La morte di Kurt Cobain (e del grunge)

news-cobain-2La mattina dell’8 aprile 1994, il corpo senza vita di Kurt Cobain ventisettenne fu trovato da Gary Smith, un elettricista della Veca Electric, nella serra presso il garage nella sua casa sul Lago Washington: si era sparato un colpo in testa, lasciando una lettera. Ecco un estratto:

‘ Io non provo più emozioni nell’ascoltare musica e nemmeno nel crearla e nel leggere e nello scrivere da troppi anni ormai. Questo mi fa sentire terribilmente colpevole. Per esempio, quando siamo nel backstage e le luci si spengono e sento il maniacale urlo della folla cominciare, non ha nessun effetto su di me, non è come era per Freddie Mercury, a lui la folla lo inebriava, ne ritraeva energia e io l’ho sempre invidiato per questo, ma per me non è così. Il fatto è che io non posso imbrogliarvi, nessuno di voi.(…) ‘

la lettera scritta da Kurt Cobain
la lettera scritta da Kurt Cobain

Con il suicidio di Cobain, i Nirvana e il grunge in generale svanirono. Si è compiuto ciò che da tempo era nei piani di Cobain: il suicidio come fine delle sofferenze, come allontanamento dalla fama e dalle persone. L’atto del suicidio potrebbe dimostrare come Cobain si sia fatto sopraffare dalla paura e dalla sofferenza della sua vita disagiata, nonostante il successo sia stato devastante.

Come scrisse Barthes nei suoi studi sull’opera Mythologies, tutte le forme di borghesia sono oggetto di distorsione e trasformazione in mito.
Secondo Barthes (Storey, 2012), il mito del Nirvana, è il risultato di un livello secondario di significato: che, quando i giovani si sono riflessi, era l’immagine cattivo e insolente della band. In realtà, non sapevano che i membri della band stavano soffrendo tanto l’esposizione mediatica.

Dopo il suicidio di Cobain la fama della band era così forte,che un sacco di teenagers hanno ripetuto lo stesso gesto. Nonostante il grunge fosse un genere musicale sostanzialmente di nicchia, senza abbellimenti, senza compromessi, è riuscito comunque a raggiungere la fama meritata, grazie alla sua genuinità.

Si può dire che il grunge ha cercato in tutti i modi di trovare un posto nella storia della musica.
Si può sostenere che, nonostante il mito del Nirvana fosse esploso improvvisamente e inaspettatamente, la natura “apatica” e “ribelle” del grunge è sempre stata lo stessa. In questo modo il grunge ha sovvertito le regole del pop, con un meccanismo che per altre etichette discografiche prese la strada della moda e dell’immagine.
Ma nonostante tutto, questo tipo di etichetta ha avuto molti seguaci ed è diventata un vero mito della musica.

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Cobain’s suicide

On the morning of April 8, 1994, Cobain’s body was found by Gary Smith, an electrician of Veca Electric, in the greenhouse at the garage at his home on Lake Washington had shot himself in the head, leaving a letter. Here’s an excerpt:

‘I haven’t felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things. For example when we’re backstage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowd begins, it doesn’t affect me the way in which it did for Freddie Mercury, who seem to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd, which is something I totally admire and envy. The fact is, I can’t fool you, any one of you. It simply isn’t fair to you or me. The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I’m having 100% fun. Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out on stage. I’ve tried everything within my power to appreciate it (and I do, God believe me I do, but it’s not enough)’ (Kurt Cobain’s letter, written before shoot himself on the April 8, 1994. The letter was found near the body of the musician of Nirvana).

With the suicide of Cobain, Nirvana and grunge in general they vanished. It has accomplished what had long been in the plans of Cobain: suicide as an end of suffering, such as removal from the fame and people.
The act of suicide could prove as Cobain did overwhelmed by fear and suffering of his life uncomfortable, despite the success has been devastating.

As Barthes (Storey, 2012) said in his studies on the work Mythologies, all forms of the bourgeoisie are subject to distortion and transformation into myth.

‘Myth has. . . a double function: it points out and it notifies, it makes us understand something and it imposes it on us’

According to Barthes (Storey, 2012), the myth of Nirvana, is the result of a secondary level of meaning: that when young people were reflected, was the bad and insolent image of the band. In fact, they did not know that the band members were suffering so much media exposure. After Cobain’s suicide, the fame of the band was so strong, that a lot of teen agers repeated the same gesture.

Despite grunge was a music label that comes hidden, without embellishments, without compromises, he has managed to achieve fame deserved anyway.
In this way the grunge took a different road than other music labels. The road that grunge has come, is to build success with a method inversely proportional: avoiding fame.

Money, success, fans, were part of a surface that has never based its roots in the soul of the band.
After Nirvana also bands like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains or Soundgarden have taken part in this strange lifestyle.

When fame took off, however, grunge heart stopped beating, so slowly the music label she died as she was born.

It can be said that grunge, tried in every way to find a place in the music, but against his rebellious nature, has become famous in a different way.
That in the end it can be argued, is that despite the myth of Nirvana exploded suddenly and unexpectedly, its nature has always been the same and that is apathetic and almost non- existent in nature, devoid of rigor of logic, born of the road and died like that in the powerful success. In the history of grunge, what it is hard to say is that grunge has been compromised. In this way the grunge has subverted the rules of pop, reversing mechanism that popularity for other record labels took the road image and fashion.

But despite everything, this type of label has had many followers and has become a real music legend.

di Federica Iuso