Remember going to the record store, browsing for hours, listening to tons of recordings on headphones, soaking up the culture and that vibe we can all feel in our memories, but can’t describe with words?
Remember getting the tape, even though you really wanted the record (that you could make into a tape), because you could listen to the tape in the car, right away?
Remember getting home and listening to the whole album, both sides of it, for the very first time?
Remember buying a CD because the single was great, only to discover that you spent 18 dollars on a piece of shit, and you were stuck with it?
Remember discovering a record that did not have a single bad track on it, and how rare that was?
I don’t know how many of you share similar experiences, but I suspect it’s not zero.
This is where we all expect me to dump on streaming or something, right? That’s not what this is about.
I love the convenience of streaming. I love the access to basically the entire history of human recordings, so when I feel compelled to listen to The Andrews Sisters and Tones On Tail in the same day, it doesn’t involve a trip to the mall. I love massive playlists of music they don’t play on the radio, that I can shuffle into my own sonic time machine. I can do all of those things I remember (except for going to record stores; I’ll still do that whenever I can), with the added bonus of never being stuck with a shitty record, ever again.
But I’ve noticed that the playlists have taken over, and I haven’t actually listened to a full album in a really, really long time. Like, other than Pink Floyd records, which must be listened to in their entirety, always (I will not be taking questions at this time), it just hasn’t occurred to me to listen to, say, all of In Utero.
I reset the counter on DAYS SINCE I LISTENED TO AN ENTIRE ALBUM to 0 last night. I really wanted to hear Drain You (yes, I know it’s off Nevermind, and I was just talking about In Utero; settle down), I saw the cover for In Utero, just sitting right there like, “Remember me? Let’s have a cuddle.” And I was like, “this is the best idea anyone has ever had.” I pushed play, then sat there and listened to the whole thing for the first time in … I’m going to describe the amount of time as “an embarrassment”.
Wow, I forgot how much I loved this album when it came out, how I played it on repeat in the car, on the boombox CD player when we played street hockey, how it was such a revelation to young me. I’d forgotten a couple of the songs, too, so it was like discovering them for the first time all over again.
When it ended, I immediately listened to all of Bleach, followed by Nevermind.
I remembered those days, before Smells Like Teen Spirit was everywhere almost over night. I briefly thought about an entire generation that grew up hearing it as just another track on Now That’s What I Call Arena Rock While Missing The Point Of The Lyrics, Volume 5, and how the context for them and Gen X is so profoundly fucking different. Mostly, I remembered how much I loved all three of these records, how much I loved Unplugged, how I played them all as loud as I could stand, and how devastated I was when Kurt Cobain died. I remembered how angry I was at him, back when I didn’t know how to feel any other emotion if I was hurt or felt a loss.
ANYWAY. When the last note of Endless, Nameless faded, and I had fully experienced all of those memories, it occurred to me that I had listened to the entire Nirvana studio catalog — the band that will likely go down as my generation’s Beatles — and it was just over two hours long. Holy shit. They changed an entire generation in, like, 120 minutes (that sounds cooler if you imagine it in Kurt Loder’s voice) and I can’t even imagine what they would have done if Kurt hadn’t died, and they’d stayed together long enough to do their American Idiot. …right?
I then took a moment to be grateful, and to admire Dave Grohl, for having the strength and courage to carry on and form Foo Fighters, which is another band that means a lot to me. He’s talked about feeling intimidated around Kurt, not believing in himself as a writer, and doing whatever it took to power through it all because he had to. In my own way, I can relate to that. I think a lot of us can. And to carry on after Taylor Hawkins died, too? Jesus Christ, man. Dave Grohl doesn’t know I exist but I am so sorry for the loss he has experienced. May their memories be a blessing.
I still love grunge, even if it hurts my heart when a kid calls it Classic Rock. But I’m old and out of touch. Who is this generation’s Nirvana? I mean, it’s probably Nirvana, but who is speaking to kids the same way, now, as they did, then?
as a very very very very very very soon to be teenager, i would say taylor swift is the artist who “speaks” to me or whatever. it is nirvana for the “grunge” (they wear black baggy jeans and maybe used a dirty vape off the road with 29910 undiscovered species of bacteria, so they’re “grunge”) kids who bully the shit out of me, but they will get offended if i tell them nirvana isn’t an underground never heard of band, but they piss me off so i stick to taylor swift. 😁
I love this. And I love Taylor. Thank you!
