Grunge: Music and Memory

Grunge: Music and Memory This page has been left blank intentionally Grunge: Music and Memory Catherine Strong Cha...

Author: Catherine Strong

195 downloads 2211 Views 1MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Grunge: Music and Memory

This page has been left blank intentionally


Catherine Strong Charles Sturt University, Australia

Contents List of Figures General Editor’s Preface Acknowledgements

vii ix xi

1

Introduction

1

2

Theories of Grunge and Memory

15

3

Defining Grunge in the Media

39

4

Defining Grunge in Memory

57

5

The Memory of Kurt Cobain

85

6

Gender and Grunge

105

7

Generation X, ‘the 90s’ and Youth

131

Conclusion

153

Appendix: Outline of Questions for Interviews Bibliography Index

157 159 175


List of Figures 4.1 4.2

Bands labelled as ‘grunge’ by respondents Bands excluded from ‘grunge’ by respondents

73 74


General Editor’s Preface The upheaval that occurred in musicology during the last two decades of the twentieth century has created a new urgency for the study of popular music alongside the development of new critical and theoretical models. A relativistic outlook has replaced the universal perspective of modernism (the international ambitions of the 12-note style); the grand narrative of the evolution and dissolution of tonality has been challenged, and emphasis has shifted to cultural context, reception and subject position. Together, these have conspired to eat away at the status of canonical composers and categories of high and low in music. A need has arisen, also, to recognize and address the emergence of crossovers, mixed and new genres, to engage in debates concerning the vexed problem of what constitutes authenticity in music and to offer a critique of musical practice as the product of free, individual expression. Popular musicology is now a vital and exciting area of scholarship, and the Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series presents some of the best research in the field. Authors are concerned with locating musical practices, values and meanings in cultural context, and draw upon methodologies and theories developed in cultural studies, semiotics, poststructuralism, psychology and sociology. The series focuses on popular musics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is designed to embrace the world’s popular musics from Acid Jazz to Zydeco, whether high tech or low tech, commercial or non-commercial, contemporary or traditional.

Professor Derek B. Scott Professor of Critical Musicology University of Leeds


Acknowledgements This book is based on my PhD thesis, which I completed at the Australian National University in Canberra. I would like to thank the University and all those who I came into contact with there, particularly the ‘PhDivas’ (Vanessa McDermott, Justin Iu, Emily Rose, Rebecca Olson, Kirsty McLaren, Shanti Sumartojo and Ro Martin), who provided so much support and laughter during my candidature. My thesis was completed under the guidance of Dr Alastair Greig, who is beyond doubt the best supervisor who ever existed and who helped me herd the cats of my ideas into the mostly coherent form that they now take. I also learned much from my time working with Professor Marian Sawer, who also commented on thesis drafts. Thanks also to James Strong, Christopher Strong and Patricia Woolcock for reading and commenting on thesis or book drafts. The individuals who participated in the research by allowing me to interview them are central to this book, and without their willingness to give up their time to speak to me what I have done here would not have been possible. I hope I have made good use of that time. I would also like to thank the members of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) (Australia–New Zealand branch), who have commented on my work over the years and also given me a place to go to talk about popular music studies in general. In particular, I have received generous advice and help from Michelle Phillipov, Roy Shuker, Bruce Johnson and Andy Bennett, among others. The camaraderie of the IASPM has been pivotal in allowing me to develop the confidence to publish this book and I am very grateful that the organization exists. I would also like to extend my gratitude to my colleagues at Charles Sturt University who have encouraged and supported me during the writing of this book, particularly Emma Rush, Anna Poletti and Merrilyn Crichton, and Angela Ragusa, who commented on my initial book proposal. The biggest thanks, however, need to go to my friends and family who have been with me on every step of this journey. My family – Amanda Murray, Peter Strong, Chris Strong, James Strong and Tylley Teh Kitteh – have always had more faith in my abilities than I did and have been an incredible resource to draw on, as have extended family and friends such as Michelle Murray, Julie Enzerink and Safka (and many others). Finally, my partner Andrew Woolcock has endured more complaining, despair and catastrophizing than a human being should ever be asked to while this work has been being done, and for that, and his incredible patience and kindness, I offer eternal thanks.


Chapter 1

Introduction I would like to start this book with what I think is a fairly typical description of how someone remembers their experiences of grunge: When I was 15, living in a medium-sized rural town in New South Wales [in Australia], I saw a song on SBS’s1 very obscure music programme The Noise. It was an immediately engaging, catchy and yet edgy and loud piece which I heard once and loved. I had never heard of the band, Nirvana, or the song, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, before – I had seen no advertising, heard nothing from friends, seen no promotional posters in record stores or seen the song played on Video Hits as a chart-topper. The next day, I bought the album, Nevermind, from which the song was taken, though I had trouble finding it hidden away in a (mainstream) record store where the assistant behind the counter ‘had had a few people asking for it’. Within a fortnight, everyone had heard of Nirvana, they were being played on Video Hits and the grunge era was in full swing. I, personally, had found music that I felt really expressed something about my tragic adolescent ‘inner life’, and I had found it, initially, without anyone telling me what it was or how I should feel about it.

The really incredible thing about Nirvana was that everyone got into them. They created, for however brief a moment and in however insignificant a way, a playground utopia where there was no difference. The rough metal boys and the soft, ballad loving girls all ‘got’ Nirvana, and agreed that it was good, and our parents hated it. The importance of this feeling of unity amongst teenagers, all of us at that point in life where we felt most isolated and like ‘no-one understands’, cannot, I think, be underestimated or trivialized. And there was, I believe, a period – probably very short lived – where this was a genuine thing, where the success of Nirvana and their ilk took everyone by surprise, including their own record companies. It may not have been new to someone watching from outside, but for us it was both new and unexpected and so we just reacted. My music tastes until then had been somewhat limited by what can be accessed in rural areas – that is, inoffensive ‘Hits and Memories’ radio stations, my parents’ record collection (old but not too bad) and whatever my friends were listening to. With the arrival of grunge, the interest of those around me in music increased dramatically, and recommendations and copied tapes flew around the playground 1 Special Broadcasting Service – Australia’s (at that time) publicly funded, noncommercial multicultural television station.

2


faster than copies of grunge ‘fashion’ made it into designer shops. A friend made me a tape with Jane’s Addiction on one side, Joy Division on the other, opening up whole new areas of music to be explored, while I copied The Pixies for her. At first we explored bands in the grunge vein – Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains – but then we started moving into other sounds and eras. After a while, the sound became less important than the feeling – it didn’t matter if there were distorted guitars and anguished vocals as long as it seemed real. We happily called what we were listening to ‘alternative music’ because at the time it really did feel that way, something new and totally different to what I had been raised listening to. Also, many of the bands involved did retain some degree of obscurity, despite some chart success – or, at least, our parents hadn’t heard of them. It also came with an alternative message on the world than the one received from people in authority (teachers, parents, and so on). This is a hard thing to reflect upon, as the meaning of grunge has been discussed so much since, but at the time I think I thought it was about the realization that there were more options open to you than tamely getting a job you hated and working for the rest of your life, or getting married and having kids. Or, more to the point, I had always thought that, but the realization that there were other people who thought the same things was a revelation and a validation of my feelings. There was also an underscoring of the feeling that things weren’t quite right – nothing so big and all encompassing as, say, fear of nuclear war, but an unease and a questioning – maybe the way that they were doing things wasn’t such a good idea after all. No one, however, was ‘talking about a revolution’; they were talking about finding a worthwhile and satisfying life on their own terms, and, importantly, doing this in a way that didn’t cause harm, whether to other people, animals or the environment. However, it didn’t take long for problems to show. There was clearly a lot of money to be made from grunge and alternative music, so the money makers started to step in. It wasn’t long before the first debates about who was ‘selling out’, which bands were ‘for real’ and which ones weren’t began to occur – even kids in a country town know to be suspicious where money is concerned. (On a related note, I remember covering a school book with pictures of musical heroes of mine, including a picture of the guitarist from the Manic Street Preachers with ‘4 real’ sliced into his bleeding arm. Even that was barely enough to be convincing …) We started to see the grunge tag and associated look shoved onto anything and everything in an attempt to cash in (see the movie Singles for a good example of this), and expensive flannelette shirts started turning up in big-name chain stores where ‘fashion victims’ shopped. My recollection is that some people went along with all this (and some jumped onto the bandwagon as it progressed), whereas others withdrew and started searching for other (often associated) things that they could still call their own. I remember very clearly ‘discovering’ Siouxsie and the Banshees with a friend of mine, and her disgust when an album the band released six months later actually made it into the charts. At the time, I didn’t quite understand what she was worried about – as far as I was concerned, it didn’t change the music for me – but now I see more clearly her concern that something you love can be changed forever by being

Introduction

3

exposed to a mass audience. Plus, you’re really not as cool if everyone’s heard of your favourite bands. As a fan, I was aware of this and saw it happening. I saw the ‘grunge’ label being applied to anything and everything, and bands who had been around for years suddenly wearing flannies and adding more guitar to their music to try to restart their failing careers. I watched the big corporations that had been so mistrusted by my musical idols creep in and end up owning everything – even Sub Pop itself was bought by Warners in 1995. The musicians themselves became more ‘branded’ and mainstream – in the ultimate in product placement, pictures of Cobain’s body lying in his garage, clearly wearing Converse shoes, were printed around the world (I nearly bought a pair after seeing this). Bands with loud guitars and carefully messed-up hair who sang songs about love made their way into the charts. Singers like Alanis Morissette and the Spice Girls became the mainstream Riot Grrrls, while Courtney Love got plastic surgery and chased after roles in bigbudget Hollywood movies. In the early 2000s, when searching for a topic for my PhD thesis, I realized that grunge, the music I loved so much as a teenager, had been neglected within academia. The reasons were immediately apparent. Grunge was considered an overly commercialized, debased form of the rock music academic’s genre of choice, punk, and as such was dismissed as unworthy of consideration. I also had been initially considering punk as a field of study because I knew if I wanted to make a sociological case for the benefits of popular music (something which at that stage I felt would be required), then punk would deliver politics, community and resistance to consumerism, but the teenage girl inside me protested that grunge was a worthy object of study too. Upon deciding this, one of the first things I did, before having any real idea of what direction my research would take, was to sit down and write the above account of my own experiences of grunge. Over the course of my research there was nothing in this account that I had written, simplistically and naively it now seems, that was not challenged, pulled to pieces and proved to be problematic. In many ways this book represents me grappling with a part of myself and my own identity. Including the above account is a way of putting my own position up front, but is also a gesture of solidarity with the respondents whose interviews make up much of the content of this book. At every point when I am analysing what other people have said, there is a part of me that is undergoing the same process. What I wrote is very similar in many respects to the accounts given by respondents, in particular in the way that it revolves around the commercial success of grunge, the sense of connection to others that it engendered, and the need I felt to construct a story that emphasized how I felt that my discovery of grunge was somehow free of ‘inauthentic’ commercial influences. It was clearly important for me to stress the way that I found grunge on my own, before it became big. These are themes that will be touched on throughout this book. Also of interest is the way that I have presented and created a story out of my experiences, that is, how I remember grunge. While I decided grunge would be the subject of my research very early in the process, memory was not initially a major theme. At the outset, I hoped to examine

4


grunge more in terms of identity formation and the relationship between music and emotion. However, it quickly became apparent that the amount of time that had elapsed since the heyday of grunge was an important element in the data being collected, especially since respondents’ identities and emotional relationships to this music had changed considerably over time, as had my own. Theories on memory provided a path to better analysis of this data and a theoretical framework through which to understand the relationship between grunge and social structures. Nevertheless, these theories did not seem to provide all that was needed to do everything I wanted to do in terms of explaining the place of culture in society. Another major theme in this book is popular culture and its relationship to power. A noteworthy aspect of my account of grunge is the way that I have located it as oppositional, and as presenting a different way of doing things than what I considered to be the dominant message that my 15-year-old self was receiving from society. Therefore, the establishment of memory and power as the central ways of trying to understand popular music led to the following research questions: What is the relationship between popular culture, memory and power? Does a form of popular culture such as grunge present a challenge to the power structures in society, and if so, what is the outcome of this challenge?

These research questions reflect the way that this book deals with three bodies of work: popular music studies, memory studies and the work of Bourdieu, whose theories provide a way to conceptualize power and its relationship to culture in a sociological manner. The overall argument being made is that although a form of popular culture such as grunge may present explicit challenges to existing social structures, these challenges can be defused as memories of grunge are organized in a way that reinscribes the overarching power relations in society. However, this does not occur unproblematically, nor is it accomplished completely, for fans of grunge individually or as a group. The Structure of the Book The focus on the three central bodies of work being utilized shifts throughout the book, and also moves between different levels of analysis in terms of the respondents. The empirical chapters expand in scope from a very close focus on the respondents’ experiences with grunge and the media to a broader examination of the relationships between grunge and respondents’ positions in the power structures of society. This allows for the incorporation of some of the most central concerns of sociology, such as gender and age. Chapter 2 begins by situating the study of grunge within the wider field of popular music and memory studies. Particular attention is paid to the literature that does exist on grunge, to demonstrate how grunge is constructed by academics as an apolitical ‘poor cousin’ to punk. However, it is also demonstrated here and

Introduction

5

elsewhere in the book that grunge did contain both explicit political messages and a more generalized questioning about the nature of society and how it might be changed or improved. The success of grunge is considered in relation to theories of authenticity and commercialization. It will be shown that these are still central concepts in how value judgements are made about music in academia and wider society, and they must be taken into consideration in order to gain a full understanding of how grunge has been remembered. The chapter will then close with an examination of how memory can be central to the reproduction or alteration of power relations in society, by exploring the way that individual and collective memories are socially shaped. Memories are formed through social expectations about what should be remembered and there are conventional forms (narratives) that such recollections take. The sociological literature on the nature of memory, and in particular the way that certain groups who have more power or wealth have been theorized as having greater control over memory, will be examined in order to demonstrate the social nature of respondents’ memories and to establish a framework for subsequent chapters. The following two chapters deal with the question of the nature of grunge. Chapter 3 examines grunge from the perspective of media reports at the time when the movement was most popular. This is done firstly to provide a ‘base line’ (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994, p. 15) of events and understandings of grunge which are, in Chapter 4, compared to respondents’ current definitions of grunge to see if these meanings have remained constant over time. This chapter also contains a consideration of Bourdieu’s work on fields as a way of understanding how and why grunge emerged at the time that it did. Grunge holds a particular position within the field (in Bourdieu’s sense) of popular music, and this position can only be understood with reference to other musical forms and the time at which it occurred. Bourdieu’s theories present a way of rethinking concepts such as authenticity and the mainstream, and introduce the idea of culture as an arena where power is situated. In Chapter 4 data from respondents is used to demonstrate how their memories of grunge have been given particular forms, and it is argued that the way that respondents remember grunge constitutes a form of collective memory. These collective memories cannot be understood without referring to the media, as it is the media accounts discussed in the preceding chapter that helped to shape these memories and connect this otherwise dispersed group. It will be demonstrated that grunge is not endlessly open to interpretation, but has a definite centre of meaning which matches up across different groups and has remained relatively stable over time. Grunge has certain musical, cultural, temporal and geographic meanings which have not changed significantly since the time of its popularity, and these will be described in order to provide a base line of understanding for the remainder of the book, where audience perspectives as well as media definitions are incorporated. In Chapter 5 memory is brought further into focus as a space where power can be challenged through an examination of how both fans and media remember

