I stopped by Starbucks this morning as I do a few times per week. As I am waiting for my fru-fru, sugar and cocaine infused "coffee", Nirvana's In Bloom comes up on my iPod. I couldn't help but thinking "Kurt would kick my ass if he knew how mainstream I have gotten in the last few years" (Yes, SBux and Nirvana are both products of Seattle but that's about all they have in common).
It has been a LONG time since I have listened to Nirvana with any regularity (6 years at least) but in the last few months, I have re-discovered my love for grunge rock (it might have something to do with me feeling like "the man" is getting me down, thanks Boh'Rock). This has got me to thinking...... where has the in-your-face, kiss-my-ass mentality gone that I knew so well as a kid? Maybe it's just me getting older but I do feel as if we are just too accepting of everything. When did the counter-culture attitude of the Fight Club and Black Flag persuasion die out?
Let's look at Green Day as an example (not one of my favorites but a great example of my point). Who remembers Dookie and Kerplunk? Those were albums I could listen to the entire way through. There were messages of hatred and angst captured there that had not been mitigated by mainsteam culture. Compare this to the "Green Day" of today. Every song is moaning and whining about Bush this, anti-war that. Where did the heart go? Where are the balls? The Green Day I grew up with didn't give a damn about the political process, all it cared about was destruction and telling the man to get off their back (I did most of my growing up in California so the effects could have been more pronounced for me). I am using Green Day as a mirror for what seems to be happening to society as a whole. We have accepted that this is the way things are and we think we need to conform (I am just as guilty as anyone here).
Would Nirvana have gone the same way as Green Day? I certainly hope not (Sorry but thank god Kurt died. Always go out on top of your game).
I guess what I'm saying here (this hasn't been my most articulate posting, I know) is let's think a bit more outside the box. Let's ask "why?" a little more often. Question authority (but please don't go home and die your hair blue, I did that once and it turned out pretty poorly). Let's bring back the Rape Me and Lithium attitude and crack some skulls (so to speak). So go home, put on Nevermind, and crack open a Zima for old times sake (my spell check doesn't like Zima, such a sign of the times).
Sorry for the departure from my usual Libertarian tirade although for some of you, this was probably a welcome occurrence.
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