A message from a slightly older old man. I did not realize how spoiled I was back in the early ’90s. You turned on the radio and at every twist of the knob, it was a new song, a new band, you had to know more about. Even the stuff you were told was awful was pretty good. It makes me sad to think that much of it was made by people who were trying to exorcise demons, and mostly lost those fights.
In Utero was a monument. This moment when Nirvana did their best to stand firm. “This is what we want and how we want it.” The sheer attack of it. Even the most obvious concession to the label is slapped with the f-you of “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.” Insert your favorite remix of biting the hand that feeds you.
I miss that feeling of discovery from that era. I’m not so blinded as to say, “Music’s not as good now.” That’s not true at all. But it does not speak to me anymore, mostly. New music speaks a language I don’t understand fully. That’s not an IT problem, that’s a ME problem which I’ll own up to. But I thoroughly get that feeling of falling into those old albums, particularly Pearl Jam’s VS, and blasting “rearviewmirror” in the car.
I wanted to ❤️ this and move on because i’m chowing down on In Utero, but decided this reply deserves a “dig it, Dw.”
As a 53 year-old who found Nirvana at the tender age of 18, I have never liked their “fans” – and by “fans,” I mean mostly untalented white dudes who dragged the band constantly for “selling out.” There’s a joyless, bullying, toxic contingent in every fandom (I once got cyberbullied by a brigade of Swifties, for example), but some are just lousy with sadboi gatekeepers, and Nirvana’s fandom is one of them. They’re like Rick & Morty fans, only sweatier, pettier, and mom’s spaghetti-er. I say this as someone who loves both Nirvana and Rick & Morty.
And while I’ve never quite connected with Taylor Swift’s material, I do very much respect her talent, acumen, and ambition, and I particularly like what she does with the massive platform her fame affords her. She has virtually unparalleled power to influence her fans, and she uses that power with a wisdom and sense of duty that is refreshing. Also, she’s hilarious on SNL. \m/
I never got to participate in the music store culture thing, but there is something magical about hearing a song that clicks in your head. Mine was hearing
I miss record stores and the experience almost as much as I miss my hours-long sojourns to Borders (movies and music and books. AND FOOD. I didn’t need much else). I’m an elder millennial emo kid, so I can’t speak for the youths, but for me it was Linkin Park. I’m still grieving for Chester.
I loved hanging out at Borders, having lunch and coffee and leafing through a stack of books I would never have thought to read if they hadn’t been sitting there waiting for me. Barnes and Noble is similar but somehow not quite the same.
Listening to albums in their entirety is such a great exercise. I was on a road trip last year and listened to Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten – they both hold up extremely well.
And yes, Pink Floyd albums definitely need to be listened to in their entirety.
I just recently listened to Pearl Jam’s Ten in it’s entirety, and it holds up.
Dave Grohl’s memoir “Storyteller” was a phenomenal look into not only Dave’s experiences with Nirvana and Foo Fighters, but he also had some pretty profound insight on death and grieving that I still think about. Dave narrates the audiobook; it was published about a year before Taylor’s death, which makes the chapters about their friendship that much more poignant.
As for record listening, my 14 yo twins have recently gotten into vinyl, and they are both curating a varied collection including Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. It’s been fun to share good music and listening experiences with them!
I love the Gen Zs rediscovering vinyl — my 19 year old has been finding stuff older than me in thrift stores and record shops (Beatles, Beach Boys) and frequently just plays a couple of LPs straight through.
I thought that book was phenomenal. I am not really into the Foo Fighters but I Fucking LOVE Dave Grohl.
Both my teenage boys went through a phase of devouring the entire discography of My Chemical Romance.
They seem to be the biggest touchstone for this generation.
MCR is pretty popular with the 20somethings. I know two of my three really like them.
My Spawn suggests MCR or Panic! At the Disco.
Listening to an album calms my brain in a way that only watching a movie or, weirdly, watching a baseball game in person does. When the last Rolling Stone top 500 or whatever albums list came out I dumped it into a spreadsheet and started trying to listen to a couple every week.
