In 1992, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana graced the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine for the first time and Kurt's battered t-shirt pronounced "Corporate Magazines Still Suck."
Almost 30 years later, Kurt was still right......
A couple of weeks ago, I saw this haunting article:
MELVINS’ BUZZ OSBORNE SAYS HE WOULD “RATHER HAVE SOMEBODY LIKE KURT COBAIN BE COMPLETELY UNSUCCESSFUL AND ALIVE” - Guitar.com
I didn't want to write about it, because Osborne said what he needed to say and I digested the information. But it didn't sit well, not at all.
“Now, Nirvana. I always liked those guys, but I never liked when they got big,” he explained. “I never liked the people around them. I never liked their management and never liked any of the people that worked with them. And then you mix in the drugs, and the people that brought with it. And it’s a sordid tale. And it’s not a happy ending. And it’s difficult for me to just get over that and just sit there and go, ‘Well, let’s just look at the good times.' I can’t, it’s not possible for me to do. I would much rather have somebody like Kurt Cobain be completely unsuccessful and alive than successful one day. We were friends first. So him being dead just puts a cap on that story that I’m not going to ever get over.” - Guitar.com
So let's run that through Google Translator, because I just can't shake that quote. I just can't.
Basically Osborne liked Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic.
That means that you can connect the dots and Osborne DIDN'T like:
DGC Records
Courtney Love
MTV
Rolling Stone Magazine: Read about Kurt behind our Pay Wall
Yes, Rolling Stone still makes money off Kurt.
Manager Danny Goldberg: Read my Kurt Book
And probably almost all of Nirvana's producers and engineers.
Using the hindsight of time:
Kurt worked for a crappy company called Nirvana. He had 2 good co-workers that he considered friends, and then he was used up by the corporate apparatus and died rich, early, and miserable.
Buzz worked for a good little company called the Melvins. The Melvins never made much money, not unlike a Mom and Pop store, but scrounged through an existence. He was able make a career on his terms.
Entities like Rolling Stone magazine didn't nurture the musical art form. They moved units, just like the record company, and their content was suspect. RS said Nirvana's revolutionary album Nevermind was just as good as Bob Dylan's effort a year later. unable to shift gears to the evolving rock tide. By the end of the decade, RS was proclaiming Britney Spears the future of music.
30 years later, Buzz Osborne is now quietly approaching a Bob Dylan-esque discography and, of course, his quote isn't at RS, but at a Guitar Magazine.
And Kurt is still dead.