Masterpiece: Unplugged In New York
[Today: Kurt Cobain and the high price of integrity...]
There are three tried and true story lines that surround Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged album. They are as follows:
A) Kurt Cobain’s letter from beyond the grave. The Unplugged show wasn’t intended - and probably wouldn’t have been released - as a Nirvana album before Cobain’s untimely death. But once it was released, it became a chilling snapshot of his dark frame of mind in the months leading up to his death.
B) A roadmap of Nirvana’s influences. The covers included here shed light on several of the band’s musical relatives; from Leadbelly to David Bowie to Meat Puppets to the Vaselines, one can connect the dots among a number of influences that might not otherwise have been readily apparent.
C) Cobain was sick and tired. By all reports seriously addicted to heroin and in poor health during the weeks leading up the Unplugged date in November of 1993, Cobain alienated his bandmates to the point that Dave Grohl offered to quit the group during rehearsals.
Unplugged stands out for me personally because it was the first album that really defined the generation gap between me and my relatively young parents. My mom - in her early 40’s when Cobain died of a shotgun blast to the skull - openly scoffed at the idea that his premature death could draw comparisons with John Lennon’s murder.
But like Lennon, Cobain was the unwitting voice of his generation. His was an ironic, sarcastic, and often petulant voice, but his music contains an uncomfortable, soul-baring honesty that is impossible to turn away from. Like Lennon’s 1970 masterwork, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, much of Cobain’s music sounds like it was written in a psychiatrist’s office.
Chuck Klosterman summed up the harsh truth of Cobain’s legacy when he wrote, “From a cultural standpoint, his suicide was the only ‘great’ thing that happened to music in the 1990’s. He is the only artist of my generation who was indisputably sincere.” Kurt Cobain left behind an infant daughter, and if only for her sake, I sincerely wish that he had lived a longer and happier life. Artistic integrity has never seemed so expensive or pointless.
Listen: Where Did You Sleep Last Night
28 April 2008 at 9:25 am
while i do not doubt that Leadbelly was an influence before Nirvana cut this track Mr. Lanegan below included this cut in his 1st solo record “the winding sheet” with one Mr. Cobain adding guitar accompaniment. Thus further showing the world the incestuous nature of the “Seattle” scene and influence of not only Mr. Huddie Ledbetter but fellow musicians and friends of that Seattle scene…
1 May 2008 at 2:36 pm
Great Post my Friend
I was always from the very start a huge fan of Kurt and his music
Sad Sad Sad
This and the Alice in Chains unplugged are really dark messages but great