I remember buying the cassette of Nirvana’s Nevermind and racing through the whole thing to hear my new favorite song. Which was actually Jane’s Addiction’s Been Caught Stealing…
And god damn, record stores were the best.
I would be remiss not to mention there still are great record stores, the same as there are still great bookshops. They’re not in the mall now (then again, nothing is) so they have to be hunted down. But like the hunt for a mint LP of “Disintegration”, the search for a cozy record store is still totally worth it.
Now don’t get me started on Apple Music vs Spotify. I have opinions and no blog.
Record stores were my church. My parents were sure I would be going to Hell. I don’t know that they’re wrong.
As someone who’s music collection includes a large percentage of movie soundtracks, I’ve been largely underwhelmed by streaming. Yes, I do like discovering that I really like Scandinavian folk metal and discovering new Hans Zimmer scores. But sometimes I just want to throw on my old classics (Batman Forever, anyone?) and Apple’s only got streaming permission for like half the songs, which truly isn’t satisfying. So I’ve still got 2 big binders of CDs and I just scroll through them most days as I work in the home office. I even still buy CDs because I want artists to get the dollars.
I do have Nevermind, but I was always on the fence with Nirvana. But boy howdy I do like Foo Fighters. The Colour and the Shape is on steady rotation.
Once I got my license, I–a Gen X only child whose family members all hung out on different floors of our townhouse as much as possible–would go to Tower Records every weekend and spend ages there looking through albums and getting to listen to whatever they had to sample. It was great “me time.” I have very fond memories of the record store even though it was a mega chain. And as a night owl, 120 Minutes was so special. It was for ME, up late at night, secret songs that weren’t the popular hits but that were so good. I felt cool, which I definitely did not in my real (high school) life. Thanks, Wil.
I’m reading that first comment and I’m a long (long) way from being a teenager and yet Taylor is a big deal for me too. Still not sure how that happened. Anyway, I do try to listen to entire albums, but I have to admit that some of these streaming algorithms have thrown me some amazing new bands via random playlists, sometimes just new to me. There’s nothing better than discovering an artist and find there’s 10+ years of old albums to go through. Weirder still is the ability now to keep your listening statistics either through streamer-specific services like stats.fm or something more generic like last.fm. It’s fascinating to look over a month and see just where everything ranks.
Remember when you bought the album for that one single that was awesome and discovered, like, nine other songs that you liked, too? Me too
I’m still grateful to Matt B, who introduced me to They Might Be Giants, and Flood most definitely did that for me. I was never a hard core rocker, but a band geek into musicals and soundtracks. But Flood did it. Jagged Little Pill and, later, several Jimmy Buffett albums too.
I’m old enough to remember when will wheaton dot net had its own radio station.
I am still subscribed to the Burrito podcast feed… just in case.
I’m exactly 5 years and 3 weeks younger than you, but I definitely had the music store experience and the joy of an album that sang my song from start to finish and the lows of wasted money on an album that was just trash (ahem, blues traveler sorry notsorry).
I’m stunned to know just how little music they put out. Nirvana has been in heavy rotation in my playlist lately and I’m intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
My strongest memories of listening to an album start to finish was a cassette of beck, Mellow gold. I have the same birthday as beck! My teen years we rode all over the back roads of whitmore lake (a miniature town on the highway between Brighton and Ann Arbor) in my friends tiny red Plymouth hatchback something or other and played beck on repeat for infinity.
It may have only been one summer but it was a lifetime.
Who is this generation’s Nirvana? The Foo Fighters. Dave brought Kirk’s EVERYTHING into his own music, just with is DC Punk influence front and center and made this next twist of the Grunge snake something purely East Coast in the only way he could. However, he has since settled to the West Coast and it has evolved as all sounds will over time . . .
But Nirvana’s message, Nirvana’s groove . . .Nirvana’s SOUL carried on with Dave in a way that past bands never could because Dave figured out how to TRANSCEND the original and keep on moving forward.
I Love this.
Would I even know who Lead Belly was – or Blind Lemon Jefferson, or Skip James etc. – if it weren’t for Nirvana’s rendition of “Where did you sleep last night?” Where did Cobain find those records? Now That’s What I Call Library of Congress Recordings of the 1930’s😆?