6


Kurt Cobain and his death. It will be demonstrated that while the memories of fans have been (necessarily) constructed through reference to what the mass media said about grunge, their accounts have diverged from those of the media over time. The memories of fans and journalists differ due to the different requirements that these groups have in how they relate to and use Cobain. This shows that although the mass media plays an important role in memory construction, it does not control memory over time. Memory can be a site of struggle and contestation, and the group that may appear to have greater power over it (in this case the media) cannot necessarily control the memory of others. Chapter 6 continues the examination of the connections between grunge and wider power relations in society by concentrating on the role that women played in the grunge movement and how their contribution has been remembered or, more often, forgotten. Although rock music is almost completely dominated by males, there was a significant number of important female musicians during the time of grunge. Both male and female musicians saw gender equality as a worthwhile goal, and this was one of the most prominent political elements of grunge. However, over time the contribution of the female grunge musicians has been almost forgotten, with the exception of Courtney Love, who is vilified and used as a cautionary tale. The way that women were denied a place in grunge history suggests that memory can sometimes be used to reinforce power relations in society. However, it is also noted that for a minority of female respondents, grunge offered new ways of thinking about gender that have had ongoing effects on how these respondents express their femininity. Chapter 7 will examine different ways in which the period of grunge has been framed, specifically in relation to youth and youth culture. Grunge has often been discussed as being the music of ‘Generation X’ or of ‘The 90s’, and both of these are connected to the notion of youth and the position of youth as a relatively powerless group in society. Sociological theories that consider age to be an important aspect of inequality, as well as those that see generational membership as being a type of collective remembering, are discussed, along with the idea that youth is no longer associated with biological age. Accounts of respondents suggest that they remember youth as a specific, bounded period of their lives which they have moved past. In doing so they also dismiss the questions that grunge raised about society because they see these questions as being part of an inauthentic youthful experience, and through this dismissal they reinforce the status quo. This book cannot, of course, examine all aspects of grunge and its aftermath and there are theoretical approaches that also cannot be explored in depth. For example, if it was being researched at the time of its formation and early success, grunge may best have been understood using theories relating to scenes (for example, see Cohen, 1991; Connell and Gibson, 2003; Finnegan, 1989; Jipson, 1994) or subcultures. Scenes are usually described as ‘situations in which the distinctions between informal and formal music activity, and between the activities and roles of music audiences, producers and performers, are blurred’

Introduction

7

(Cohen, 1999, p. 239). While it is recognized that local scenes are embedded in global processes, especially as ‘cultural activity is increasingly important to the “branding” of regions and cities as markers of difference’ (Homan, 2003, p. 16), given that this book is not focused on Seattle as such, these theories were deemed to be less relevant to this study. With regard to grunge being a subculture, since the heyday of the Birmingham School (see Hall and Jefferson, 1996; Hebdige, 1979) there has been much debate on the usefulness of the idea of subcultures. It has been suggested that the concept of the subculture is fundamentally flawed as it has been centred only on the visually spectacular members of these groups, thus disregarding differences and change within subcultures, as well as ignoring women and girls (see Bennett, 1999; McRobbie and Garber, 1997; Redhead, 1997). More recently the ideas of the Birmingham School have been revisited and reconceptualized in order to broaden their applicability and to redress some of the omissions of the original body of work (for example, see Muggleton, 2000; Thornton, 1995). This has led to a situation where the term ‘subculture’ is now often used interchangeably with ‘scene’ and ‘community’ (Cohen, 1999, p. 239), with all of these notions suggesting a group that is still in some way easily identifiable and ‘special’. Although these theories will be touched on throughout this book, I will not attempt to contribute in depth to the debate. The present study concentrates on grunge’s effects as a large-scale cultural phenomenon, which I argue was more an inhabitant of the mainstream than a subcultural space (while not denying the ability of the audience of grunge to create their own meanings in the way that participants in subcultures are seen to do). While much time has been spent, in academic literature on popular culture, focusing on groups that are seen to be somewhat separate from the ‘mass’ of consumers, and generally arguing for why such special groups are in some way better than this ‘mass’ (usually through being conceptualized as somehow resistant to the dominant forces in society), I will not be trying to demonstrate such separateness for the fans who are the subject of this study. One of the most interesting things about grunge is the transition it made from a localized ‘scene’ to a massive worldwide stage. As I will discuss in Chapter 2, this shift is almost always characterized by commentators, be they journalists or academics, as damaging and problematic. I wish to resist this automatic assumption and instead ask questions about this transition and the way that it has created certain narratives around grunge and the artists associated with it. This is of particular interest in the case of Kurt Cobain, who has been portrayed as a direct victim of the ideological gap between the special groups that inhabit ‘scenes’ and ‘subcultures’ and the mass culture that supposedly exists outside these areas. All the grunge fans who have been interviewed for this book (with the possible exception of two respondents who lived in Seattle during the early grunge years, neither of whom was intimately involved with the music scene) encountered grunge as part of a mass-mediated, global cultural event. It was, in this way, part of the mainstream, in that it became part of the collective consciousness and helped to

8


reshape the meanings of success in popular music. The respondents in this study were thus not part of any privileged, underground or ‘special’ group. This is not to say that the respondents (and journalists and musicians) do not draw on tropes of marginality or attempt to position themselves as subcultural, or oppositional to the mainstream in some way. In fact, this is a prominent theme in the interviews (and can also be seen in my own account of being a grunge fan at the start of this chapter). Some of the interviewees could, in some aspects of their lives, certainly be positioned as marginal. As grunge fans, however, they are as mainstream as they come. By acknowledging this up front, I hope to avoid the tendency in popular music studies to associate value with marginality. There is still more often than not a dismissal of the ‘mainstream’ as the realm of the mindless cultural dupe, and a presentation of other groups (from Hebdige’s (1979) punks through to hip-hop artists (Rose, 1994), Riot Grrrls (Kearney, 1998), mash-upers (Gunderson, 2004) and so on) as constructing more meaningful, resistant identities in opposition to the mainstream. Increasingly, however, it is being acknowledged that trying to separate cultural consumers in these ways is problematic if not impossible (see, for example, the work on fandom by authors such as Jenkins 2006, 1992), and often allows unexamined assumptions about what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ music to creep into the field. By treating grunge as a mainstream phenomenon (while acknowledging its subcultural roots and the importance of these roots to its reception by audiences), I hope to avoid such value judgements. This conceptualization of grunge as mainstream and globalized also means that the localized or Australian context of respondents’ experiences is not a major focus of this work. Furthermore, as a consequence of the choice to place the emphasis of this book on the experiences of audiences and media reports, there has been little room for the analysis of grunge from the perspective of the music industry. This would still be a fruitful and interesting perspective to take in regards to grunge, especially considering the concern which academics and respondents display over the commercialization of the genre. An explanation of the mechanisms by which grunge was marketed to a huge international audience would also be a valuable contribution to the literature, but unfortunately the discussions in this book on audiences’ memories of grunge and their connections to societal change and reproduction do not allow for any in-depth analysis of this issue. Finally, the music of grunge – the sound itself – is not as central to the discussion as it might have been. Although sociologists working on popular music have often been criticized for not focusing enough on the role that the sound of music plays in creating meaning (DeNora, 2003, p. 36), and sound in general is, in many ways, something that social scientists are still grappling with (for example, see Attali, 1985; Shepherd, 1991, on the relationship between the sound of music and the organization of society; and Järviluoma, 1994; Järviluoma and Wagstaff, 2002; Kassabian, 2002, on soundscapes and ‘ubiquitous’ music), in this instance the retrospectivity of the study made the connection between sound and the social more difficult to map out. The connection between music/sound and memory is, however, discussed in Chapter 4.

Introduction

9

Methodology Popular music and its effects can be difficult subjects to study, and there are a number of different methodological approaches that are used in this field. Music has been researched as a subject in its own right, in terms of lyrics, the culture surrounding it, through texts, ethnographic research or observation, and in many other ways. For this project, the choice of methodology was strongly influenced by the ways in which grunge had been approached in prior studies. As will be discussed in Chapter 2, little academic work has been carried out on grunge. For the most part, that which has been done has been either textual analysis, sometimes focused on the music as text (Fish, 1995; Mazullo, 2000) or presenting a more cultural/ historical analysis based on written representations (Jones, 1995; Martin, 2004; Santiago-Lucerna, 1998; Shevory, 1995), or a combination of these (Muto, 1995). What is missing from these accounts is the voice of the fans. Ethnographic work has been done on ‘independent music’ (Kruse, 2003) or ‘alternative hard rock’ (Schippers, 2002) in the early 1990s, but these studies look at broader areas of music than the narrow focus of grunge – and grunge as a globalized phenomenon rather than as part of a localized scene – that is of interest to me. Of all the articles dealing exclusively or mostly with grunge, only one uses interview data as part of its evidence, and this is not from people who are necessarily fans of grunge but college students who could be considered part of ‘Generation X’ (Pecora and Mazzarella, 1995). As Grossberg (1990, p. 114) observes, a style cannot be defined simply through the music, but instead ‘understanding rock and roll requires asking what it gives its fans, how it empowers them and how they empower it’. Therefore it is important to look at what the music means to its audience, even if that meaning cannot be found in the music itself. Analysis of media reports, such as those by Jones (1995) and Mazzarella (1995), while valuable, are only one part of a fuller understanding of the effect of grunge on its audience and society. Furthermore, articles concentrating on textual aspects of grunge such as the lyrics can miss important elements of the surrounding culture or even cues in the music itself as to how the texts could be read. For example, Fish (1995) examines the artistry of Cobain’s work through his lyrics, and concludes that Cobain failed in his attempt to create his own form of art through being absorbed into the corporate mainstream, and that this failure led to his suicide. This argument is less than convincing because looking only at lyrics misses important aspects of Cobain’s delivery (such as an ironic tone of voice) that affect the meaning of the words, and the sound of the music itself. As Beebe (2002) argues, although Nirvana’s lyrics may seem depressing if read, this ignores the irony implied in the delivery and the empowering sound of the music – or, as Fish’s own son puts it: ‘“His lyrics are so depressing but the music makes you feel so good”’ (Fish, 1995, p. 89) (for a further critique of lyrical analysis, see McClary and Walser, 1990). The only grunge-related study that involved audiences was focused less on audience understandings and more on whether grunge could be considered a ‘generational marker’ (Pecora and Mazzarella, 1995). Although textual analysis is an important

10


element of understanding culture, and will be used at times in this book, I am in agreement with scholars like Bennett (2008b) who argue that, from a sociological perspective, it is impossible to gain a complete understanding of the effects of music without finding out what it means to its audience. For this reason, much of the data collected for this study came from semi-structured interviews conducted with 43 people who self-identified as having been grunge fans during the 1990s. The questions asked during these interviews can be found in the Appendix. Something that researchers in this field need to be reflexive about is how, in popular music studies, it can sometimes be easy for the researchers’ tastes and perspectives to become central to their work (either deliberately or inadvertently). While I acknowledge that I myself was a fan of grunge during its heyday, I also wanted to ensure that my study of grunge did not end up privileging my own experiences above that of any other fan. This involved being highly reflexive and in particular monitoring myself for any tendencies to reject what my respondents were saying if they did not correspond to my own opinions. In doing this, I tried to avoid a situation where ‘those people who are entitled to full subject status, that is who are, for example, to engage with the researcher in the process of interpretation and theory generation are “those whose standpoint the researcher shares” in terms of both political choice and sympathy’ (Cain, cited in Luff, 1999, p. 692), or, in this case, in terms of musical taste and experience. In so doing, I am taking into consideration feminist theories relating to ‘the importance of self-reflexivity on the part of the researcher’ (Luff, 1999, p. 688) and the inclusion of biographical details of myself, in particular those aspects of my life and experiences which have led me to pursue the research I am undertaking. Such details have been included in this chapter and wherever relevant elsewhere in the book in order to ensure that my own position on the subject matter remains as transparent as possible (while hopefully not being overemphasized) (see also Punch, 1998). Interviewing is often used in the social sciences to gain in-depth qualitative data. The method I chose to use for my research has similarities with the method described by Flick (2002) as ‘problem-based interviewing’. This form of semistructured interviewing is based on focusing the interviewee’s knowledge of a certain area, as ‘by using an interview guide incorporating questions and narrative stimuli it is possible to collect biographical data with regard to a certain problem’ (Flick, 2002, p. 86). In this case, it focused on how people responded to grunge and its importance to them. This method suggests the use of interview questions as a guide only, or as a fallback when the discussion has stagnated or the respondent is straying too far from the main concerns of the interview. At the outset of interviewing, I considered recollection to be one of the main potential problems with the approach I had chosen. The events in question took place ten or more years ago, and as a result respondents either simply might not remember some of the events in question (although this is unlikely, given that their participation is based on this music being an important memory to them), or may have distorted or unclear memories (Lewins, 1992). One approach which I have found has both helped me deal with this issue (in regards to the validity of

Introduction

11

my findings) and has fed into the focus on memory which has become central to this study is the idea of the active interview (Holstein and Gubrium, 2001). One of the dangers in regard to interviewing is to see the respondent as a ‘passive vessel of answers’ who simply relays experiences and facts to the interviewer: ‘the vessel-of-answers view cautions interviewers to be wary of how they ask questions, lest their manner of inquiry bias what lies within the subject, which otherwise is available for truthful and accurate communication’ (Holstein and Gubrium, 2001, p. 56). However, conventional notions of validity and reliability become less relevant when the subject is seen as actively taking part in knowledge production – there are no longer correct answers as such, but changing situations and contexts in which experiences are always reported differently but (hopefully) not less accurately or honestly. The active interview focuses on the way that reality is constantly being constructed, but not from nothing. Rather, the realities of the everyday world in which the interview is conducted are the framework and the basis for answers given. As in any other interaction between people, the interviewer and respondent use these resources as they see fit for the situation. As a result, interviews are not any less real than other conversations or interactions, just somewhat different, with their own rules and conventions that participants understand, and do not necessarily need to have exactly set questions and phrasing in order to be comparable. An awareness of the active interview approach initially helped me to understand that the answers I would be obtaining were not necessarily distorted or made wrong by the lapse of time since the events I was asking about, but that the narratives that were being offered to me were unique accounts specifically crafted for the time the questions were being asked and the way that they were being asked. However, as mentioned above, the time factor and influence of other accounts (such as the media) gained particular relevance for my study in regards to how knowledge is produced. This creation of knowledge in the interview situation will be discussed in more depth in the following chapters, particularly with respect to how the social nature of memory suggests specific forms for the way that memories are shared. Overall, a hypothesis-building approach coupled with the use of active interviews has resulted in a rich data set from which I have been able to extract a number of themes that form the basis of the remainder of this study. The interview guide used consisted of 22 open-ended questions (see the Appendix), and most interviews lasted for 50 to 70 minutes. Interviews were transcribed and coded using the qualitative program NVivo. In particular, as mentioned above, the concept of memory became central to the conclusions drawn as a result of interview analysis, and the interest I initially had in exploring aspects of identity formation has crystallized around specific sociological themes such as gender and age. The 43 respondents who took part in this study were recruited in a number of ways, including: through websites; advertising in street press and on fliers; directly by me or through friends and family; and through ‘snowballing’. Most lived in Perth, Canberra and Sydney in Australia, with a minority coming from rural areas. The ages of interviewees ranged from 21 to 45, with the majority of respondents

