10 Years Since the World Changed
It's been 10 years since the world changed.
It was on April 5, 1994 that Kurt Cobain took the easy way out and left this world.
I never bought a Nirvana record or attended a single one of their concerts.
I thought labeling him as the Great Spokesman of Generation X was an act of outright blasphemy. My generation is, and was, simply too diverse to ever have any one person as our spokesman.
Consciously, I didn't even pay that much attention to his music. It was always in the background. Always there, but never something that I paid that much attention to.
Still, when I heard that he had left us that April day a decade ago, my heart sank. I felt that the world would somehow never really be the same.
When Courtney Love read his last words in public, having an argument with him from beyond the grave, it only drove the sense of loss and bewilderment home in a way that still resonates with me today.
I actually feel sorry for everyone who was born too late to have albums like "Nevermind" as background music for their daily life. I know that sounds melodramatic. I almost feel like kicking myself for actually saying something like that.
I sound like some over-the-hill loser whining about his lost youth.
But the fact of the matter is that there hasn't been anyone on the music scene since then whose music resonates with the same kind of emotional power that I hear in every song he ever wrote. Comparing him with most of the musical acts that have come along since then is a lot like comparing Niagara Falls with a leaky faucet.
I spent most of today pondering what he would think of music in 2004. I'd like to think he'd be fond of Eminem, what to vomit at the mere thought of Justin Timberlake and hear some promise in bands like Story of the Year.
I'm fairly confident that he'd be annoyed with all of the ads that MSN Entertainment put all over their "tribute" to him.
But the more I think about it, the more confused I become.
The only thing that I know for sure is that the world changed forever 10 years ago today.
It was on April 5, 1994 that Kurt Cobain took the easy way out and left this world.
I never bought a Nirvana record or attended a single one of their concerts.
I thought labeling him as the Great Spokesman of Generation X was an act of outright blasphemy. My generation is, and was, simply too diverse to ever have any one person as our spokesman.
Consciously, I didn't even pay that much attention to his music. It was always in the background. Always there, but never something that I paid that much attention to.
Still, when I heard that he had left us that April day a decade ago, my heart sank. I felt that the world would somehow never really be the same.
When Courtney Love read his last words in public, having an argument with him from beyond the grave, it only drove the sense of loss and bewilderment home in a way that still resonates with me today.
I actually feel sorry for everyone who was born too late to have albums like "Nevermind" as background music for their daily life. I know that sounds melodramatic. I almost feel like kicking myself for actually saying something like that.
I sound like some over-the-hill loser whining about his lost youth.
But the fact of the matter is that there hasn't been anyone on the music scene since then whose music resonates with the same kind of emotional power that I hear in every song he ever wrote. Comparing him with most of the musical acts that have come along since then is a lot like comparing Niagara Falls with a leaky faucet.
I spent most of today pondering what he would think of music in 2004. I'd like to think he'd be fond of Eminem, what to vomit at the mere thought of Justin Timberlake and hear some promise in bands like Story of the Year.
I'm fairly confident that he'd be annoyed with all of the ads that MSN Entertainment put all over their "tribute" to him.
But the more I think about it, the more confused I become.
The only thing that I know for sure is that the world changed forever 10 years ago today.
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