This spoke to me for sure. Years ago when I had a blog, I also came to a similar realization – this was during the iPod hayday and I listened to a lot of music on shuffle. So, I wrote a few posts titled “The Full Album Project” and decided to listen my way through several of my favorite albums and then blog about my reactions to them years after I had fallen in love with them. Ones off the top of my head that I wrote about: Bjork’s Debut, Toad the Wet Sprocket’s Fear, and Depeche Mode’s Violator, among others.
I still listen to a lot of music on shuffle, but I do try and listen to a full album here and there to remind myself how sometimes artists originally intended the album to be listened to that way.
Oh and I completly agree that Pink Floyd must be listened to as full albums!
as an early 20something, the joy of having physical music is something i’ve been taking so much joy in having. tapes, vinyl, cd, whatever, i’ve got it and listen to it religiously. almost more than streaming at this point honestly (still so sad i missed the unreal, unearth cassette cuz i was trying to save and it was limited edition. shoutout to college life
When I bought my present car I could not BELIEVE that cars don’t come with CD players anymore! I used to listen to CDs in the car all the time, and it was the easiest way to hear new stuff from local bands, including friends and colleagues in the jazz and classical communities.
With streaming taking over the music world, not only do we not hear whole albums, we don’t get the album artwork or the information that used to be in liner notes. It’s a real loss.
And now folks your age are treasuring not only CDs but vinyl and cassettes. With lots of physical art to go with them.
Heh, coincidentally I’ve been listening to your KROQ playlist this week at work 😀 My night time ritual is to usually stick an album on before bed and listen to it while falling asleep (so I may not be consciously listening to the full album, but my subconscious is really enjoying it) – so this week I’ve been grabbing random artists from that playlist and listening to one of their albums 🙂
I love the “Who is this generation’s Nirvana?” question. Will ask my kids.
Considering how important music was and is to my life, I’m kind of amazed looking back to realise how much I… bypassed… music, in the late 90s and early 00s. Work, new marriage, study while working, kids… a lot fell by the wayside, including gaming and music. But hey, there were other rewards!
The good news is I got back to both gaming and music, and two years ago, I bought my first record player (there had been a really shitty one in my parents house, and our collection had been tiny – my best friend’s mam, now – she had a record collection!)
Two years later I’m so happy I did that! I’m lucky enough to work near a really good – if tiny – record store that specialises in vinyl. Rediscovering classic albums; taking a chance on a new artist on a recommendation (CMAT, Barry Can’t Swim); playing through a whole album (Pink Floyd!); flipping through the new arrival second-hand records and finding an absolute gem (Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds, Moving Hearts first album!); just sitting, chilling, listening to some awesome music (Fontaines DC, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Aretha) – it’s been great.
And I agree with you on the streaming services, too! I know, I know, they absolutely do not pay artists enough – but also, I was never, ever going to hear The Hu (Mongolian throat-singing heavy metal band) on radio, but thanks to Spotify, I’ve two of their albums and a t-shirt, and been to two of their gigs.
I love all music with the exception of whinny country and hardcore rap. However I find myself turned off to artists who rely on autotune to sound okay. Autotune is the reason I’m not finding a lot of “modern” music in my playlist. I don’t like the sound and I feel it cheating, like AI generated photos. My hobby is photography and I’m a bit of a purist. I don’t stack photos as it’s not real. Get it right in camera is my goal. For music this is how I feel about the sound. True artists don’t rely on voice altering software to sound good. I think this is why bands like The Rolling Stones are still selling out concerts. They are pure, raw music. Curious to see what modern bands are still relevant 60 years from now.
I’m a teenager and have many friends around my age, so I feel the need to comment: We still go to record stores and music thrifts! Slightly older cars (which is what we get passed down, lol) sometimes only have tape systems, friends who can afford it have record players, and we give each other CDs and vinyls as gifts! This isn’t the “norm” exactly, but a lot of teens have more fun with physical media. P.S.- I think this generation doesn’t really have a New Nirvana, since music gets popular largely on algorithms now and fades back into obscurity as soon as it’s not getting clicks.