12


aged between 26 and 35. This was an expected outcome, as this group would have been in their teens and early 20s when grunge was at its peak. Fifteen of the interviewees for this study were female and 28 were male. As will be discussed in Chapter 6, grunge was a less masculine form of rock than many others and as such I anticipated a balanced gender distribution among respondents. I believe the disparity of the end result is due to recruitment methods more than a greater proportion of males necessarily being fans of grunge. During the first phase of my fieldwork, where I was concentrating on interviews in my local area gained through links I had in the community, the ratio of males to females consistently remained at around 50:50. Only when I started to cast a wider net, using less personal recruitment methods, did the proportion of female respondents start to decrease. Only one of the female respondents contacted me as the result of advertising, and none via the various websites I recruited through. Overall, females were recruited through methods involving conversations and contact with others, and not through methods that required them to take the first step in contacting someone who was a complete stranger to them. This was particularly apparent during the round of interviews conducted in Perth, where the only recruitment method available to me before I arrived in the city was bulletin boards on the internet. Only one female was interviewed in Perth, and she did not reply to me personally but was told about the study (and was indeed initially volunteered) by her boyfriend. However, overall the respondents came from enough different places and perspectives to give good insight into the lives of grunge fans. Conclusion The study of the audiences of grunge contained in this book adds to the current literature on popular music in a number of ways. It will add to the small body of academic literature dealing with grunge, and is the only research to date examining the effects of grunge on the audience of this music. Second, while there have been many examinations of commercially successful music, rock music has more often been discussed as an oppositional musical form, and studies have concentrated on subgroups of rock audiences that are most obviously ‘resisting’. While not ignoring the oppositional qualities of grunge, and assuming the ability of all consumers of popular culture to engage in resistance, the book will conceive of grunge (at the time that it was encountered by most of the respondents to this study) as a mainstream form of music. This will both add to our understanding of the mainstream and the effects mainstream music can still have on audiences and, by conceiving of the mainstream as space that is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’, avoid the value judgements made in previous writing on grunge. Third, and most importantly, as this study is a retrospective account of grunge, it adds a new perspective to the literature on music, which mostly studies movements as they occur or presents historical accounts that do not involve the recollections of fans. Recent research has started to focus on aging fans of popular

Introduction

13

music, as it is becoming increasingly evident that love of such music does not necessarily end after people reach adulthood. Studies have emerged that examine fans’ continued love of music into middle age (Kotarba, 2002, 2005), or their continuing identification with scenes more usually associated with youth, such as punk (for example, see Bennett, 2006; Davis, 2006). However, such studies still concentrate on a more ‘here and now’ relationship with music. Revisiting grunge ten to fifteen years after its death allows us to examine what lasting effects it has had on fans and also how and what they remember. In order to do this effectively, it is necessary to develop an understanding of how memory works. The following chapter will now turn to a discussion of the literature on this subject, and this combination of popular music studies and memory studies will form the backbone for the discussion in subsequent chapters.


Chapter 2

Theories of Grunge and Memory The purpose of this chapter is to make explicit some of the assumptions that underlie most people’s understanding of grunge, and rock music more generally, and to establish a framework for discussing the relationship between grunge and memory. There are specific types of criteria that are deployed when fans, critics and academics discuss the worth of different types of popular music. In the world of rock music these are often connected to the perceived honesty, or authenticity, of the performer, and are grounded in the centuries-old division between ‘art’ and commerce. In the case of grunge, the tension between these was often made explicit by the main players involved in the scene, but this ‘knowing’ and ironic approach had surprisingly little impact on the way in which notions of authenticity have still been used to determine the worth of grunge. Of particular note is the way that academic enquiry into grunge has been surprisingly dismissive of the movement, often because of its commercial success or because it is constructed as not being ‘political’ enough. It will be argued here that grunge certainly had numerous political aspects to it, not least the critique of capitalism that could be read into the way that bands like Nirvana played with the art/commerce divide. However, the focus that academics often have on particular types of political statements, and the way that they read these as making some types of culture more worthy than others, will be critiqued as a type of ‘generationalism’ that has meant the full possibilities contained in grunge have not been considered. Any political intentions that musicians may have are, however, often at odds with the effect that music may have, or with the perceptions of audiences, and these perceptions can also change over time. Grunge, in the sense that it is being used in this study, is not a current musical form. It is therefore necessary to take into account how the responses of interviewees are affected by being filtered through memory. This provides an opportunity to examine the social aspects of memory and its relationship with popular culture. The discussion here focuses on how memory can be central to the reproduction or alteration of societal values and norms, and thereby power relations in society, by examining the way that individual and group memories are shaped by social expectations about what should be remembered and the forms such recollections should take. What is Grunge? Before beginning an analysis of grunge and its relation to memory, we need to establish a broad outline of the history of grunge, including an attempt to trace its

16


musical roots, and give an account of the cultural and ideological issues associated with it. This account is by no means definitive, as it would be impossible for such an account to be produced given differences of opinion and the inevitable revision that happens in the wake of such a cultural phenomenon. The consequences of such revisions and the impact of memory will be one of the focuses of this book. The story told here as a starting point sketches out characteristics that most people with an interest in grunge would recognize and generally agree with, and which have been consistent across many different printed accounts of grunge (for example, see Cross, 2001; Huq, 2006; Morrell, 1996; True, 2001). As someone who was a fan of grunge, I know that reading accounts like this can be frustrating, as they always seem to get something wrong or leave out some important point. However, it is necessary for the frames of references being used in the book to be established early on, even imperfectly. The picture that I will begin to sketch here will be given greater detail in the following chapters, as media and fans’ accounts of grunge are also examined. Despite it being difficult, if not impossible, to definitively describe any musical genre, those genres are central to the way that popular music is organized and understood. In trying to understand how we think of genres, Kirschner (1994) has identified two streams of thought. These are ‘essentialists’, who believe it is possible to claim that a genre such as grunge exists in the real world, which is a position usually taken by fans and critics; and ‘anti-essentialists’, who argue such labels have no real meaning because of the infinite possibilities for fans to apply labels in their own ways. Kirschner points out that identified centres of culture can be described, but these are always surrounded by moving, porous, contested borderlands. Therefore although every fan has a different idea of what grunge is, there will be some consistency among them (as will be demonstrated in Chapter 4). Grunge will be defined here as a musical genre and a cultural centre that existed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with associated fashions and ideologies, as well as political and musical alliances. There are overlaps between grunge and other genres (particularly alternative, metal and punk), and at times other terms have been used to describe what I am referring to as grunge (for example, Kirschner (1994) uses the term ‘hip-mainstream’ to describe something very similar to what I am defining as grunge). As noted in the last chapter, some researchers have used terms such as ‘alternative hard rock’ (Schippers, 2002) or discussed ‘independent music scenes’ (Kruse, 2003) in a way that encompasses grunge as part of a wider discussion, but the term is being used here in a very focused way. Rock histories usually accept that grunge started in Seattle with the record label Sub Pop, or at least that Sub Pop was a major player in the growth of the scene. Sub Pop was founded in 1988 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, and was focused on releasing albums by the heavy, guitar-based bands that were playing in Seattle at the time. The first Sub Pop releases included Soundgarden, Mudhoney (whose lead singer, Mark Arm, is credited with first applying the term grunge to his band’s music (Cross, 1997, p. 88)) and Green River (a forerunner of Pearl Jam). The label later released the first Nirvana album, Bleach, before the band signed to a major label.


17

The Seattle scene slowly began to attract interest over the next few years, and with the support of Sub Pop gained the attention of music fans, music journalists and record companies around the world. An important release at this time was the Deep Six compilation (on CZ Records), which included tracks by Green River, Soundgarden and Mudhoney amongst others. This, and the growing success of these bands, attracted the attention of a number of major labels, who began offering contracts to bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. An important element of grunge mythology states that these bands signed only after specifying significant artistic control over their music and recordings. Sub Pop also took a hand in promoting their bands and the scene to a worldwide audience, for example by sponsoring journalists from influential UK music magazines to fly to Seattle to cover the scene (True, 2001, p. 102). The big turning point for Seattle came in 1991 with the release of the Nirvana album, Nevermind. Nirvana had signed to the David Geffen Company (DGC), who initially pressed only 40,000 copies of the album and expected it to be a minor success. Instead it sold millions of copies and replaced Michael Jackson at number one on the Billboard charts six weeks after its release, an event that has been given symbolic meaning in terms of the replacement of the ‘old guard’ of music and the arrival of grunge in the mainstream. Major record companies started signing up similar bands and for a while guitar-based bands such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and non-Seattle bands such as Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins dominated the music industry. Musically and attitudinally grunge was grounded in certain contemporary streams of heavy metal, punk and ‘alternative’ music. By the mid-1980s, heavy metal had split into a number of (almost exclusively male) distinct sub-genres (Weinstein, 2000). One of these was hair metal (also known as pop or lite metal), which was enjoying considerable chart success at the time. Exponents of this style were usually very visually theatrical, with big hair, make-up and extravagant leather clothes. Musically, although relying on metal staples such as virtuoso guitar performances, these bands were more melodic than other styles of metal, and lyrically focused on ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’. Examples of this style include bands such as Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and Guns’n’Roses. In opposition to hair metal was thrash metal, which was musically more aggressive, fast and distorted, heavy on the bass drum in particular, with growled or screamed vocals. These bands eschewed the theatrical elements of hair metal, preferring to visually match their audiences’ jeans, t-shirts and long but unstyled hair, which was everyday street wear for a metal fan. In their lyrics, and in associated imagery such as album covers, these bands concentrated on themes of the occult, the abuse of authority and power, and the darker aspects of life such as alcoholism, suicide, environmental degradation, alienation, technofear and depression. Examples of bands associated with this style include Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax. Weinstein (2000) and other commentators (Friesen and Epstein, 1994; Harrell, 1994; Moynihan and Sonderlind, 1998; Walser, 1993) have identified further sub-genres of metal, but hair metal and thrash metal are

18


the most relevant to this discussion of grunge as these are the ones which grunge is most closely associated with (thrash) and most oppositional to (hair), as will be shown in more detail in Chapters 3 and 4. The type of punk most relevant to grunge is not the UK-based punk that emerged in the 1970s (most closely associated with The Sex Pistols) but the form found in the US during the 1980s, more generally referred to as hardcore (Goldthorpe, 1992). Hardcore is not associated with the extreme visual elements of British punk; mohawks and bright hair colours were not unknown, but most of the bands preferred short or no hair and, like thrash metal bands, wore relatively unremarkable clothes. Musically, hardcore was brutal, unprofessional and loud, with songs that were short and vocals that were an unmelodic shout. Hardcore often emphasized social concerns and political activism, with an emphasis on community and do-it-yourself (DIY) (Goshert, 2000), and the lyrics of the songs often reflected these concerns. Recognized bands of this genre include Black Flag, Minor Threat, Fugazi and The Dead Kennedys. Grossman (1996–97) and Martin (2004) trace the development of grunge in relation to this hardcore version of punk (called ‘post-punk’ by Martin, who also describes grunge as a subgenre of post-punk). They both note that although participants in the hardcore scene shared certain characteristics (for example, they were more likely to be politically left wing or radical than conservative and were opposed to militarism), the scene became increasingly divided over time. Divisions arose between those whose lifestyles encompassed drinking and/or drug taking, and ‘straight edge’ punks who rejected such behaviours, sometimes militantly (see also Irwin, 1999). Musically the hardcore scene also developed in different directions, as some bands became more melodic and some also became more open to influences from metal (particularly thrash metal) (Grossman, 1996–97). The differences in opinion in the genre led to some participants rejecting overt political statements or conflict in favour of introspection or more generalized expressions of dissatisfaction. According to these writers, it is at this point that sections of what was hardcore became known as grunge. From both thrash metal and hardcore punk, grunge carried on a tradition of equality with the audience, grounded in the idea that anyone could start a band. Musically grunge had a ‘dirty’ sound (possibly where the name grunge came from), especially in the early days when low recording budgets, lack of expertise and money, and a deliberate lack of professionalism affected the recording process. The music was quite visceral, with the bass low and guitars alternating between roaring and quiet. The form of grunge that eventually gained commercial success also had a strong melodic aspect to it, and in general grunge did not question the three-minute ‘verse-chorus-verse’ formula of song writing (in accordance with punk ethos), but generally avoided virtuosic guitar solos (see McDonald (2000) for a musicological discussion of the differences between ‘alternative’ and other forms of music). Stylistically grunge music was a sharp and deliberate contrast to the other music of the late 1980s that was finding chart success.


19

Lyrically grunge was also very different to other successful music of the time. With respect to its progenitors, punk and metal, grunge did not have explicit political lyrical content to the same extent as punk, nor the hedonistic (‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’) or apocalyptic vision of metal lyricists. When grunge dealt with ‘love’, the songs tended to be about failed, boring, doomed or destructive relationships (for example, the Pearl Jam song ‘Black’). Songs were more likely to be about more generalized negative experiences or feelings, sung in a collective rather than individual voice. For example, the two most successful albums of the period, Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten, contain between them only three songs that are about relationships (and just one of these, ‘Oceans’, is in any way positive). Other songs dealt with themes such as homelessness (‘Something in the Way’, ‘Even Flow’), youth suicide (‘Jeremy’), drug dependency (‘Deep’), rape (‘Polly’) and the problems of conformity (‘In Bloom’). Overwhelmingly, though, the main themes of these albums are alienation and depression, but with an ironic sneer – ‘just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you,’ Cobain sings on ‘Territorial Pissings’. Studies of the lyrical content in hard rock/heavy metal music during the 1990s found that there was a decrease in sexist lyrics and an increase in lyrics dealing with social justice issues (Friesen and Helfrich, 1998; Sloat, 1998), and the inclusion of grunge bands in these studies clearly influenced these findings. So while the politics of grunge may not have been as overt as was sometimes the case with punk, a concern with social issues, particularly those concerning youth, was still evident. Stylistically grunge fashion was pared down, generally unremarkable, if somewhat shabby, street wear. The uniform for both males and females was old (preferably torn) jeans, t-shirts (preferably with band logos), either with another longer sleeved shirt underneath or a flannelette shirt (preferably second-hand) over the top, and boots or sneakers (alternative options for women will be discussed further in Chapter 6). It began as a very anti-consumerist movement – the less you spent on your clothes, the more credibility (or ‘coolness’) you had. This was, however, one of the aspects of grunge that changed most noticeably with time. Part of the mythology of grunge is the story of how grunge fashions were commercialized and designer flannelette shirts appeared on catwalks in Paris and Milan (Connell and Gibson, 2003, p. 114). Attitudinally (as partly read from lyrics but seen more in statements by band members and journalists) grunge, ‘its ideology, values, politics, image and SOUND, [was] the complete antithesis of the fundamental conservatism that flourished in the eighties’ (Kirschner, 1994, p. 85). Tolerance and the celebration of diversity were encouraged, as can be seen at the Lollapalooza tour where, alongside bands of many different musical affiliations, there were stalls promoting women’s and gay rights and anti-racism. Tolerance of difference and support of women were dominant themes in the politics of grunge, and these will be examined in more depth in Chapter 6. Along with this tolerance of difference came a mistrust of authority, and a deep cynicism towards big corporations. By asking questions about equality and wealth within society, issues of power became central to grunge.

