Kurt Unloads
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It sounds a little shrill, but remember that he’s been forced into the humiliating position of having to defend his widely despised wife, Courtney Love, leader of Hole, a Yoko for the 90s, and–the liner notes again–a “supreme example of dignity, ethics and honesty.” It gets worse; he recounts in detail an overly sentimental story about a member of the Raincoats giving him a copy of the group’s rare first album: “It made me happier than playing in front of thousands of people each night, rock-god idolization from fans, music industry plankton kissing my ass, and the million dollars I made last year.” It’s soggy but apparently genuine. Nirvana really does idolize Sonic Youth, the Melvins, Vaselines; really does feel humble in the face of its unlikely (if deserved) success. But weird demons emerge when angry rock stars include manifestos with their albums. Cobain is honest and distressed enough to risk looking like an idiot, yet canny enough to thank the requisite music industry plankton (including Spin’s ruling numskull, Bob Guccione Jr.) as well. Self-deprecating enough to acknowledge that his band may turn out to be “the 90’s version of Cheap Trick or the Knack,” but agreeable enough to make another million on a major-label album of old stuff rather than crank some new material out. And then contrary enough to release it just a few days before Christmas, missing out on the holiday buying spree.
Cobain’s last comments reveal one last raw nerve: he tells the story of two of his own stupid and contagious fans who supposedly raped a woman to the tune of Nevermind’s, “Polly,” a song about rape. “I have a hard time carrying on knowing that there are plankton like that in our audience. Sorry to be so anally P.C. but that’s the way I feel. Love, Kurdt (the blond one).”
Kudos go to Jam productions, which backed Ice-T’s right to perform, and to the off-duty cops, who exercised their right to disagree with Ice-T with such restraint. The only institution with egg on its face is the Tribune, which ran a picture the next day whose caption decribed Body Count’s “Cop Killer” as a song that “advocates the slaying of police.” This is (a) inflammatory, (b) incorrect, and (c) a good bet to set the paper’s KidNews campaign back a year or so as an entire generation of readers collectively rolls its eyes at the blatant bias. Trib public editor Douglas Kneeland, who oversees corrections, is out of the office this week; no correction had been published as we went to press.