Thanks for listening to, and talking some time for, this old man. I appreciate you! I’m doing my best to leave you a better world.
This: ” P.S.- I think this generation doesn’t really have a New Nirvana, since music gets popular largely on algorithms now and fades back into obscurity as soon as it’s not getting clicks.” This broke my heart. I get it, and it makes a ton of sense to me. The idea that there may be a time where there aren’t things like “generational artists” because nobody’s career lasts long enough to get there is just … it just breaks my heart.
I think it’s part of the immense number of choices. It happens to TV too. We don’t have a “MASH” of our generation. There’s nothing that tens of millions of people watch anymore.
In my newest car (2010), I have a 6-cd changer. On long road trips I load up the discs and listen to the CDs start to finish. currently loaded in the car are a : Mike OldField, 2 Edie Brickells, 10,000 Maniacs, Sixpence None the Richer, and an Indigo Girls. Since I’m in Texas, I often get through multiple rounds of the discs on a trip.
As someone who has always struggled with the typical depression/anxiety cocktail, I remember, when I was in college, reading an article about Cobain describing how he was, more or less, happily married and enjoying being a father. It made me feel like there was hope to turn it around, that even someone as copiously unhappy as Cobain could figure things out and be OK, then maybe I would, too. A few weeks later, I heard he killed himself (while at a screening of “La Dolce Vita” hosted by Roger Ebert, of all incongruous placed) and it was like being punched in the gut. As it turned out, I was able to become (approximately) OK myself, but watching the performers I most loved circa 1992 all die of suicide or addiction still sucked.
Last fall, I listed to the entire posthumous Jimmy Buffett album (not grunge or anywhere close to it, I know, but hear me out) for the first time while walking my dog on a lovely day. Start to finish, no repeats, no pauses. It was a magical walk, listening to Jimmy’s last gifts to us all in that way. Yeah, whole album listening is very much a different beast – and I should remember that more often.
So yeah… I’ve got two years on you, Wil. Dave’s got less less than a year on me – upshot, we’re all contemporary. This hits hard for me. I remember watching the video for Heart Shaped Box (remember when MTV played videos?) and thinking – Kurt doesn’t look right – he’s so separate from the others and he just looks… off. I was in college when Nirvana broke big and changed the world. One day, all you heard coming out of the dorms was Pink Floyd – literally the next day it was nothing but Nirvana. Nevermind joined my apple crate of cassette tapes…. All of the sudden, my grubby jeans and old flannels were fashionable. The one and only time in my life I was “on trend”. It was also the first time I started to really consider my place in the world. I’m with you on Unplugged – it’s like that fourth Nirvana Album we never knew we needed but couldn’t live without. As for Dave, he was a kid at the same time we were. I’m pretty positive he knows who you are. Just sayin’. 🙂
Those were the good old days indeed!
I remember going to record stores in the 90s, getting myself the records I wanted to listen to. It then changed to Like The Song, Get The Album. And that’s where my CD collection grew to include CDs I really didn’t need. So “ Remember buying a CD because the single was great, only to discover that you spent 18 dollars on a piece of shit, and you were stuck with it?” really cuts deep with me.
I spent many weekends just hanging around Newbury Comics. The best place to buy CDs and tapes, and they supported the indie scene. Plus they sold concert tickets. I have recently listened to Pearl Jam’s Ten in its entirety- and it holds up.
I live in the Seattle area and had the fortune of going to shows just before and as that whole scene was blowing up. I first saw Nirvana at the Underground club in the U District in December 1988, where they were the opening band with Vancouver punk legends DOA headlining and local punk band Coffin Break as the middle slot. It was a few weeks before they recorded Bleach but was essentially them playing most of the album’s songs live. They had some buzz already because “Love Buzz” had been release on vinyl that November.
Anyway, I have a lot of similar memories about that period. Just a couple months ago I bought a turntable and picked up a bunch of records at a store five miles from my house. It was fun! I enjoy streaming and how easy it is to find just about anything, but there’s a real pleasure in just listening to a whole album all the way through.
Anyone remember rock operas? Like Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime? I miss those.
Such good points. Queuing up Mike Oldfield Album – Crises….its a bit faster than most. (only a few months older than you, but growing up in Germany…and well, having a different taste than most….)