20


‘Grunge is Dead’ In the first months of 1994, Kurt Cobain was photographed wearing a t-shirt with ‘Grunge is Dead’ printed on the front. After a period of extraordinary success it was certainly dying, and many people believe it died at the same time as he did (DeRogatis, 2003, p. 56). Cobain’s body was found in his garage on 8 April 1994, some days after he committed suicide using a shotgun. While others believe grunge lasted until the demise of Soundgarden in 1997 (Shuker, 2005, p. 130), regardless of the exact timing, grunge is generally considered to have been over by the mid-to-late 1990s. Many of the original grunge bands also self-destructed in the mid-1990s. Hole bassist Kirsten Pfaff and Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon, among others, died of heroin overdoses and others had careers destroyed by the drug. Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins broke up, but only after releasing increasingly ‘ungrunge’ albums through the late 1990s. Interestingly, some of the bands that were associated with grunge, but who did not achieve close to the same level of commercial success that bands like Nirvana did, still exist, and are still releasing albums with a grunge sound. These bands include Mudhoney and The Melvins, both of whom were signed by major labels at the height of grunge but soon after returned to small independent labels. Pearl Jam has continued to release albums but their music now bears less resemblance to grunge. They have, however, more than any other band, attempted to adhere to the grunge anti-commercial ethos, through refusing to co-operate with typical corporate rock strategies such as releasing film clips and singles, and by pursuing commercially unviable strategies such as releasing bootleg copies of every show played on a North American and European tour in 2000 and an Australian tour in 2003. They also attempted to reduce the prices of tickets to their shows by (unsuccessfully) suing Ticketmaster in the US over the surcharges on ticket sales (Wall, 2005). The success of grunge is often talked about as having heralded the crossover of alternative into the mainstream, and as such has had a lasting impact on the music industry. In particular, theorists such as Kruse (2003) see grunge as being one of the catalysts that led to a restructuring of the mainstream music industry to allow greater inclusion of marginal musics, and the subsequent fragmentation of the popular music audience. The influence of the music is also still apparent. Successful bands from the first decade of the 2000s such as Creed and Nickelback rely on some of the visual and musical aspects of grunge, while other musical movements such as ‘emo’ and ‘stoner rock’ also make use of some of the conventions of grunge (which themselves come from a long line of previous rock movements, as described above). The type of music and the ethos of grunge continue in other forms, as do punk and metal. This account of grunge is necessarily broad and, as noted earlier, is not the only possible representation of how the movement occurred or what it represented. However, it sets up a sketch for the remainder of the book to work within, and throughout the following chapters certain aspects of this picture will be given more


21

detail. It will also be shown that this account is based on both media reports from the time and post-grunge, and on the replies of respondents, therefore stepping beyond my own experiences with or ideas about grunge. Academia and Grunge Academic writing on grunge has, for the most part, been very negative about its effects and impact on its audience and society more generally. In particular, negative attention has been focused on the commercial success of grunge and the flow-on effect that this had in terms of bringing other previously ‘underground’ musics and their commercial potential to the attention of major labels, thereby leading to their commodification (a critique, it will be argued, that is grounded in academics’ own connections to concepts such as authenticity). Grunge has also been criticized for not being political enough, or more specifically for not living up to the political potential of its punk roots. These criticisms can be connected to the way that popular music has been constructed as a form of ‘art’, and as a worthy subject of serious study. In its early days popular music was not taken very seriously, being regarded as a debased, commercialized form of ‘low’ culture, but from the mid-1960s rock music started to be talked about differently. This was due to a variety of factors, not least the attempts of rock music critics to attain greater legitimacy for the music (and hence themselves) (Gendron, 2002; Gudmundsson et al., 2002). In order to do this, the idea of art being based in authenticity was necessarily taken from older generations, applied to rock to give it legitimacy, and was grounded in oppositional pairings such as commercial versus independent and rock versus pop, establishing rock as more than ‘mere entertainment’ (Grossberg, 1992, p. 206). The idea of rock being subversive, anti-establishment and rebellious has also been central to this construction (Regev, 1994). Although this shift has been seen as in some ways blurring the (always contested) boundaries of high and low culture, it also served to recreate such divisions within popular music, with rock being valorized while ‘pop’ is taken less seriously. This construction of ‘good’ rock as being authentic and resistant, while having been challenged over the years as new genres have developed and the audience relationship to music has changed, is still very powerful and has been central to the way that grunge has been evaluated, as will be demonstrated below. Rock and Authenticity It is often a taken-for-granted assumption in the minds of fans and music critics (and many academics) that some songs, bands and movements are more worthy of attention than others because they are perceived as being more real, more serious and of greater merit. The importance of this narrative cannot be understated, as it is often the principal way in which fans and critics of rock (as opposed to pop) determine what is good and defend their likes and dislikes.

22


Different forms of music and different scenes have different criteria that will make an artist appear authentic to that particular musical form, and this can change over time. For instance, in the early years of rock and roll, authenticity was gained through being able to accurately copy the rock and roll sound, usually by doing cover versions of other band’s songs (Gudmundsson, nd). During the 1960s, this changed so that authenticity was more closely related to having your own original sound, and became aligned with the ‘artistic vision’ version of authenticity (Gendron, 2002; Wicke, 1990). This change also served to help legitimize rock as an art form. Rock was constructed as authentic while pop was positioned as music made purely to make money and therefore deemed inauthentic (Shuker, 2001, p. 8; Weinstein, 1994). As popular music has become more diverse, different types of authenticity have been associated with different genres and scenes. For example, punk bands are seen as authentic when they minimize the gap between themselves and the audience both physically and psychologically, by playing on a low or no stage, dressing like the audience, allowing the audience access to them and playing in a way that requires little virtuosity, implying that anyone could do what they are doing (Davies, 1996; DeChaine, 1997; Goshert, 2000). Death metal bands rely on a similar aesthetic (Harrell, 1994). In ‘feminist’ bands, authenticity is gained through overt rejection of male ideals and stereotypes (Bayton, 1993). In the dance music scene, authenticity can be gained by DJs who can read, tap into and control the ‘vibe’ of a crowd (Thornton, 1995), and in rap it comes from ‘street cred’, verifiable connections to the dangerous areas of urban poverty which rap originated from. Even among tribute bands, a group that at first glance would appear to have difficulty claiming honesty or ‘realness’, authenticity is established through ‘levels of musicianship, stage presentation and motive’ (Homan, 2006b, p. 45). The concept of authenticity is relevant to this discussion of grunge as it is the authenticity of grunge and the Seattle scene which was said to have been destroyed or compromised by commercial success. In particular, the death of Kurt Cobain has often been linked to the pressures placed on him to live up to the ideals of authenticity demanded by his audience and the media. For example, Mazullo (2000) argues that what Cobain was expressing in his music no longer represented his ‘true self’, but was read by fans as authentic, and this contradiction and his inability to create truly authentic music contributed to his suicide. Marcus (2000, p. 750), while disagreeing with Mazullo’s understanding of Cobain’s music, agrees that ‘the notion of authenticity, as worked through in pop music, was destructive for Cobain’. He notes that this is partly because of the misunderstandings that can arise between an artist and their audience. The message that Cobain thought he was sending out was not necessarily the message that was received. This is generally the case with all forms of popular culture, although it is usually portrayed in academic discourse as a positive reflection on audience agency rather than a problem for the artists. This shows how powerful the concept of authenticity is still seen as being, and this is a theme that will be touched on throughout this work in order to demonstrate how grunge was constructed and understood.


23

Early academic writing on popular music attempted to define what made music authentic, often using frameworks similar to those outlined above (see, for example, Landau, 1972). However, the debate moved quickly to the question of whether there was any such phenomenon as authenticity in popular music – or, perhaps more to the point, whether any music can be considered more authentic than any other. For example, Simon Frith (1987, p. 137) notes that good music is usually equated with authenticity but that this can be misleading as ‘what we should be examining is not how true a piece of music is to something else, but how it sets up the idea of “truth” in the first place’. Another question that academics have tried to answer is why, when rock is a form of music that is so irrevocably intertwined with the workings of capitalism, are authenticity and commercialization so diametrically opposed, and what does it say for the understanding of audiences that this is so? This is very relevant to grunge, despite the bands’ playfulness with these contradictions, as the commercial success of grunge bands threatened their perceived authenticity. Bands such as Nirvana were criticized for taking actions such as signing to a major label, an act that makes a statement about wanting to achieve commercial success, rather than remaining at the more authentic but less profitable independent Sub Pop label. While some theorists have argued that the relevance of authenticity has declined due to the fragmentation of music scenes and audiences’ embracing postmodern irony and deliberate inauthenticity (for example, see Goertzel, 1991; Hughes, 1992; Grossberg, 2002), others have noted that it moves to different sites as technologies and audience understandings change (Goodwin, 1990; Harley, 1993). Ultimately, authenticity is constructed by the audience (Moore, 2002), but the recognition of the importance of authenticity by the forces of capital leads increasingly to a situation where record companies try to manufacture authenticity (Barker and Taylor, 2007; Kohl, 1997) or, as was the case with grunge, to find a way to make money from music already granted authenticity by audiences. In their work examining the different ways in which the idea of authenticity is used in discourses on rock music, Weisethaunet and Lindberg (2010) name and discuss six different forms that authenticity can take, although they acknowledge that their list is not exhaustive. Three of these are particularly useful in understanding how grunge was constructed as authentic. First, and probably most importantly, is the notion of ‘Authenticity as Negation’, or ‘the idea of artistic independence as “refusal” or “purity”’ (p. 472). Essentially, this type of authenticity is about an artist not caring about money, and in particular not doing anything that makes it obvious that they make music for financial gain, and is contrasted to commercially produced pop music or artists who ‘sell out’. In this way, some bands are seen as authentic due to their being perceived as being somehow outside of, or unaffected by, the commercial structures of the music industry. This status can be achieved when bands or artists work through independent record labels, as many grunge artists did at first, or step outside the record company structure altogether and find other ways to make material available (as has recently been the case with online releases). This type of authenticity is also reflected in notions of ‘artistic control’.

24


This is where a band is involved in the corporate side of music, usually through being signed to a major label, but is still seen as being uncorrupted by this because they claim to still be making the music that they want to make. This method of claiming, or more often retaining, authenticity, despite an apparent capitulation to the demands of capital, was used frequently during the grunge era, especially when many bands that had previously been on independent labels such as SubPop were signing to major labels (Kirschner, 1994). The second type of authenticity that is relevant to grunge is ‘Authenticity as Self-Expression’, which is about ‘the degree to which a representation is taken to offer access to the inner world of an exceptional subject’ (Weisethaunet and Lindberg, 2010, p. 471). This can be through the artist’s honesty about themselves and their lives, or expressing an inner truth (a necessary criterion for true art), and is connected with romantic conceptions of the artist. For example, Halnon (2004, p. 35) describes how artists such as Marilyn Manson or Eminem gain authenticity through exposing honest, inner feelings: ‘they dare to tell it the way it is, and to expose the full truth of their selves to the audience without limitation.’ This is also described by Moore (2002, p. 209) as ‘first person authenticity’, where ‘artists speak the truth of their own situation’. Kurt Cobain in particular is often analysed (as in the article by Mazullo, 2000) in these terms, with discussions of his work often focusing on his honesty and (an associated element of this type of authenticity) his originality. Cobain can also be understood as displaying what Moore (2002, p. 209) called ‘third person’ authenticity, that is, he has also been praised for being able to ‘speak the truth of [his] own culture’. The way that Cobain has often been referred to as the ‘spokesperson for his generation’ is an indicator of this. This can be connected to what Weisethaunet and Lindberg (2010, p. 469) describe as ‘Folkloric Authenticity’, which is based in the idea that ‘realness’ can be found in music that (supposedly) comes from places unspoiled by the consumer culture that now infringes upon everything in our society. This search for the unspoiled has been going on since the advent of rock, with this type of authenticity previously being found in the blues, and in working-class culture (Gudmundsson, nd; Middleton, 2002). However, it ‘can also be regarded as part of a more extensive paradigm, insofar as music may be taken to express the cultural values of any community, be it a social formation or the collective memory of a particular generation or era’ (Weisethaunet and Lindberg, 2010, p. 470). Grunge was taken to express a truth about the youth culture of the day (‘Generation X’) and the position of young people in society. The relationship of grunge to class is somewhat more problematic, but still worth considering as an element of how the authenticity of the movement was constructed. Grunge tends to be remembered as working class by respondents and the musicians of grunge as working class by the press, but academics regard it as being part of a more middle-class rock apparatus described by writers such as Wicke (1990). For example, Kotarba (1994, pp. 145–6) argues that class is central to the differences in how metal and grunge are received by critics. He says that grunge has been given a ‘surprisingly warm reception’ in comparison to metal:


25

Although one would be hard pressed to say that grunge is somehow ‘better’ than traditional heavy metal artistically or any other way, the critics generally like it. The missing piece of this puzzle is the demographic profile of the audience: middle class, college-oriented, and otherwise socially respectable and desirable kids with whom critics prefer to identify.

