European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 24, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Cover Story before death was far from nirvana by Frank Rich the new York times Only hours after Kurt Cobain s Corpse was found in his Seattle Home april 8, he was buried in a Media Avalanche of generalities. The myth making machinery that Cranks up after every show Biz death busily turned a troublesome Rock musician into a recognizable easy to digest archetype. Headline after headline assured us that the 27 year old Cobain the mainspring of the band nirvana was the voice of a generation. Douglas Cou Pland the author of generation a even published a v weepy open letter to Kurt to claim ownership Cobain was also irresistibly likened to the self in Molatino Rock Trinity of Jim Morrison Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin who All vanished into their own drug hazes at age 27. The new York Post pursued another familiar Angle with its series How Fame killed Kurt co  -. C a. Arid Newsweek achieved a hat trick of depression by putting Cobain s face on a cover featuring an essay by William Styron about Vincent Foster. In Side Cobain and Foster joined a mount Rushmore like pictorial pantheon of the suicidal that also included Abbie Hoffman Marilyn Monroe and Ernest Hemingway. I asked my sons both Rabid nirvana fans and both Young enough to look upon generation x Asen feeble parental figures if any of this reflected the musician they admired. No they said and were particularly vehement in defending Cobain against the charge of being the voice of a generation. He did t Wantt be that said older son urging me to Check put Cobain s True Story and to Lis ten harder to the music that had for so Long drifted out of his bedroom. He has a Point. Cobain s biography As reported by Michael Azerrad in the Book come As you Are strikes american chords More Universal than generational. -.  a. " the son of parents who divorced acrimonious by when he was 8, the Young Kurt was shuffled from relative to relative in the gloomy logging town of Aberdeen Wash. As he won High school Art contests with his draw Ings he was tormented by jocks. He turned to music for salvation Only to be startled when his intensely idiosyncratic songs caught on with the conformist majority he despised. When nirvana in 1991 released never mind its first album with a major Label All of show business was shocked. Without warning an unglamorous cult sound be came what one executive called a get out of the Way and Duck record knocking the invincible Michael Jackson s dangerous out of no. 1 and Selling 10 million copies. Yet never fld was the Antithesis of commercial pop raw abrasive devoid of recording studio Slick Ness and in its unalloyed rage genuinely dangerous. Cobain did have anti establishment politics of a sort. But when he announced i am a spokesman for myself pointedly rejecting the role of generational mouthpiece he was t being flip. The subject of never mind and nirvana s even harsher final album , is private suffering not Public in Justice. Images of divorce disease and self loathing proliferate. Joy is virtually absent. Kurt Cobain at mtg session in december. What makes the songs so affecting to a listener who in t schooled in Punk or grunge and does t care to be is their perfect pitch for naked anguish. Half the time Cobain is screaming the same unambiguous phrase Over and Over again stay away or i do not want what i have got until finally he trails off in exhaustion of Well whatever Nev remind. The sound that comes from his voice and from his shrieking feedback choked guitar is the piercingly authentic cry of a child in torment if not that of our own children or so we Hope then maybe that of the children we once were fleeing from warring or abusive parents playground bullies forces we could t yet understand. To Label Cobain partly now As a symbolic victim of Success or drugs or Rock nihilism or slacker angst or whatever never mind is to tune him out. But his primal screams of sheer pain unsweetened by showmanship or sentimentality or even to my taste music demanded a More direct and passionate response. Without prompting by hype millions of americans made that intimate connection. If there were easy answers As to Why it would not be so unsettling that Cobain s shattered voice once heard refuses to leave the ear. Limbaugh and the rest need a youth Wake up Cal by Susan Paynter Seattle Post intelligencer of that we be received via radio wave the definitive and Ever so thoughtfully considered declaration from Rush Lim Baugh that Singer poet Kurt Cobain amounted to so much human debris the press can go Back to printing Good news about spelling Bee winners As he directed. And properly chastised As misguided idolaters the adds who were reached by Cobain s rhymes can resume gazing upward at More appropriate icons. A list is no doubt available from Limbaugh s syn dictators  ". What happens to men asked a Mother Beah Richards while talking to a father Spencer Tracy in the movie guess who s coming to dinner the words in the scene which could be rewritten to read men and women -4 echoed in my ears As i read the commentary and listened to the Call in shows that followed Goblin s death what happens to men when they grow old Why do they forget everything you might As Well be Blind men you Tan Only see that they our children have a problem. But do you really know what s happened to them How they feel about each other i believe that men grow old and they forget it All forget what True passion is. You knew once but that was a Long time ago. And the strange thing. Is you Don t even remember. If you did How could you do what you Are doing now the comfortable members of the adult world r the columnists commentators and callers to radio talk shows busily afflicted Comfort on each other after Cobain s death by declaring kids grief misspent and  Cobain s music May not be within the grasp of most grown ups but the reasons their kids respond to it with such passion is at least Worth reaching out for. V/.-i.-,Historically the Good personal habits of writers poets philosophers or actors have had Little to do with the reasons the Young have responded to their often anguished words. And Haven t teens of almost every Era embraced music idols designed to drive parents toward Tempo Rary insanity Ancl the radio Button has t rebelling. Always been part of the Point did your dad dig Jimi Hendrix Elvis Jariis Joplin when they died t of causes that seemed equally inappropriate did t a hot angry singe of dismissal Burn you when bigger More powerful peo ple deemed them unworthy of tears of course kids react or overreact with bursts of High octane hormonal angst. Everything seems so dramatic so devastating. Don t you remember the Boyfriend you knew you could t live without Well it was a Good career move for the record company Limbaugh said cynically discounting co Bain s death. So another Junkie blows his Brays out commented a fellow journalist. Cobain had no right to anguish. Anguish is 10,000 dead in Rwanda wrote another columnist. Let s Hope no one really worships any human As a god. Let s Hope eventually even Mere admiration matures gains perspective and is better invested. And naturally i Hope my 4-year-old son will reach higher and wider As he grows taller. That hell connect with creative people whose effect is More positive and lasting. That he won t forge links of de Spair and alienation with fragile singers and meteoric athletes. But if he does and if they fall i Hope hell Tell me How he feels. And that i la listen. Page 6 sunday april 24, 1994