It is precisely because Kurt Cobain’s lyrics make no apparent sense that they constituted the ideal message for a generation that viewed any coherent message with deep suspicion. Since Kurt Cobain recoiled at the very notion of being the voice of any generation, the pairing was perfect: the anti-generation crowns the reluctant hero who doesn’t want the fucking job. Generation X became the anti-generation, the generation of bottled-up feelings, the generation of emptiness.īut every generation, even the unfortunate ones, has their spokesperson, and Generation X adopted Kurt Cobain as their poet laureate. They didn’t think of themselves as special they even failed to develop any sort of generational identity. They thought the whole system was bullshit.
Hitting adolescence during America’s Dark Ages in the late 1970’s, then watching their parents lose their jobs in the mass layoffs of the 1980’s while the country’s leaders were telling everyone it was “Morning in America,” Generation X learned not to believe or trust in anything. Their children did not share their views. Even if they were unable to articulate life’s purpose beyond a few slogans, they believed and generally still believe that life has a purpose. For many of them, the mission didn’t matter so much as the feeling of being on a mission, which is why they were able to morph from anti-capitalist peaceniks in the 60’s to greedy fucking bastards in the 80’s. To begin to understand how an under-publicized record stuffed with songs containing perfectly meaningless lyrics played by a band with little musical range could have achieved such a lofty position in musical history, you have to understand the differences between The Baby Boomers and Generation X.īaby Boomers believed they were special they thought of themselves as people on a mission.
This was especially true after Kurt Cobain’s death, for Americans, along with all their other notable traits, are quite ghoulish creatures at heart. No other artist and no other album dominated the 90’s in America like Nirvana and Nevermind.
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