Empirically speaking, it is difficult to ascertain how correct this statement is about the composition of the grunge fan base. Certainly, visual evidence from the era does seem to suggest the audience for grunge was overwhelmingly Caucasian (as are all of the respondents in this study) (see Huq, 2006, for a discussion of the whiteness of grunge), but it is more difficult to determine what class background a person may be from, or what their educational status might be, when they are part of a youth movement that celebrates working-class fashions in the way that grunge did. As will be shown in Chapter 7, there is a correlation between the concept of Generation X and middle-class culture, and as grunge was so strongly associated with the idea of this generation, this may suggest a more middle-class audience. However, as Kotarba points out, and as has been described by respondents and in media reports, grunge shares a musical base with heavy metal, a musical form more often associated with the lower classes (Binder, 1993). It does not then seem unreasonable to suggest that a significant proportion of grunge fans may have been from lower-class backgrounds. Being from a working-class background has different consequences for audience members and performers. A working-class background can increase the perceived authenticity of a performer. For example, Kurt Cobain’s working-class background and his stories of deprivation (discussed in Chapter 5) are used to further his claims to authenticity. Early in their career, the members of Nirvana were described by one of the owners of Sub Pop as ‘four guys in their early twenties from rural Washington who, if they weren’t doing this, would be working in a supermarket or lumber yard, or fixing cars’ (True, 2001, p. 11). However, this is not necessarily the case with fans. Thornton (1995) notes that discussions of the ‘mainstream’ contain two contradictory ideas of who constitutes the (workingclass) mass, which is sometimes portrayed as ‘denigrated mass culture’ but at other times is seen as being related to ‘authentic’ working-class culture. Audiences of grunge are discussed in the same way by the press and respondents as Thornton describes ‘mass’ audiences of dance music being treated. In accordance with this, the working-class nature of sections of Nirvana’s fan base has at times been constructed as negative. In particular, as the band became more and more successful, the masses that constituted part of their new audience were portrayed as being detrimental to the band (especially after Cobain’s death) and to those fans who were truly ‘authentic’, in that they had made the band ‘too big’ while not really understanding them or their message. The sections of the audience deemed to be ‘rednecks’ or ‘jocks’ were the focus of this negativity. These were the people who were accused of having made Cobain’s life miserable during his childhood with their inability to accept difference; they continued to

26


do this through their inability to understand what Nirvana was ‘really’ about: ‘Mass acceptance had come too soon. The new fans, Guns N’ Roses loving jocks who [Cobain] regarded as “uneducated dickheads, the strong-oxen working-class type” were not his people – they were the people who had terrorised his youth’ (Aizlewood, 2005, p. 57). Here, the ‘masses’ are associated with the working class. This suggests that there is a contradiction in how working-class culture is perceived, in that it is portrayed both as a source of authentic creativity and the location of the unthinking masses. There is an implication in this portrayal of the working classes that, although ‘real’ experiences may come from working-class backgrounds, it is only the more cultured, educated middle and upper classes who can really appreciate the significance of such experiences. This also ties in with the ideas of Bryson (1996), who examines how tastes have changed so that the music which is now seen as ‘low brow’ or less cultured is that which is most closely associated with those who are less educated and white – ‘rednecks and jocks’. It is no longer seen as acceptable to denigrate musical forms associated with non-white cultures, as knowing about cultures other than one’s own has become a marker of good taste and open-mindedness. However, that leaves the culture of the poor and less educated in our own society open to criticism, and it is this working-class culture that becomes the marker of poor taste. This leaves a cultural form like grunge in a strange place where it can gain ‘folkloric authenticity’ from the way the artists involved in it are constructed as working class, but only through the interpretation of non-working-class cultural critics. Grunge, Politics and Commercialization Along with concerns about its authenticity, one of the main criticisms that has been levelled at grunge by academics (and which is one of the criticisms made of popular music more generally, in the tradition of theorists such as Adorno (1990 [1941]) is that it is not ‘political’ enough. Commentators who note the connection between grunge and punk often comment on grunge’s failure to continue with punk’s political critique. For example, Goshert (2000, p. 95) contrasts punk’s ability to create community and political activity on important issues to ‘a certain, always ineffectual, benign liberal politics in the alternative/college radio rock of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and the like’. Similarly, Shevory (1995, p. 32) writes that ‘while I appreciate Cobain’s music, I also believe that Nirvana represents a depoliticized and domesticated version of original punk. Its melodic character subverts punk. Moreover, the intense sadness of the music is overwhelming, robbing it of the sense of danger that suffused early punk.’ However, Shevory does acknowledge that grunge had some political aspects, which he categorizes under four headings: generational conflict, independent recording, style and gender politics. In terms of generational conflict, while pointing out the difficulties with the concept of a ‘generation’ (which will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 7), Shevory (1995, p. 34) claims that for the middle-class youth of Generation X, ‘the politics of grunge occupies an emotional terrain in which the need for self-help


27

devolves into the desire for self-annihilation’, positioning these youths in a place of non-action. Shevory sees grunge’s commitment to independent recording as important, as independent labels are perceived as being closer to the audience and community than major labels. However, while independent recording ‘thus presumably challenges political power by creating alternative communities that can be inspired and financially supported by those companies’, at the same time this is criticized as it ‘may be a commitment as much to a liberal success ethic as to a democratic egalitarian one’ (Shevory, 1995, p. 38). This emphasis on independent recording, which was a feature of the early stages of grunge but was seen less at the time of the greatest success of the genre, constructs grunge as a more marginal movement than it ultimately was. Shevory’s discussion of grunge style focuses on the co-opting of grunge fashion into the mainstream fashion world, and its subsequent decline, again with an unfavourable comparison with punk style. Finally, Shevory discusses the gender politics of grunge and is more positive about how, through Riot Grrrl and play with gender roles, grunge was somewhat forward moving in promoting women in rock. Grunge and gender will be the subject of Chapter 6 of this book, where the effect of the emphasis on gender equality in grunge will be examined in detail. However, Shevory concludes that ultimately grunge ‘softened’ the musical and political agenda of punk. This is an odd conclusion given that he had earlier identified grunge as a combination of punk and metal, and that punk has continued as a musical form in its own right regardless of (though not unaffected by) the success of grunge. Shevory does not explicitly state whether he is attributing the political motives he discerns in grunge to the audience or bands of grunge – he appears to be discussing both at once. Similar conclusions about the relationship of grunge to punk can be found in the work of Martin (2004) and Santiago-Lucerna (1998). (Other writers compare grunge unfavourably to rap (Beebe, 2002) and progressive rock (Mazullo, 2000)). However, the critiques that construct grunge as ‘worse’ than punk are possibly relying on a misrepresentation of the politics of punk itself. Phillipov (2006, p. 383) argues that the political nature of punk has been overstated by academics, who have ‘continued to reiterate many of the same assumptions which characterized the initial work in the field: assumptions about resistance, subversion and political radicalism’. In fact, much punk either has no political message, despite academics’ attempts to find one, or is as conducive to right-wing or fascist politics as left-wing thought. Hence, using punk as the exemplar against which to measure grunge and find it wanting misrepresents both punk and grunge. This approach to grunge seems to stem from a tradition in the study of popular culture that concentrates on finding political motives and outcomes in the objects of study in order to argue for their value (Maxwell, 2002, p. 109). Thinking specifically about the audience of grunge, and the ways in which popular music studies have tried to grant audiences power, Shevory and other writers on grunge have concentrated exclusively on the type of audience power that constructs audiences as consciously resisting consumers with explicit political agendas.

28


As such, they have neglected to consider the more everyday or affective effects of grunge. Critiques such as this, while making an important contribution to the literature, therefore leave unexplored other possibilities that were contained in grunge, as well as a consideration of the impact that grunge messages may have had on audiences. This is one issue that will be explored in this book, not only by giving audiences of grunge a voice for one of the first times, but by examining the effect that grunge had on them either ‘politically’ or otherwise. Moreover, such studies tend to be overly dismissive of the politics that grunge did contain. In comparison with some types of punk at some points in time, or in comparison with the punk ‘ideal type’ that academics are most likely to discuss, grunge may appear less political. However, as part of the music mainstream it had a relatively strong political component. Krist Novoselic, the bass player for Nirvana, has described how ‘Nirvana headlined a fundraiser opposing [proposed institutionalized discrimination against gays and lesbians] in September 1992. We also organized a benefit in April 1993 to bring attention to the plight of women in the Balkan conflicts of the time’ (Novoselic, 2004, p. 25). Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder made public statements in support of pro-abortion groups in the USA (Wall, 2005, p. 96), as did L7 (Tonge, 1993). These were not the only bands taking such actions. For example, as noted earlier, grunge lyrics had a greater tendency to contain issues of social concern than other types of rock music. It is therefore inaccurate to dismiss grunge as promoting a politics of apathy, especially when no empirical work was done with audiences at the time to determine what messages they were receiving from the music. Other writers have tried to understand what grunge meant for capitalism and the place of youth within it, and have again come to pessimistic conclusions about what grunge and alternative music have achieved. The way in which grunge and alternative music have become the mainstream that they were once opposed to is seen as being representative of the impossibility of avoiding or stepping outside of capitalism and symbolizing the increasing commodification of everything in our lives. For example, it has been suggested that ‘the current state of the rock business may serve as a metaphor for a major restructuring of capitalism … that is, the inclusion of marginal and oppositional phenomena as part of its strategies of survival. … Rather than living under the auspices of capitalism, we may be existing in pan-capitalism’, where transgression is no longer meaningful (Santiago-Lucerna, 1998, p. 193–4). Similarly, Weinstein (1995) looks at the use of irony among young people and in their music. She sees grunge as punk attitude with pop musical sensibilities, looking backward to the ‘authentic’ youth culture of the 1960s, which she contrasts with the supposedly ‘simulated’ counter-culture associated with grunge. She claims grunge fans looked back on the 1960s with an understanding of the way things have changed and how we are trapped in consumerism, and thus are not going to have a revolution or change the world. She concludes that grunge was about young people feeling rebellious without really wanting to change anything because they no longer saw change as a realistic option. While the idea that


29

musical forms such as grunge arise in response to socio-economic circumstance (such as ‘pan capitalism’) is interesting, once again the experience of the audience itself is conspicuously missing from these accounts. Were members of the audience of grunge thinking about the culture of the 1960s? Do they feel change is unobtainable? Weinstein also focuses much on the idea of generational politics, as does Shevory, and this will be discussed in Chapter 7, where the value of discussing generations at all will be questioned. A less negative analysis of grunge that does look in more depth at some of these aspects is found in the work of Larsen (2008), where he attempts to connect the development of grunge to the economic and social circumstances in which it arose, particularly in regards to globalization. Larsen argues that the contradictions contained in grunge reflect the contradictions being experienced in Western capitalist societies at this time. He closely analyses the way that grunge bands and Sub Pop played with the tensions between perceptions of musical credibility and commercial success, and identifies ‘concern with the economics of youth culture production’ (p. 15) as one of the defining elements of grunge (along with ‘heaviness’ and ‘ironic stance’). He notes that ‘grunge texts often operated as both embrace and critique of dominant culture, with grunge bands seemingly eager to profit from their ambivalence’ (p. 11). Rather than attempting to resist or ignore the commercial aspect of rock music, ‘grunge artists and the Sub Pop record label … played with rock’s traditionally uncomfortable role as commodity’ (p. 21). Examples of this include the deliberate, and quite professional, ‘branding’ that Sub Pop used while simultaneously promoting the ‘authentic’ working-class, underground elements of the Seattle scene, as well as more obvious playfulness apparent in Nirvana’s ‘corporate rock whore’ shirts or Cobain’s ‘corporate magazines still suck’ t-shirt that he wore for his appearance on the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Larsen also traces grunge’s position in regard to these tensions as arising in part from its punk and metal roots, rather than concentrating solely on the connections to punk. Larsen suggests that as metal (particularly hair metal) was hugely commercially successful prior to the rise of grunge, and could be considered ‘mainstream’, while punk (particularly hardcore punk) was still an underground musical form, the merging of these two forms in grunge necessarily created a contradiction in terms of the values of these two fields. Grunge bands, he argues, dealt with this through their ironic stance – ‘punk’s critique of culture could be melded with mainstream heavy metal’s embrace of dominant culture if both were disavowed’ (p. 9). Understanding the ironic aspects of grunge is important, as sources in my study have shown that for the most part grunge was evaluated using the typical criteria for rock authenticity that seem to have little room for incorporating irony or playfulness. Mazullo’s (2000) article connecting Cobain’s suicide to his inability to construct an ‘authentic’ persona in line with the expectations of his audience is a case in point. By failing to consider Cobain’s obvious awareness – documented clearly from the beginning of Nirvana’s career – of the contradictions of the rock-

30


star role and the star system, and his ability to critique and play with the role thrust upon him/pursued by him, Mazullo ‘dumbs down’ Cobain and denies him a certain amount of agency. However, he demonstrates a typical response to Cobain, that is, to read him in line with conventional rock narratives about ‘artists’ and their artistry being unconnected to monetary concerns, as discussed earlier. Irony has been read by writers such as Weinstein – and by media commentators at the time of grunge – as apathy and as an abdication of responsibility, partly in order to keep grunge in its position as marker of futureless, depressed Generation X. It could alternatively be read, as Larsen shows, as awareness, and the bands’ and audiences’ playfulness with things like corporate logos seen as a form of agency. However, rather than (or as well as) ‘resisting’ the system, the irony employed by grunge musicians could be about making it work for you and to your benefit without necessarily being ‘colonized’ or buying into the values of that system, and in fact being able to criticize the system from a position of being simultaneously inside and outside of it. In this way, grunge’s tendency to call attention to the nature of commercialization should be one of the most interesting elements of what was in many ways a typical rock formation. However, it appears that instead of making grunge of greater interest to researchers, its critique of capitalism has had the opposite effect and made its eventual (and probably inevitable) co-optation appear more complete, but without this aspect of it being explicitly taken into account. Additionally, the cooption of grunge is not dissimilar to the way (1970s UK) punk was also eventually commercialized, and yet this has not coloured all writing on punk in the same way as has occurred with grunge. There is likely to be a generational effect taking place here. Rock was a subject studied more often during the early days of popular music studies, and since this time it would appear that many scholars see it as having been covered adequately by the discussions of the music of their youth, the rock of the 1950s and 1960s and punk from the 1970s, leaving little worth saying about the major rock movement of the 1990s. In addition to this generational effect, changes in the organization of the music industry and habits of audiences lead prominent music scholars (as well as many non-academics) to declare the ‘death’ of rock in the late 1980s (for example, see Frith, 1988; Grossberg, 1992). While such claims have not held up over time (see Dettmar, 2006; Negus, 1996), this contributed to the reduced emphasis on rock since. Also, younger popular music scholars have tended to concentrate more on newer musical forms – particularly hip-hop and, during the 1990s, the newly formed dance scene – which, while valid and important scenes to document, left a gap when it came to the continuing rock scene. Rock has become an unpopular choice for study, leaving grunge relatively unexamined. Following from this, Grossberg (2002) identifies what he sees as the major failings of academic work on popular music and issues a challenge to people writing in the area. Grossberg criticizes academics for using their writing to defend their own musical tastes, and points out that in many cases they (and others, such as journalists writing about popular music) are using the same ways of describing