I miss listening to whole albums too. As a fully mature (🤪) adult now with kids and other responsibilities, it seems that I just don’t have the time to find artists that I like and listen to entire albums. I really loved finding those deep cuts that poke to me, but weren’t released as singles. Maybe again someday…
The only thing I’m left with is pondering the band that Kurt and Bowie and Michael Hutchence have put together in the afterlife. I think they probably do ska covers or something. Prince is their manager.
Would I even know who Lead Belly was – or Blind Lemon Jefferson, or Skip James etc. – if it weren’t for Nirvana’s rendition of “Where did you sleep last night?” Where did Cobain find those records? Now That’s What I Call Library of Congress Recordings of the 1930’s?
In the late 1980s, in the small town of Baraboo, Wisconsin, there was a Radio Shack with a record rack at the front of the store, and looking back on it, I’m amazed at the stock they carried. I got Dead Kennedys’ Plastic Surgery Disasters on vinyl there, and an early student project featuring Natalie Merchant and Rob Buck, called Evening In Torpor. I even got a bootleg live Mercyful Fate record. They weren’t a record store per se, but thanks to someone in that store having wild-ass taste in music, they had the same vibe. It was quite an oasis of (the good kind of) weird, in a small, conservative town where the only alternative was a big box store, and their big box store-approved albums, like Information Society and Tiffany and Whitesnake and shit.
Later, I found B-Side Records in Madison, and Wisconsin-based record store chain The Exclusive Company, which shuttered all its stores in 2022, after 66 years. Those were where I’d find Severed Heads and Rollins and Kate Bush and all the old punk I didn’t realize I’d heard years before, up and down the east coast, sneaking off to shows as an almost- & barely-teen.
Damn. Thanks for stirring the memories.
For the younger people I know, I’d say it is TwentyOne Pilots (in addition to Nirvana, who they also connect with). I practicaly cry every time I listen to Car Radio.
I think you have a few months on me age wise, but I have so many fond memories of discovering music. I remember in junior high getting my first boombox with a cassette player and being so excited. My first cassette tape was Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet. I still have that tape today. I remember getting blank tapes and making mixed tapes, waiting and waiting for your favorite song to be played on the radio so you could hit record. I remember my sister and I made a mix tape called “Barbie Radio” where we even made our own commercials, it was so fun and such a fond memory. I remember going to Virgin records, Tower Records and Sam Goode looking for the latest new music. I admit I mostly stream music these days for the convenience especially at work or in the car, but even then, I have multiple playlists depending on my mood. When my, Dad passed in 2012 he left me is record player, and ever since then I have been building a collection, and I am loving it. Music calms my soul; I can’t imagine a life without music in it. I know that you have mentioned in your books having a playlist to life or a playlist for the book that you were writing, and I can relate to that in a way. My musical tastes are wide and varied, it all depends on my mood. I just discovered the artist Passenger, and now that has been on repeat, and I purchased his out-of-print vinyl and felt so good when I dropped the needle on it. I can’t say I was a huge Nirvana fan, and not really a Swifty either, but like others have mentioned major respect for her. I admit I was that typical girl that was into Bon Jovi, Cyndi Lauper, Sting, Queen but my brother started introducing me to hard rock with a White Snake CD. To this day I love most all genres except death metal. that one I just can’t. And like some others have mentioned I am old enough to still remember Radio Free Burrito, that should definitely make a comeback!
I rolled more Lilith-Fair lady-folkie-stuff in the 90s (think Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Paula Cole, and even Loreena McKinnit for a bit). It took me a bit more time to “discover” Nirvana and Foo Fighters – just like it also took me more time to “discover” B-52s or The Killers or [insert name of band here]. I tend to get super-focused on a given album about 10-20 years after it came out.
But that’s the beauty of albums and CDs – they’re being dumped into second-hand stores or used media stores, which is the perfect chance for someone like me to stumble upon something on streaming, hear it and think “oh hang on, this was something big 20 years ago” and go hunt down the album. That’s how I discovered Bruce Cockburn (“hang on, I’ve heard that ‘Wondering Where The Lions Are’ song – lemme find that album, that sounds neat”) and B-52’s (“whoa, is THAT what ‘Rock Lobster’ sounds like? That’s awesome!”) and The Killers (“okay, where does that ‘I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier’ thing come from?….’The Killers’, huh? Let’s check them out”).
