On Nirvana:
My review of Nirvana: The Biography appeared in the LA Times last week. An idea of what I thought…
Back then, if MTV or commercial radio didn’t speak to you, you had a single alternative: an underground society of fanzines, tape trading, self-promoted concerts and college radio. This alienation from a heartless mainstream gave birth to punk in the ’70s, hip-hop in the early ’80s and the rock scene that birthed Nirvana. It also played into the central myth of rock ‘n’ roll itself: Society wants to squash you and your friends, and music is your liberation.
But now, a music fan has infinite listening choices and can locate peers through a few mouse clicks. Commercial radio and major record labels are self-destructing. Musicians develop enormous following through a few songs on MySpace. While major record labels are in freefall, music has never been cheaper, more diverse or easier to find. The “kids” have won.
All of which seems lost on True. Does he really believe he’s delivering blows against the empire by calling MTV “the absolute enemy”? His final assessment of Cobain’s life (“The system kills you”) blows right by the point: The system killed Cobain, a conflicted artist both ambitious and afraid of success, in large part because he was born too early for more than one alternative to it. Well-deployed bluster, as rock critic Lester Bangs illustrated, is the spun gold of the medium. But bluster in service of an outdated mythology is noisy where it should be compelling, aimless where it should be incisive. And True’s lecture-gossip-anecdote-rant-repeat prose rhythms do him no favors.