[dovate.com] » I was a child of the 90’s
I was a child of the 90’s
I read that today is the 13th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death and decided to post some words and music to mark it. Instead of just putting up some little burning candle and sharing a heartfelt story, I’d rather make a stupid point that I think is important and post a couple of songs that you’ve probably never heard. But anyway:
The point
On March 1, 1994 Beck released his first big studio album, Mellow Gold. On April 5, 1994 – or just over 1 month later – Kurt Cobain went into his greenhouse and opted out of shit. There’s an indefinable affinity between these 2 super-pop-star musicians. What it is, is unclear. Whatever it is, it’s some larger cultural something or other that may or may not come into better focus in another 25 years.
What my point is, is that one could not have existed in that strange ambiguous podium of popular culture as long as the other one was still around. Not that it was a direct torch passing… but it was something similar. To borrow an album title, it was more emblematic of a sea change that was reshaping the cultural landscape on a much larger scale.
The songs
With that vague confusing point out of the way, maybe the songs will make it clearer. Both of them are rough, live and acoustic.
The first song (not a Courtney Love song as she claims) is called “Old Age.” If you like Kurt Cobain, I guarantee that you’ll like it. If you don’t, you probably won’t. It starts off with vocals that sound like a parity of their own style, but builds into something surprisingly complete and powerful. Stay with it and it will probably surprise you.
The second song is the last song played by Beck on a radio show at KCRW the day before the release of Mellow Gold. The song appears on no album and (including this performance) has only ever been played twice. It’s a completely innocent and youthfully angsty song scattered here and there with some of the best lyrics written that decade.
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