31

and judging music that were used in earlier eras (mainly the 1960s, but in this case punk from the 1970s), despite the fact that music has changed significantly since then, along with its audiences. This allows older music to maintain a type of hegemony that makes it seem ‘better’ than newer music. By using this ‘residual apparatus’, writers are failing to understand the current politics of music, and in particular are missing the issue of the increasing erosion of the rights of youth (Grossberg, 1993, 1990, 1992). He wonders ‘whether popular music studies has not become an exemplary field for the new century: interdisciplinary and yet with no theoretical anxieties and no political pressures’ (Grossberg, 2002, p. 54). The challenge he issues is to leave behind assumptions about what music should mean based in the politics of hippies or punks, to try to leave personal tastes to the side, and to reinvigorate the theoretical aspects of these studies. This challenge is relevant to this study, as it appears that many of the articles written about grunge are authored by people who have found punk to be a worthwhile musical form, perhaps during their own formative years, and are then using this as a measure for grunge. The way punk and grunge have been set up in opposition to each other, with punk being granted more authenticity through its supposedly more grassroots, community-oriented nature and political agenda, also demonstrates how academics can use the same criteria for evaluating the worth of popular culture as critics and audiences, and often as unreflexively. Grunge is found wanting by these measures, but in the process much of what was important or interesting about it is overlooked. While not wishing to make the same mistake noted by Phillipov in studies of punk by overemphasizing the politics that grunge contained, it is important to note that the dismissal of grunge on the basis of its ‘lack of politics’, or its commercialization, perhaps tells us more about the tastes and beliefs of the writers who make these claims, rather than providing an accurate reflection of the (possible) messages or meanings of grunge. In an attempt to try to rise to Grossberg’s challenge, this study will employ two theoretical approaches to analyse grunge. Authenticity is a recurring theme throughout this book, and in all types of popular music literature. In particular, the myth of Kurt Cobain has been built around his status as a ‘real’ person, as will be shown in Chapter 5. However, in order to understand not only how authenticity is constructed but also who has the power to bestow the mantle of authenticity on some performers and movements but not others, and also to connect these ideas to wider society, further theoretical depth is required. Given that the notion of authenticity is connected to ideas of what is good and bad in popular music, the construction of authenticity can be further understood by thinking of these issues as questions of taste. As such, the theories of Pierre Bourdieu will be used from Chapter 3 onwards in an attempt to better understand authenticity and also as a way to theorize the tension between the mainstream and the marginal in popular culture. In addition to this, theories of collective remembering will be employed to understand grunge and popular culture in general, and it is to these theories that I now turn. I hope that using these theoretical approaches will allow for a better understanding of how grunge, and popular culture in general, help position us

32


in relation to the power structures in society and can either help reproduce these structures or present opportunities to oppose them. The Social Nature of Memory The process of remembering is a highly social phenomenon that is also intimately tied to questions of power in society. The sociological study of this field can be traced back to Maurice Halbwachs, a student of Durkheim, who worked in the 1920s and 1930s. However, most of the work utilizing and expanding on his theories has occurred only in the last two decades. In his groundbreaking work On Collective Memory (1992), originally published in 1924, Halbwachs breaks away from the individualistic psychological accounts of memory which had dominated until this point. These earlier accounts posited memory as a highly individualistic tool whereby each person gathers recollections of what has happened to them during their lifetime and stores them, immutable and inaccessible by others. In contrast, Halbwachs (1992, p. 38) argues that: ‘the greatest number of memories come back to us when our parent, our friends, or other persons recall them to us … it is in society that people normally acquire their memories. It is also in society that they recall, recognize and localize their memories.’ The way that this interaction with others causes the past to be reconstructed is ‘collective memory and a social framework for memory’ (Halbwachs, 1992, p. 38). Such recollections serve a dual purpose, creating continuity within groups that people belong to and refining individuals’ identity and sense of self (Pleh, 2000, p. 435). Consideration of these recollections and how they bind groups together in everyday life (as opposed to periods of upheaval or ‘effervescence’) adds to Durkheimian theories of social reproduction and control (Coser, 1992). Halbwachs argues that between these periods of ‘effervescence’, ‘collective memory acts to recreate events, for example, imaginatively re-embodying the past within a whole topography of sanctified places’ (Fowler, 2005, p. 55). It also enhances individual memories through discourse, and this connects individual memories to the collective. Halbwachs makes the point that people rarely remember things that are entirely individual. Halbwachs also argues that memory helps maintain order, because people do not see themselves only as part of the group they are currently in, but also still as part of groups they have previously been in. These earlier groups are now complete and no longer restrict action but help to contribute to a stable sense of identity. From the work of Halbwachs a field of research has arisen that asks how and why we remember socially. This can be examined from two angles: first, how does the social nature of memory affect the memory of individuals, and second, how do groups remember collectively? For individuals, the way they are socialized provides them with clues as to what is important to remember and what can be forgotten. For example, hearing the stories of family members will teach a child what is considered a good memory story and the correct narrative form that it should take,


33

and they will frame their own story-telling around this model (Skowronski and Walker, 2004). Events that are deemed worthy of becoming stories and are relayed to others are more likely to be remembered, as they are revisited more frequently than events deemed insignificant. This process does not entirely determine what is remembered (for example, an embarrassing incident may not be repeated to others by an individual, but will still be remembered by them) but has a strong influence on what we remember and the form that those memories take. This social construction of individual memory is further demonstrated in studies that show differences between cultures in what is remembered by individuals about their lives and the forms that these recollections take, depending on the dominant narrative forms of each society (Nelson, 2003). Memory can also be connected to the lived bodily experiences of individuals and groups through the concept of habitus. Habitus is a concept that Bourdieu used to attempt to bridge the gap between structuralist and agent-based explanations of the social world. The habitus ‘can be understood as the values and dispositions gained from our cultural history that generally stay with us across contexts’ (Webb, Schirato and Danaher, 2002, p. 36). Bourdieu conceived of it as the way in which people’s pasts were always carried with them, in that they had been taught to view the world in a particular way and had learned the ‘rules’ of social life in a particular place, a particular time and in a specific set of social circumstances. This both produces possibilities and limits them, in that a person will come to feel certain responses to situations as ‘natural’ and therefore may be more likely to behave in certain ways, but at the same time they are never restricted to rote responses (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 72). Habitus both creates and contains our position in society through all aspects of our being, including physically (bodily hexis), as well as in terms of the way we think, speak and, in particular, relate to cultural items and judge their relative value (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 170). In the same way as people learn acceptable narrative forms from those around them, through habitus other elements of their social existence ‘are carried at the very level of the body and expressed every day in and through the techniques of the body’ (Narvaez, 2006, p. 53). Bourdieu (1977, p. 53) argues that through the habitus, although people’s actions may seem to be future directed, they are constituted by the past. However, it is still the place where social order is maintained, and where the inscription of this order into people’s bodies restricts their ability to question power relations because of the way their position in society is made to feel natural. Narvaez (2006) argues that the embodied element of memory contained in the habitus has been under-theorized in memory studies, where memory is often still conceived of as a mental process. As will be demonstrated in Chapter 4, music represents a place where embodied and intellectual memory can meet, and in Chapter 6 I will show how encounters with music such as grunge can alter the lived habitus of individuals. Given the social nature of memory for individuals, the next question to be examined is what functions memory performs and how it works to create and/or maintain groups and power relations beyond the maintenance of these relations

34


through habitus. Many theorists have attempted to map out the relationships that exist between different groups in society and their ability to control or retain memories. In attempting to do this, they have utilized a number of different terms to describe different types of memory and the relationships that they have with each other. For example, Halbwachs described ‘history’ as dead facts, as opposed to the experiential nature of ‘memory’ (Halbwachs,1992; see also Olick and Robbins, 1998, p. 110; Nora, 1989; Delich, 2004). Terms such as ‘counter memory’ (Foucault, 1977; Fowler, 2005), ‘popular memory’ (Popular Memory Group, 1982, p. 211; Brabazon, 2005, p. 67), ‘social memory’ (Fentress and Wickham, 1992), ‘dominant memory’ (Popular Memory Group, 1982, p. 207) and ‘cultural memory’ (Heller, 2001; Henderson, 2006) have been used by various scholars, mainly in an attempt to differentiate between memories held or controlled by the powerful and those held by marginalized or powerless groups in society. However, this study will simply use the term ‘collective memory’, which will mean memories shared among groups of people that help to create a common understanding of the world, or particular aspects of the world. However, such memories require more than a shared knowledge of the past. They also, in line with Halbwachs’ theories, contain affective elements, some emotional relationship with the object of the memories that leads to a sense of connection with known or unknown others through this shared understanding. It will be demonstrated in subsequent chapters that respondents in this study share collective memories in regards to grunge in that they not only have a very similar understanding of what grunge was in terms of when it happened, who was involved and other such factual elements, but they also express similar emotional relationships to the music and the time when the music was popular. The type of collective memory they have does not entirely fit in with accounts of collective memory that theorize it as something that holds a group together and shapes the actions of members of the group into the future. The people interviewed (mostly) do not know each other and were never a homogeneous group. In fact, some of them explicitly deny a relationship with others with the same musical tastes as they have. The respondents are not held together by location, nationality, religion, ethnicity, gender, class or any of the other ways which have been the basis for most collectivities studied in regards to memory. However, their accounts converge too often on the subject of grunge and their experiences with it for what they are saying to be simply called autobiographical memory. The group membership of respondents is shaped by mediating forces such as television, radio, print media and, most importantly, the music itself and cultural elements that accompanied it. These factors have created a group who give remarkably similar accounts of the time in question and who would identify with accounts provided by other interviewees. These similarities between the accounts that respondents give of grunge will be demonstrated in depth in Chapter 4. Beyond this use of the term ‘collective memory’, I will not use the other terms used in the memory literature, as noted above. Instead of trying to define accounts of respondents, journalists or others in terms of the power differentials that exist


35

between these groups, I will discuss them as narratives and try to identify their relationship to one another. By discussing these accounts as narratives, I hope to focus the discussion on the malleability and social construction of memory, which will be discussed further in Chapter 4. While the respondents may be theorized as a collectivity, they do not represent a marginalized group as such (although some individuals in the group may hold marginalized positions). However, the accounts of journalists will be theorized as holding a more privileged and ultimately more powerful position than those of respondents, due to the more permanent and official status of written records. Furthermore, I argue that this conceptualization of ‘collective memories’ invokes a combination of dominant discourses and oppositional practices and memories which do not correspond with official accounts. The accounts given by respondents show evidence of different ways of remembering grunge compared with those recorded in media accounts, which will be regarded as official accounts (while still acknowledging the feedback between audiences and music journalists). However, at the same time there are also areas where dominant social relations, particularly gender relations, are reflected in respondents’ accounts, even though the possibility for opposition exists. In examining respondents’ accounts, I wish to show the complexity of the interactions between many different aspects of remembering – between the social, individual, cultural and structural – in an attempt to better understand these interactions and their effect on society. Giving the memories of the respondents or media accounts labels such as counter-memory or dominant memory ran the risk of presupposing the power relations involved and obscuring the dynamism of memory, in much the same way that arguing for respondents being part of a subcultural group may have presupposed a level of resistance in their interactions with grunge that may or may not have existed. The processes of remembering on a group level are complex, and can be hard to document. Barbara Misztal (2003) has identified three different approaches that have been taken to collective memory since the work of Halbwachs. First, there is the ‘presentist’ approach, where collective memory is seen as being a top-down affair. Examples of this approach can be found in work on the invention of traditions (in particular, see Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). Here, traditions are invented to serve the interests of those in power, and are imposed on a powerless public, using censorship to enforce forgetting, and celebration to facilitate remembering. The second approach identified by Misztal is the bottom-up ‘popular memory’ approach. She associates this mainly with the work of Foucault and the Popular Memory Group (PMG). This looks more at the interactions between dominant and marginal memories, rather than assuming the imposition of memories on those lower down the social hierarchy by those higher up. The third approach which Misztal identifies is the ‘dynamics of memory’ approach. This approach, exemplified by the works of writers such as Schwartz (1997) and Schudson (1990), argues that evolving collective memory is not always controlled from above, and looks at the past as constantly being reinvented in the present. It acknowledges that groups (whether powerful or not) and individuals

36


are constrained in what they can do with the past. The past itself is limited in that it cannot be changed, but not all materials regarding it are equally available to all parties. This approach emphasizes the uncertain nature of memory, as it is ‘never solely manipulated or durable; instead, the role of agency and the temporal dimension of memory as well as the historicity of social identities are stressed and analysed’ (Misztal, 2003, p. 69). It also has a greater interest in noncommemorative memory, which is more to do with narratives than performativity. This focus on narrative shows more ways in which memory can be malleable and how it is connected to changing identities. Misztal (2003) admits that this third approach still lacks a clear definition or theoretical outline, and it is not entirely clear that there is justification for separating it out from the popular memory approach. It could be seen as a continuation of many of these themes. In particular, the inclusion of the work of the PMG in the ‘popular memory’ approach and the setting up of this work in opposition to the ‘dynamics of memory’ approach is questionable, as the PMG explicitly deal with the idea of the past being contained in the present and are interested in examining areas where the past, present, powerful and marginalized interact with each other (Popular Memory Group, 1982). Their work is also notable for being slightly apart from the majority of academics who have written on the subject of collective memory in that nowhere in their major work, Making Histories (Johnson et al., 1982) is Halbwachs referenced. Conversely the work of the PMG is rarely mentioned by writers who trace their field back to Halbwachs. However, their conclusions about the social nature of memory are not incompatible with the tradition which has more recently emerged. This study takes a position more in line with the ‘dynamics of memory’ approach in that memory will be theorized as neither a strictly top-down nor bottom-up affair, nor an area that is endlessly open to interpretation by either the powerful or the marginalized. It examines elements of grunge that contain commemoration, both official/formal and on an individual level, and narrative aspects, as both approaches offer some understanding of how grunge is remembered. Examining attempts to officially commemorate grunge, specifically through the life and death of Kurt Cobain, will allow us to see where attempts have been made to impose a top-down version of the past, and how successful this has been. At the same time, less obvious aspects of collective memory can be emphasized by looking at the more everyday memories of respondents, particularly when asking what aspects of grunge might have been forgotten and why. As responses will show, this is of particular interest when examining the gendered elements of grunge. Examining grunge fans as a group represents a new contribution to the field of memory studies in that few previous studies have used culture as the focal point for collective memory or group membership. Theorists have instead concentrated more on ‘traditional’ groups such as people bound together by (and often oppressed because of) religion, ethnicity, class or gender. Given the centrality of mediated culture to identity formation in modern societies, the possibility of groups being formed around aspects of such culture needs to be examined.


37

Treating the respondents as a collectivity also allows for an examination of the effects of grunge in terms of how it has been remembered. Conclusion Popular music studies give us a way of understanding how people think about and conceptualize popular music. This will be seen in the way that grunge has been remembered, in the way that concepts such as authenticity and the mainstream shape the narratives that fans and the media create around the movement. In order to answer the research questions laid out in the introduction, this book has been organized around some of these main themes, and also around some of the main concerns of sociology. In finding answers to these questions I believe that conclusions can be drawn about popular culture in general and its relationship to power. Using Bourdieu, it can be argued that tastes, culture and power are inextricably entwined. As such, I argue that although grunge may have presented a challenge to power relations at the time of its success, these challenges have been defused through memory. However, throughout the book possibilities for ‘resistance’ and the creation of marginal spaces and alternative memories and understandings of cultural items are noted, as well as the places where grunge either reinforced existing social structures or where the challenge that the music and culture presented has since disappeared. The ideas presented in this chapter are the starting point, to which further theoretical depth will be added in what follows.


