Last night the remaining members of the legendary band Nirvana managed a neat trick. While being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they found a way to revisit the late Kurt Cobain songs in a manner that that avoided the big huge elephant in the room. Namely, that Kurt himself wasn't around to play them himself. Something that has left a huge whole in the music scene for two decades now.
The way the remaining members, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and late addition Pat Smear, managed to dodge the usual comparisons was by having a quartet of female rockers fill in for their former leader. The choices were all terrific as well. Rock icons Joan Jett and Kim Gordon killed it early, performing Smells Like Teen Spirit and Aneurysm, respectively. Both were indie rock icons before Nirvana started bashing out songs in Aberdeen, WA. While newcomers Annie Clark of St. Vincent, who was nine and teenage pop sensation Lorde, who was not even a twinkle in her father eye when Kurt ended his life, finished the show with versions of Lithium and All Apologies. Good choice all around for the glorified TV spectacular. (The whole show will be broadcast on HBO in May.)
Yet, they weren't Kurt. That's because Cobain was one of those mercurial performers that come along maybe once or twice a decade. And as good as all of those women are at their craft. They ain't Kurt. Which brings me to the first examples of revisionism that I need to debunk.
You see many commentator last night were inferring that the performances were "incredible" with someone from Vice's on-line music mag Noisey, one Fred Pessaro, actually proclaimed that he "Saw Nirvana in 2014". (There was an after party at a local club where Dave, Krist, Pat and a selection of special guests performed an entire set of Nirvana songs.)
Actually, kid, you saw a really neat show with the remaining members of Nirvana with some pretty cool special guests. But you didn't even come close to "seeing Nirvana". Just to show you how different the two events are in real life, I give you everyone's current critical darling Annie Clark doing a serviceable version of Heart Shaped Box.
And now here is the real Nirvana, with Kurt, tearing apart a Seattle audience during their Live and Loud performance. The song is Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. It isn't one of Nirvana's big hits and yet it packs a wallop that no one on stage last night could come close to capturing. This is Nirvana, Fred. The real Nirvana.
If you think that performance was a one off I suggest you check out Nirvana Live at Reading or their performance at Rock in Rio in 1993. Kurt wasn't on every night (heroin will do that to you) but when he was the band went to another level and it was truly something to see. Which is why the remaining members were so smart in using the revolving set of women rockers for the actual Hall of Fame appearance. The novelty of swapping genders took some of the pressure off each individual performer to try and outdo Kurt. Something that wasn't going to ever be possible. As good as Annie Clark is, and she is quite talented, she isn't Kurt. (She isn't even Florence Welch for that matter. IMHO.)
Still, with the twentieth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death and Nirvana's subsequent Hall of Fame appearance in the same week, a lot of people, especially the press, like to engage in the game of "what if..." I'm sure it got reads and clicks. The problem is that it often showed the press for what they are these days. Clueless people who didn't seem to get Nirvana in the first place. Some have doubted their influence. Others question if Kurt had nowhere to go musically.
All of this is just revisionism by people who don't seem to understand how musicians work or even get what Kurt was all about. You don't spend hours trying to figure out a certain sound on a guitar as Kurt did and have nowhere to go with your music. You don't perform a Leadbelly song the way he did on unplugged and not have frontiers left to explore. He loved music. That wasn't going to change no matter what happened next.
The problem for Cobain wasn't what direction he could he go musically. The problem was where could the man go to find peace and serenity. He was obviously in a lot of psychic pain. If one didn't get that from his music, you certainly could figured it out from the way he ended his life. He took the one way out that made sense to him at the time. He was in pain and decided he couldn't take it anymore. Some say that he undertook a permanent solution to a temporary problem. That wasn't how he looked at it, however. Anyone who has ever fought depression can tell you that.
We can all write think pieces imagining a future with Kurt fronting Nirvana today. Had he lived he might have handed the the songwriting chores over to Dave Grohl. Kurt was famously quoted as saying the studio session when the band recorded a batch of batch of Dave's songs with one of Kurt's in January of 2014 was one of the best times he had during the beginning of that year. Nirvana fans could have one of those rock arguments about how much better they were when Kurt wrote most of the songs instead of the later "Dave" years. You could have a "Kurt" camp and a "Dave" camp. Or maybe he breaks up the band and goes solo. Perhaps he does a hip-hop record with Chuck D or Dr. Dre. If I had to guess, though, he probably would have done the type of albums his old pal Mark Lanegan makes these days. Thoughtful, melodic albums with a folk tinge. With or without Dave and Krist. But I really don't know.
