[Franklinnoble]

I think GenerationX just eats this crap up.

Let's go back to the early-to-mid 90's. You have an entire generation of teens and young adults, the spawn of the Baby Boomers, with no identity. 80's music has gone out. There's nothing cool to listen to. They don't embrace rock (well, most of them don't), and they're looking for the sort of musical and cultural identity that their parents had, without it sounding, well, like their parents music... they're looking for... ding! An Alternative.

Alternative Rock is born, not because it's any good, but because it's the only distinguishably new genre of music for this sad generation to latch on to. It fits nicely with their generally pessimistic and apathetic world view. GenX really has nothing on their parents, as far as stuff to complain about. The Boomers had Vietnam, Watergate, and gas rationing. And lots of new drugs and free sex to play with. GenX had… what? A booming economy, relative world peace, Say No To Drugs, and Don’t Have Sex Because You Will Get AIDS and Die.

What was there to protest? What cause was there to identify with? Truthfully, there was NOTHING important going on during the 90’s. The Cold War was over. Al Gore invented the Internet. Everyone was getting rich.

So, kids listen to the whiny lyrics from grunge rockers who are trying to convince themselves that it’s really not that great. For the most part, the whole thing is marginalized.

Then Cobain eats a shotgun blast. And all of a sudden, a million GenX’ers cry out in euphoric agony… “We have something REAL to cry about! Our parents lost Hendrix, Joplin, Lennon, etc. We lost… Kurt Cobain!”

If you ask me, it’s pathetic. I’m a GenX’er. I watched the crap on MTV when he died. You’d have thought it was the damned Pope or something.

Hey, I liked a few Nirvana songs. A few of their tracks were the best of an otherwise forgettable genre of music. But let’s not make this like Elvis died or anything. Cobain was influential only because a generation of wannabes made him that way. If he were alive today, Nirvana (if they were still together) would be no more influential in today’s music than Pearl Jam (who has a loyal following, but hardly cracks the top 40 anymore).

Why couldn’t Eddie Van Halen have killed himself? Then we’d have a decent musician to mourn, and the added bonus of never hearing another album after F.U.C.K.