Chapter 3

Defining Grunge in the Media This chapter will examine the accounts that the media gave of grunge at the time it was occurring and attempt to connect grunge and its rise and fall to wider societal structures by conceiving of it as a ‘field’. First, it will provide a baseline of events against which the memories of respondents can be compared, to allow a greater understanding of how grunge was constructed in the media at the time and the extent to which media accounts have shaped those of respondents. Second, it will enable an examination of how the accounts of the media have changed when more recent reports are considered in later chapters. Providing an analysis of the media’s construction of grunge at the time will also allow for a greater understanding of the position that it held in the field of popular music, and how and why certain elements of the music and cultural trappings of grunge were emphasized. Despite the mythical narratives that describe grunge appearing ‘out of nowhere’ or its success being completely unexpected, using field theory it can be demonstrated that its success was connected to its perceived opposition to what had been occurring in the musical field and in wider society. Its disappearance or destruction can be explained in the same manner, and in this manner grunge can also be connected to wider power relations in society. Field Theory The problems with the literature on grunge as discussed in Chapter 2 arise partly from the role that subjectivity plays in deciding to research popular music. Writing in the discipline suffers from the hazard of being a reflection of a writer’s own tastes more than anything else. While I am not making a claim for complete objectivity – and have made it clear that I am a fan of grunge – there are theoretical approaches that could be adapted to try to minimize the effect of the writer’s personal tastes on the claims made for popular music and its effects. To that end, I will be relying on the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu in this book. Bourdieu’s discussions of tastes and artistic fields allow for a study of cultural objects and their reception to be linked to wider societal structures, and therefore for judgements about whether music is good or bad to be left to one side. Bourdieu’s theories are particularly helpful in trying to undertake sociological analyses of culture because of the way in which he shows that how we relate to culture is a highly social process which is strongly influenced by our position in society. So, for example, art is not seen as being about the genius of the creator, or creative processes that are somehow outside the social; and personal tastes do not

40


emerge as a representation of the inner world of an individual. Rather, the way that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ art and culture are defined, and the way that art itself is conceived of, are connected to power relations in society. Certain groups can exert much greater control than others over what is thought of as worthwhile culture. Bourdieu concentrates on class structures, and in his best-known work, Distinction (1984), shows how the tastes of the ruling classes are naturalized so that there seems to be objective standards by which culture can be evaluated, and this naturalization helps to maintain power relations. Bourdieu’s theories are extraordinarily complex, and have of course created much debate (see, for example, Bennett, Emmison and Frow (1999) for a critique of some of Bourdieu’s approaches, and also the fascinating debate that is taking place around the idea of the erosion of highbrow and low-brow tastes (Peterson and Kern, 1996; Peterson and Simkus, 1992; Warde, Wright and Gayo-Cal, 2007)). However, following Bourdieu, this book is based on the premise that our relationship with culture is socially constructed, and is intimately bound up with other social structures. For example, the discussion on the commercialization of grunge may be enhanced by an analysis of grunge as a Bourdieuian ‘field’. Although Bourdieu mainly refers to the production of literature, his description of the workings of fields of cultural production can be usefully applied to grunge and to music more generally. One of the most in-depth applications of Bourdieu’s work to popular music to date is by Hibbett (2005), who applies Bourdieu’s conceptual framework to the notion of ‘indie rock’, explaining how this particular field emerged partly as a response to the increasing popularity of previously obscure musical types around the time that grunge was successful. Kruse (2003) similarly uses fields as a way of connecting practices in independent music scenes with wider societal and economic forces. While Bourdieu believes that cultural fields are created through the input of both producers and audiences, he himself concentrates more on the production side, as do Hibbett and Kruse (although Kruse’s account does take audiences into consideration). The concentration on the audience perspective in this book will provide another dimension to test these theories. Along with literature, Bourdieu also examines theatre, newspapers, art and movies in relation to people’s tastes; however, he gives almost no consideration to the position of popular music, or popular culture in general. In a broad discussion of music in Distinction (1984, p. 19), Bourdieu makes a strong connection between music and spirituality, describing it as being unlike other forms of art. He claims that music is both the most definitive indicator of distinction and class position (see also Bourdieu, 1993b), and ‘the most radical and most absolute form of the negation of the world’. Bourdieu seems to be suggesting that music is open to interpretation by the audience in a way that other forms of art are not, as ‘it says nothing and has nothing to say’ (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 19, italics in original). His failure to consider popular and mass-mediated culture more generally is considered to be somewhat of a shortcoming in his work because of the wide impact that these forms have had upon modern societies (for example, see Bennett,


41

Emmison and Frow, 1999). However, his ideas are still applicable to this area, and his failure to take popular music and culture into consideration himself makes it all the more worthwhile a venture, as a possible enhancement of his work. Indeed, Bourdieuian concepts such as ‘cultural capital’ have often been utilized in popular music studies. However, fields have been used less often (but see, for example, Regev, 1994; and see Hesmondhalgh, 2006, for a discussion of the difficulties in applying field theory to large-scale production). Bourdieu’s theories on fields provide a means of understanding how hierarchies are created within popular music and how change occurs in the field over time, without needing to rely on notions of authenticity (despite the importance that this notion still holds for audiences). They also provide a way of connecting the field of popular music to power relations in wider society. In Bourdieu’s (1984, 1993a) work on fields of cultural production, he shows how cultural fields operate under their own logic, but a logic which is influenced by and inescapably bound up in larger societal structures. Fields are Bourdieu’s organizing schema for society. They are places where action occurs and where structure and agency come together to create order and predictability – but not unalterable rules – in the world (Seidman, 1998). They are sites where there is constant struggle taking place for the acquisition of different types of capital, whether it be economic, cultural or symbolic capital. The type of capital that is most important differs from field to field – in some, economic capital will be most important, and therefore those with most economic capital will be the most powerful, but in others economic capital may be less important than symbolic capital (Jenkins, 2002). Bourdieu (1993a, p. 78) defines a field of production as: ‘the system of objective relations between … agents or institutions and as the site of the struggles for the monopoly of the power to consecrate, in which the value of works of art and belief in that value are continuously generated.’ As will be demonstrated in this chapter, grunge had its own rules, conventions and hierarchies. It was contained within a number of other fields. First, it was contained within the (hard) rock field, which was contained within the larger field of popular music. These were all contained within the wider field of power, which consists of the class relations and structures that constitute society as a whole. Grunge arose in the field of hard rock in response to movements that had come before it, sometimes as a continuation (as with thrash metal and punk) but at other times in opposition (as with hair metal). In his application of Bourdieu’s work to the indie rock scene, Hibbett (2005, p. 57) points out that the same internal logic applies to indie rock as high art. For example, it has a smaller audience and less economic capital than the larger field of popular music, it finds its identity in its opposition to the mass, and as ‘an elite sect within a larger field, indie rock requires its own codes, i.e. cultural capital, and therefore can be used to generate and sustain myths of social or intellectual superiority’. Similar conditions were in place when grunge first appeared in Seattle, and it is this that caused difficulties when grunge began to gain greater success in terms of economic capital.

42


Bourdieu clearly states that the reception of a piece of work will never be exactly as its producer intended, as there are always meanings which the producer takes for granted which will not necessarily be seen in the same light by others. Understanding the place of grunge therefore involves looking beyond central figures and artists such as Nirvana or the owners of Sub Pop, and the idea that such movements occur as a result of the genius (or machinations) of individuals. It involves examining how social forces work on both producers and consumers to contribute to the formation of movements and particularly their success at a given time. Although this study does not attempt to analyse individual pieces of work, or to understand the meanings intended by grunge musicians, these productions are still relevant to an understanding of the position of the grunge movement as a whole. Understanding the position that grunge held becomes doubly difficult, as we are looking at it retrospectively. As Bourdieu (1993a, p. 31) notes: One of the major difficulties of the social history of philosophy, art or literature is that it has to reconstruct these spaces of original possibles which, because they were part of the self-evident givens of the situation, remained unremarked and are therefore unlikely to be mentioned in contemporary accounts, chronicles or memoirs.

Thus, the effect of time and memory will always need to be considered in an undertaking such as this study, and it needs to be remembered that even the original works and reports from the time will be incomplete. Bourdieu states that there is a constant struggle taking place within the artistic field between what he calls the ‘heteronomous principle’ and the ‘autonomous principle’. The heteronomous principle is bound up with the economy and signs of success favoured by the powerful, mainly financial and political gain. The autonomous principle is where success is associated with being able to demonstrate independence from the types of success favoured under the heteronomous principle. The classic image here is of the starving artist or musician, barely able to support themselves but making great art without any influence from commerce and disdainful of commercial success. In marginal artistic fields, the autonomous principle is more important, and commercial success can decrease a producer’s standing within that field. However, this comes about only because this field is positioned within the larger field of power, in this case the larger field of popular music, where the opposite is true, and both fields are situated within a class-based society where money and power are desired and dominant. The overall struggle in this situation is for control ‘over the imposition of the legitimate mode of cultural production’ (Bourdieu, 1993a, p. 41) and ultimately the dominant position within society. If the ruling class can continue to produce what is seen as legitimate culture, then its power will be easier to retain. Grunge can be described as a field of cultural production similar to that of literature, and can be mapped out in a comparable fashion to the description of


43

such a field in The Field of Cultural Production and to Hibbett’s description of indie rock. The difference between grunge and indie rock is that while by Hibbett’s account the latter has maintained its position as an autonomous field, grunge began as an autonomous field but became part of the mainstream (as discussed in Chapter 1). Through its commercial success it changed positions to become part of the heteronomous field and, in fact, ended up in a position whereby it could (partially) define success in the popular music field. However, because the values by which grunge was granted authenticity were still those of an autonomous field, and also because of the constant shifting of cultural fields whereby the old established order is constantly being challenged by newer movements, grunge did not survive long in this position of success. This study will adopt the above schema to help understand the phenomenon of grunge. Grunge was positioned within the greater rock/popular music apparatus, where commercial success is the overall aim. In smaller fields, commercial success is generally frowned upon and sincerity/authenticity is gained through being independent of the overriding popular music structure (for example, major labels) and its conventions. The autonomous principle is very similar to the concept of authenticity discussed earlier, and using Bourdieu’s ideas in relation to authenticity can help us to understand why authenticity is seen as so important by connecting it to overarching social structures and power relations within society. What was most at stake for artists such as Nirvana and Soundgarden as they became successful was their ‘symbolic capital’, something that can give its possessor an advantage over those who do not possess it. Symbolic capital is ‘any type of capital (for example, economic or cultural) that happens to be legitimated or prestigious in a particular field’ (Couldry, 2003, p. 667, italics in original). In the discussion of the construction of grunge in the media in this chapter, and by respondents in Chapter 4, it will be shown that in a field such as this, where symbolic capital was gained through opposition to corporate and commercial success (an adherence to the autonomous principle), artists are in danger of losing their symbolic capital if they start becoming successful, a problem also noted by Hibbett. For some grunge artists, earning financial/commercial success was negated to some degree by the protestations of the artists involved that they did not really desire this aspect of success, and by being seen to be continuing to oppose the conventions of the popular music field. Contained within this wider field, a field such as grunge is always constrained by (initially) having values in opposition to those of the dominant field, and the way in which this can work to the advantage of the dominant field. This is the basis for much of the debate on the ideas of co-optation and commercialization. As with avant-garde art, where attempts to critique the way art is defined by outside forces are themselves simply repackaged as art, this attempt by bands like Nirvana to subvert the field in the end only served to reinforce it. A good example of this is the public feud between Nirvana and their record company while the band members were recording their third album, In Utero.

44


During this time, the band chose a producer, Steve Albini, known for producing harsh sounding records, and reports abounded of the band clashing with record company executives when the latter tried to interfere with the recording or decision-making processes around the album (DeRogatis, 2003, p. 17). Cobain was quoted as saying he was actively trying to lose audience members and sell fewer copies of this album than their previous one (True, 2001, p. 47–9). A situation like this suggests a struggle between commercial and symbolic success in this field. Band members announcing that they are trying to lose their audience under these circumstances will possibly increase their symbolic capital but is unlikely to decrease their commercial success in a field that trades on images of rebellion. However, it is in a record company’s interest to publicize such statements, as this gives them the ability to exploit the conflict between the commercial and symbolic in order to increase profits. Actors within a field who possess greater symbolic capital also have greater power to define the limits of the field. In discussing the field of literature, Bourdieu claims that a central ongoing struggle is over the definition of a writer. This is an ongoing process. ‘Generations’ turn over quickly, and as each new generation of artists brings new ways of creating art and new ideas of how the art in question should or could be defined, these new ideas – where they gain either symbolic or commercial success – are taken up by wider society. In the most successful cases, they become the standard that the next generation takes a stance against. However, as Hibbett (2005, p. 64) notes, ‘cultural capital can cease to have value as it becomes increasingly accessible’. Thus music, especially music that has any artistic pretensions, and its audience can never remain stagnant. Furthermore, a band or artist has to change in just the right way to retain their audience. They can easily be branded a sell-out, either by changing in a way that is perceived as deliberately chasing commercial success, or by resting on the laurels of previous successes through not changing enough. Using Bourdieu, it could then be argued that one of the defining features of grunge was the evolving tension as the smaller field began to be overrun by the values of the larger surrounding field. Grunge began to become commercially successful, and was ‘colonized’ by the larger field as record companies, marketers and other profiteers such as fashion designers – not to mention the musicians themselves – saw the money-making potential of the movement. The contradiction between the values of the smaller and larger field would normally at this point threaten the end of the movement. However, within the grunge scene itself, it appears that there was something more complex going on in terms of where people positioned themselves in relation to the autonomous and heteronomous poles because of grunge’s ironic stance (Larsen, 2008). At the outset of grunge, many participants in the scene were behaving like they were attached to the autonomous pole (for example, they were playing small gigs, were attached to indie record labels) but rather than disavowing commercial success, were both courting and mocking it. This potentially meant that when bands began to actually become commercially successful, they might have been ‘buffered’ against the loss of symbolic capital that this usually entails.


