new grungers don't care for it very much, it perhaps
will die out when the old bands are gone. So it is just a musical style
that got taken over by the media and influenced fashion.
Please write me if you have any questions, suggestions,
comments, complaints or whatever!
I want and I need your response to make this page
perfect or at least a bit better!
hendrik@rhein-zeitung.de