Smells Like...

Via Gawker: some folks look back at the death of Kurt Cobain.

At the time I liked Nirvana well enough, but they weren't my favorite band or anything. I remember the day most because it was the first time I'd seen Kurt Loder lose his composure.

Those songs are college to me now - the rise and fall of Cobain tracked out over the early years of my marriage. It's good, good music and it's a damned shame.

Sonya and I were watching VH1 Classic on the digital cable this weekend; specifically, we were watching the show where they play the hair-metal videos.

"This is truly a guilty pleasure," Sonya observed.

"Yeah," I said, "they just really couldn't play this shit anymore after Smells Like Teen Spirit, could they?"

It was just what the music industry needed at the time, too: a nice bracing sonic enema, clearing away the Bang Tangos and Debbie Gibsons. Of course the industry was swamped in mediocrity soon enough - it was like trying to empty a bathtub with a fork. Something like that would go nicely right now, I think. But would Nirvana even get signed now? They might end up as a website and a bunch of MP3s - I probably wouldn't even be cool enough to know about them.

Curiously, my vote for best album of the nineties is Hole's Celebrity Skin. Make of that what you will.