Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Forever In Debt













Kurt D. Cobain (February 20, 1967-April 5, 1994)



15 years ago today, Kurt Cobain's body was discovered in his Seattle home. Realizing this has made me feel nostalgic. I was in 7th grade when I officially bought my first CD. I went with my older sister, brand new Media Play gift card in hand, and walked around the rows upon rows of albums, trying to decide which one was worthy. After about an hour, I finally narrowed my choices down to Throwing Copper, by Live, and Nevermind, by Nirvana. Live was a band that was, at that time, all the rage on rock radio, and Nirvana, I knew, was fairly legendary in rock circles. I finally decided, after much deliberating, that Nevermind would be my first purchase CD.

I went home, plopped the CD into my new Christmas gift CD player, and my life was changed forever. Sure I'd heard Nirvana before. Who lived in the early 90's that hadn't? But after the first three songs, which were all singles and got fairly heavy radio play, the songs I hadn't heard captivated me. What was this guy so angry about? I didn't know, but I didn't really care either. His cryptic lyrics surely provided no clue. All I knew is that he was angry about something, and being a hormonally insane teenager at the time, I ate it up.

One of the more significant events of that day involved my mom, and my introduction to rebellion. It being my first CD, and purchased with the gift card she bought me for Christmas, she decided it was her right to look over my purchase. She was a little freaked out by the naked baby picture on the cover, and positively fuming over the picture of Kurt flipping off the camera in the linear notes. I quickly grabbed the CD from her hands, stormed off to my room, slammed the door, and listened to the album for the rest of my adolescence.

Sure, I wasn't part of "Generation X", the group of people for whom "grunge" music was supposedly targeted to. Even though I wasn't able to experience Kurt's music when he was still alive, I was able to find my way to him after his death. Although they aren't currently among my favorite bands, Nirvana can still be credited with introducing me to many aspects of my life that made me who I am today. I can still listen to them and appreciate what they've meant to me, and for that, I'm forever in debt to them.

1 comment:

John said...

Nevermind is a really good album. But their unplugged album was probably the the album that made me realize that there is a universe of things in music that is too deep for me to ever understand.