(The latest “Hmm, let’s look into this” obsession is turning out to be that quasi-jazz album that Robert Downey Jr. made in 2006. So far I’m fixated on one song but I’m starting to branch out.)
Hearing that Kurt Cobain had passed coincided with my turning 20. I remember it as being kicked in the soul and the universe making it far too clear that I was no longer a teenager. Grunge was kind of a guilty pleasure because I was a metalhead and you just couldn’t be truly into Slayer if you liked “soft” stuff like Nirvana and Alice in Chains, right … and I even liked 80’s pop and Eurovision (the horror!), too, so no wonder I had a hard time finding friends (no, I’m not serious, but that was the logic back then).
Well, what prompted me to writing this comment was that as late as 2 weeks ago I talked to my daughter and son-in-law (both in their early twenties) about the many hours I spent as a teenager listening to records in the local record store, and how the owner must have been really patient because I’d rarely be able to buy anything but he kept welcoming me and allowing me to just hang out and listen day in and day out.
My daughter’s often suffered through my “listening to an entire album”-speech and let me know how old I sound when I talk like that, but she has recently begun collecting records so I look forward to experiencing her playing albums while I tell her about the latest additions to my playlist.
I recently listened to the Albini version of In Utero for the first time. And not the last. Try it if you havent heard it – its slightly different so you hear it new again. And its great.
(I’m a decade older than you, but Nirvana were special to me too)
I miss record stores- at first in the mall, then later, the indies. Yes, I know they still exist, but I will never be that age again in that setting and have it be such a key part of my life. I feel, a lot of the time, like the things that defined my GenX life are just not accessible anymore, and it’s like losing a part of your identity. Nirvana reminds me of college- I heard about Kurt on the radio, but then had to go to class. I remember sitting in class, trying to pay attention, but feeling dazed. I remember getting back in the car, and the radio station was giving out phone numbers for mental health resources. It was the first in a series of hugely significant external events. I think knowing the significance of a band or a song comes much later- those who are in their 20s now might not even know what will remain, a lot of it is nostalgia and memory.
You might not believe this, but I just listened to In Utero in its entirety on possibly the same day you did for the first time in years. I’m also about the same age as you.
There was just something about browsing records in an actual physical shop. As a teenager I went on quite the run with collecting Depeche 12″ remixes. That feeling when you go into a record shop in a different town and FIND SOMETHING NEW was an incredible feeling. Never mind when we caught the train down to London and could go to Tower Records. Good heavens.
You really can’t single out (no pun intended) Nirvana.
Well, yes. I guess maybe you can. We all worship at the Church of Kurt.
There was an entire movement that burst out of nowhere (or Seattle). It was strong. Meaningful. It connected. It was such a contrast to the horrible big-label over-produced garbage that dominated the radio waves at the time.
Bye-bye, M.C.Hammer. Hello, “Jeremy spoke in class today.”
Anyone else had or still have an original ProCo Rat?
To this day I don’t understand how the Industry allowed this to happen. But it did. And for maybe a year or two being an individual and standing up against convention was cool. This is where we’d jump to the hi-watt amps again. Until that 20-inch cymbal fell and cut the lamps. Long live rock, indeed.
And then Kurt shuffled off his single coil (guitar pun intended) and we were left with table scraps. Boy-bands and spice girls filled the void. And then Napster and “em-pee-threes” burned it all to the ground. Steve Jobs had an idea, and now we float in an ocean where 100,000 new songs are uploaded to streaming services every day.
Somewhere out there right now. Maybe in Phoenix. Maybe in Marquette, Michigan or Andover, Kansas. Some 14-year old is in his or her garage, plugging in their guitar. Learning three chords and deciphering Patti Smith or the Ramones or Metallica for the first time.
In ten years maybe they will be the next Moses, leading us all back to a promised land.
Starting in January of 2023, I listened to all my albums alphabetically. I had realized the same thing in late 2022, so it felt like time to revisit old friends. It took me the better part of last year to get through all of them, but it was so very worthwhile.