The only thing any of us know for sure is that Kurt is dead. So everyone should accept it and move on. I'm pretty sure Dave and Krist have. They may have revisited Kurt's (and their own) legacy one more time last night. To give everyone some closure. But I seriously doubt they'll be touring behind it. They have too much of their own work to do.
The way the remaining members, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and late addition Pat Smear, managed to dodge the usual comparisons was by having a quartet of female rockers fill in for their former leader. The choices were all terrific as well. Rock icons Joan Jett and Kim Gordon killed it early, performing Smells Like Teen Spirit and Aneurysm, respectively. Both were indie rock icons before Nirvana started bashing out songs in Aberdeen, WA. While newcomers Annie Clark of St. Vincent, who was nine and teenage pop sensation Lorde, who was not even a twinkle in her father eye when Kurt ended his life, finished the show with versions of Lithium and All Apologies. Good choice all around for the glorified TV spectacular. (The whole show will be broadcast on HBO in May.)
Yet, they weren't Kurt. That's because Cobain was one of those mercurial performers that come along maybe once or twice a decade. And as good as all of those women are at their craft. They ain't Kurt. Which brings me to the first examples of revisionism that I need to debunk.
You see many commentator last night were inferring that the performances were "incredible" with someone from Vice's on-line music mag Noisey, one Fred Pessaro, actually proclaimed that he "Saw Nirvana in 2014". (There was an after party at a local club where Dave, Krist, Pat and a selection of special guests performed an entire set of Nirvana songs.)
Actually, kid, you saw a really neat show with the remaining members of Nirvana with some pretty cool special guests. But you didn't even come close to "seeing Nirvana". Just to show you how different the two events are in real life, I give you everyone's current critical darling Annie Clark doing a serviceable version of Heart Shaped Box.
And now here is the real Nirvana, with Kurt, tearing apart a Seattle audience during their Live and Loud performance. The song is Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. It isn't one of Nirvana's big hits and yet it packs a wallop that no one on stage last night could come close to capturing. This is Nirvana, Fred. The real Nirvana.
If you think that performance was a one off I suggest you check out Nirvana Live at Reading or their performance at Rock in Rio in 1993. Kurt wasn't on every night (heroin will do that to you) but when he was the band went to another level and it was truly something to see. Which is why the remaining members were so smart in using the revolving set of women rockers for the actual Hall of Fame appearance. The novelty of swapping genders took some of the pressure off each individual performer to try and outdo Kurt. Something that wasn't going to ever be possible. As good as Annie Clark is, and she is quite talented, she isn't Kurt. (She isn't even Florence Welch for that matter. IMHO.)
Still, with the twentieth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death and Nirvana's subsequent Hall of Fame appearance in the same week, a lot of people, especially the press, like to engage in the game of "what if..." I'm sure it got reads and clicks. The problem is that it often showed the press for what they are these days. Clueless people who didn't seem to get Nirvana in the first place. Some have doubted their influence. Others question if Kurt had nowhere to go musically.
All of this is just revisionism by people who don't seem to understand how musicians work or even get what Kurt was all about. You don't spend hours trying to figure out a certain sound on a guitar as Kurt did and have nowhere to go with your music. You don't perform a Leadbelly song the way he did on unplugged and not have frontiers left to explore. He loved music. That wasn't going to change no matter what happened next.
The problem for Cobain wasn't what direction he could he go musically. The problem was where could the man go to find peace and serenity. He was obviously in a lot of psychic pain. If one didn't get that from his music, you certainly could figured it out from the way he ended his life. He took the one way out that made sense to him at the time. He was in pain and decided he couldn't take it anymore. Some say that he undertook a permanent solution to a temporary problem. That wasn't how he looked at it, however. Anyone who has ever fought depression can tell you that.
We can all write think pieces imagining a future with Kurt fronting Nirvana today. Had he lived he might have handed the the songwriting chores over to Dave Grohl. Kurt was famously quoted as saying the studio session when the band recorded a batch of batch of Dave's songs with one of Kurt's in January of 2014 was one of the best times he had during the beginning of that year. Nirvana fans could have one of those rock arguments about how much better they were when Kurt wrote most of the songs instead of the later "Dave" years. You could have a "Kurt" camp and a "Dave" camp. Or maybe he breaks up the band and goes solo. Perhaps he does a hip-hop record with Chuck D or Dr. Dre. If I had to guess, though, he probably would have done the type of albums his old pal Mark Lanegan makes these days. Thoughtful, melodic albums with a folk tinge. With or without Dave and Krist. But I really don't know.
The only thing any of us know for sure is that Kurt is dead. So everyone should accept it and move on. I'm pretty sure Dave and Krist have. They may have revisited Kurt's (and their own) legacy one more time last night. To give everyone some closure. But I seriously doubt they'll be touring behind it. They have too much of their own work to do.
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