45

However, as will be shown in the data gathered for this study, it appears that the criteria associated with autonomous fields has become so naturalized and embedded in discourse around art/music that the way grunge is talked about in the media and by audiences automatically reverts to those familiar, oppositional criteria, and commercial success (of a rock-based movement that began on a small scale) is framed as problematic regardless. Journalists had no real way of dealing with irony, so it was turned into either the usual art versus commerce discourse, with the musician’s awareness of commercial success reread as a disavowal, or read as the downfall of apathetic youth. Audiences in this study, rather than being postmodern, ironic subjects, still show a strong attachment to the idea of the ‘realness’ of musicians, but in contrast to the media response to the ironic stance of the musicians, do not see commercial success as necessarily being a problem. So what we end up with is not just the colonization of the smaller field of grunge by the larger field of popular music that values commercial success, but also the use of the autonomous principle to criticize and condemn even those grunge musicians who had never espoused values in line with it in the first place. In other words, some artists said ‘we want to make money’, but said it in an ironic way that allowed audiences and critics committed to the art versus commercial music divide to read it as meaning ‘we don’t want to make money’, and then condemn the artists when they did make money. This is all complicated by the fact that, despite analyses of grunge like Larsen’s that locate irony as a central element of the movement, a number of the most successful grunge bands, such as Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, presented themselves in a very earnest fashion that was more amenable to a more ‘traditional’ rock reading, unlike, for example, Nirvana or Mudhoney. Furthermore, as bands became more successful, the statements they made about commercial success tended to become less ambiguous or ironic, as the example above of the feud between Nirvana and their record company demonstrates. Ultimately, the smaller field of grunge was colonized by and incorporated into the larger field of popular music, where ideas about authenticity are used to make profit, but its ‘downfall’ was connected both to overexposure and commercialization, and to condemnation from those committed to the ideals of the autonomous field. Hibbett (2005) describes the formation of the indie rock scene as being a response to the co-option of grunge and alternative by big business interests, in that the indie scene cannot be described as a music style but more as a rejection and avoidance of whatever might be commercially successful. This is a redefining of the autonomous principle within popular music as being less ‘art for art’s sake’ and perhaps more ‘art for the rejection of commercial success’. However, it should be noted that according to Bourdieu, such colonizations and rejections are part of the ongoing cycles of artistic production. Central to these tensions are the brokers between the artists themselves and those who might pay for the artist’s work (Regev, 1994). In the case of grunge, this position would have initially belonged to the owners of the record label Sub Pop. They played an important role in determining who would be granted admission

46


to this new category of music by deciding who would be signed to the label and given money, without which careers would probably have been quite limited. They also instigated other elements, such as a coherent aesthetic for album covers and advertising, which helped define the grunge scene and ensured media coverage. Sub Pop owners Poneman and Pavitt were in a position to perform this role as they were connected to both the artists and other constituents of the field such as critics, and through them to the public. Bourdieu (1993a, p. 79) describes how a field can sometimes experience a ‘moment of crisis’, where briefly the relationships between the artists and dealers – in this case the record companies – are made transparent, showing the links between art and commerce. Although the situation with grunge and the poor relationships between bands and major labels they later signed to could be described as such an occasion, this moment did not happen with relation to Sub Pop. Sub Pop itself retained its symbolic capital through the grunge period (although not its commercial capital) because the major successes of grunge came after bands had moved on from Sub Pop to larger corporate labels. As a result Sub Pop itself did not change its relation to the values of the larger field as it would have done if it had been the means by which these bands had found success. In an interesting display of how complex these relationships can be, the owners of Sub Pop often claimed in interviews that they were actively seeking commercial success (for example, see Wells, 1992). The fact that they never gained this meant that they could make such claims without losing symbolic capital, unlike the artists. The ‘moment of crisis’ never extended to include all dealers, and thus left an area where their authenticity was still left unchallenged. By using Bourdieu, the debates around the conflict between money and artistry/authenticity can be understood in a more sociological manner. Bourdieu’s fields present a useful way of understanding how grunge is connected to wider society. Most importantly, using Bourdieu allows for an explanation of grunge’s evolution and destruction, and the relationship that audiences have with it, in a more value-free way. Grunge is not assumed to be better or worse than other forms of music, but to display a specific trajectory in the constantly changing musical field. Audience reactions to grunge are not right or wrong, but are built upon their own position within society, as will be demonstrated throughout this study. This story is, of course, not unique to grunge, but is an ongoing process in popular music. Similar trajectories could be traced out for many other musical forms, and Hibbett demonstrates the tactics that are used within the indie rock scene to avoid this conflict between success and symbolic capital. However, the critique of the commercialization of music contained in grunge and its ironic stance made this conflict more apparent than usual, and rather than leading to a further examination of the meanings of success, this has instead led to criticism of grunge in having failed in what it apparently set out to do. I will now turn to a consideration of the way grunge was presented in the New Musical Express (NME) in order to show these processes at work, and to build a fuller picture of how grunge was understood at the time of its popularity.


47

Media Accounts of Grunge Media reports of grunge have been utilized in this study in addition to in-depth interviews, because as it became apparent that memory would be an important theme, it became necessary to find accounts of grunge from the time that would allow for some measurement of how memories of grunge differ from how it was perceived when it was happening. While this study was designed to look more at the audience responses to grunge, the role of the media in helping to create music scenes and successes and in shaping the perceptions of audiences cannot be ignored. It is also important for the aspects of this study that deal with memory to have an understanding of how grunge was perceived in the past in order to see how this might have changed. Music critics make up part of the audience for popular music, and can be thought of as ‘enlightened fans’ (Atton, 2009, p. 53), or as ‘audience members who are presumably similar to their readers, and as speakers from a position of expertise and authority that differentiates them from their readers’ (Fenster, 2002, p. 84, italics in original). Despite this, suggesting that there is any direct or reliable correlation between media reports and audience responses is problematic. As Sarah Thornton notes: ‘… if aesthetic/political radicalism and particular kinds of sustained media attention determine inclusion in histories, then the cultural experiences of large parts of the population – not in tune with the tastes of music critics or not already represented in the music press – will be lost’ (1990, p. 89). The media reports used here must be treated at best as a partial representation of grunge. However, as it is not possible to access the actual feelings or reactions of the respondents at the time – except as mediated through memory – media reports will be used to at least indicate what was reported as happening. None of my respondents were directly involved with the grunge scene during its formation in Seattle. Therefore, it was necessary for knowledge about it to be transmitted, and the most likely source would have been the music-related media such as television, radio and press. All three of these media were mentioned by respondents as important sources of information. I conducted an in-depth analysis of the NME, a weekly UK magazine published in a newspaper-style format. This magazine was readily available in Australia during the grunge period. While this publication is considered mainstream, the NME appeals to a younger audience and is ostensibly more ‘cutting edge’ and oriented towards change (Gudmundsson et al., 2002; Toynbee, 1993) than publications such as Rolling Stone, which is seen as a more conservative magazine that gives coverage to and supports the status quo in music (Sanjek, 1999). This publication was chosen partly because back issues were easily accessible, but also because it is a large-scale publication which reaches a wide audience and as such will give an indication of how grunge was considered (and constructed) at the time. The fact that it is a weekly publication also means that it gives a more immediate response to events, and there is more material overall to draw from than would be the case with a less frequently published magazine. It is also the publication mentioned by name by more respondents than any other.

48


All issues of the NME from 1990 to the end of 1994 were studied. Note was taken of every mention of the word grunge and appearances by bands, musicians and other people (such as the owners of Sub Pop) who had been identified as being associated with grunge by respondents. While conventional content analysis would have required these instances to be formally quantified and codified, the results of this search have been used in a more qualitative manner. The instances of grunge and grunge musicians appearing in the NME have been used to create a narrative description of how grunge was constructed in the magazine as it first appeared, became successful and eventually died off. In addition to the NME, analysis was also made of commemorative publications dealing with the tenth anniversary of the death of Kurt Cobain. In the first half of 2004, many music magazines (including the NME) released special editions focusing either exclusively on Cobain and his death or more broadly on grunge as a movement. Nine of these commemorative publications (Rolling Stone, Uncut, Mojo, Q, Record Collector, Spin, Guitar One, Revolver and NME) have been analysed for this study. These publications were useful in that they provided a point of contrast to older media reports and allowed examination of how the media’s construction of grunge has changed, as well as how grunge is portrayed in contemporary media. These publications also provided a point of contrast to the accounts of respondents, in order to determine if the way respondents remember grunge is different to or aligns with media reports. These comparisons are mainly discussed in Chapters 5 and 6. Aside from the commemorative editions, there has been much published in music magazines on grunge in the past 15 years and some of these publications are referred to. Furthermore, there have been movies (for example, Singles (Crowe, 1992); Reality Bites (Stiller, 1994); Last Days (Van Sant, 2005)), documentaries (such as Hype (Pray, 1996); Kurt and Courtney (Broomfield, 1998)) and television shows (such as ‘Classic albums: Nirvana – Nevermind’ (Smeaton, 2005)) also focusing on grunge, and these have been referred to where appropriate in the study. However, no in-depth analysis (for example, semiotic analysis or formal content analysis) has been made of these media sources. These materials are used more to contextualize the responses given by interviewees and to understand the information they have been exposed to in regard to grunge that has helped to shape their memories. It is necessary to take such sources into account, even though they are not the main focus of this study. As I am attempting to describe grunge as a field in a Bourdieuian sense, it is necessary to briefly discuss the unusual position of the media in relation to fields of production. The media also comprise a field, with its own internal rules. However, the media also has the ability to greatly influence, and is increasingly influenced by, what occurs in other fields (Benson, 1998; Couldry, 2003). It holds a position that is necessarily interactive with its audience and subject, and analysing it using field theory ‘challenges the dichotomy of “passive” and “active” audiences, insisting on the pre-established harmony of circuits of production and reception’ (Benson, 1998, p. 463).


49

The media are sites where new movements are defined and sometimes consecrated, or named as ‘worthy of wider consideration’ (Benson, 1998, p. 469; and for a more in-depth discussion on the roles of the music press, see Jones, 2002). The media coverage of a movement like grunge also demonstrates the conflict between the heteronomous principle (that which is to do with conventional success such as financial gain or the mainstream) and the autonomous principle (where success is found through, for instance, being independent of commerce), especially as a cultural form gains popularity and commercial success. When grunge is discussed in the media, despite the possibilities presented by the ironic stance of some of the musicians, for the most part the autonomous principle can be almost directly equated with the idea of authenticity. However, this is not always the case within popular music. As will be discussed below, a movement such as hair metal gains authenticity through an (excessive) embrace of commercial success and its trappings. In a movement such as grunge, where authenticity and autonomy are closely aligned, gaining commercial success causes problems, and the tensions and contradictions that commercial success brought for the movement signalled the beginnings of its demise. I will now outline how grunge was first consecrated, then ‘killed off’ by the NME. The Construction of Grunge in the NME In his article ‘Policing Bohemia, Pinning up Grunge’ (1993), Jason Toynbee discusses the changing roles which different sections of the UK music press play, with a detailed analysis of the ‘inkies’, including the NME. He describes (p. 297) how emergent musical scenes (which could also be thought of as fields) are dealt with in these publications: Because it is premised on the need to supply change, the music press takes on a periodising role which involves, on the one hand, nurturing the new and, on the other, killing off the old. … First, generic order is established, particular artists are set up as exempla, and aesthetic and axiological criteria are defined. The period (scene) receives a name. Then, at a point which often depends on imperatives appearing elsewhere in the industry–audience circuit, the order is perceived as unstable.

This can clearly be seen occurring in the NME with relation to grunge, and the following shows how this genre was created for the journalists of the NME (and hence for readers of the publication). The NME was not the only or first major publication to enter into this process in regard to grunge. To some extent a similar process, involving audiences as both receivers and originators of information, was occurring elsewhere. Gunn (1999) discusses how genres are, to some extent, necessary, as they enable people to discuss music and make comparisons and distinctions without needing to hear the music to do so. While Gunn (1999, p. 46) mainly deals with the maintenance, rather than creation, of genres, he suggests that

50


‘it could be argued … that when new and unanticipated musical forms are initially experienced, initially heard, there is at least an antigeneric moment’. This is a moment when a new genre has been identified as being somehow different from what has come before, but has not yet been defined or named. This antigeneric moment could be inserted usefully into the beginning of the schema set out by Toynbee, and it is here that this discussion of the account of the NME begins. In the NME in the late 1980s, there was a minor amount of attention focused on the Sub Pop label and Seattle as a music scene. At this stage, accounts focused on the record label and the physical location of Seattle for the definition of the scene, along with some basic musical attributes such as guitar-based sound and a backto-rock-basics instrumentation and feel. There was also an aesthetic element that helped to give the scene a sense of cohesion for those covering it. For example, Sub Pop deliberately made its releases visually recognizable through the use of certain photographers and styles on CD and single covers (Wells, 1990b), and bands had the casual/unkempt appearance that would later become known as the grunge look. Interest in this scene initially peaked in about 1990, then began to wane. However, it did not go through the destructive journalistic phase described by Toynbee, probably because even at the height of its popularity it had not been very well known in the UK, and had not had any mainstream success as such. During 1990, Seattle bands – mainly Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Nirvana – appeared in the NME regularly, although at this point the genre they belonged to was still in its formative stages. Reviewers of albums and live performances seemed uncomfortable placing these bands in any already existing genre, and struggled with descriptions of the music. For example, Soundgarden were described as ‘either the slowest speed metal band in the world or the very first exponents of slothcore’ (Collins, 1990), ‘Thrash Metal Sub Hardcore Pop Noise’ (Ellen, 1990) and ‘punky metalheads’ (Wells, 1990a), a description that covers the commonly accepted roots of grunge. Mudhoney were at one stage called ‘postrap’ (Wells, 1990c), and Nirvana were ‘thrash’ (Corrigan, 1990) or ‘hardcore’ (Lamacq, 1991). The points of reference most often used were metal, hardcore and punk, but never in an unproblematic way. At this point, the music and associated cultural artefacts were differentiated from surrounding styles, but consensus had not yet been reached on exactly how or why. The word grunge does appear in a September article on the new wave of ‘all-girl white-trash hardcore’ from the USA. In particular, Courtney Love described her band Hole as ‘grungey’ (Dalton, 1990), but at this stage the word seemed to be more of a simple description of the musical sound without further implications, a usage which continued into the first half of 1991. However, a change started to occur from June 1991. The term grunge started to be used more frequently, and in a more definite generic sense. For example, in an interview with Babes In Toyland, the band were described as ‘hot-blooded all-girl “foxcore” grunge-rockers’, and the article mentioned how having their LP produced by Jack Endino meant that they were ‘almost automatically enshrined in the Grunge Hall of Fame’ (Cameron, 1991a). That there is suddenly a capital-G


51

Grunge Hall of Fame when such a thing has not been hinted at previously gives some clue that there may have been developments in this area that the NME had not been reporting. At this stage Nirvana had not been described as grunge in the NME, and was more often than not referred to as a punk band. During this time of the ‘establishment of the generic order’, while struggle was still taking place over the location of grunge in the wider field of popular music and definitions were not clear, other factors were brought into play. Interviews focused on the anti-corporate stance of bands, and their claims to authenticity through working-class origins and tales of deprivation and struggle were emphasized (for example, see Cameron, 1991b; Dalton, 1991). In this way, an appeal was being made to the power of the autonomous principle in this field, and symbolic capital was being bestowed upon these bands. The fragility of such capital was already apparent, however, as these bands were at this point on the brink of success (which the NME was encouraging) that would immediately cause difficulties for their claims to this capital. This difficulty was even noted by NME journalists; for example, in a live review in late 1991, the reviewer noted the contradictions between Nirvana’s ‘punk attitude’ and their status as ‘next big thing’ (Williams, 1991; see also Mundy, 1992). In September 1991, Nirvana’s Nevermind album was released. Both it and Hole’s Pretty on the Inside were included in that month’s top ten albums (as chosen by journalists) in the NME, and in November ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was made Single of the Week, with a review that described the band as ‘former Sub Pop grungemeisters’ (Fadele, 1991). At this point, as Nevermind began to become successful, journalists started to make comparisons between these bands and the previous/waning big act in guitar-based music, Guns’n’Roses. Guns’n’Roses and their hair metal ilk (Harrison, 2007) provided an exemplary point of comparison to show the newness of the recently crowned grunge scene, even as they were in the process of being ‘killed off’ by the press. Although still within the hard rock genre, Guns’n’Roses were musically and stylistically ‘slicker’ and more glamorous than any grunge band, revelling in the traditional rock lifestyle of sex, drugs and misogyny which was being openly decried by the Seattle bands (or at least the misogyny). In one interview, Courtney Love explicitly set herself up in opposition to Axl Rose and heavy metal in general (Walsh, 1991), while in an article on Nirvana titled ‘The Guns’n’Roses it’s OK to like’, Mary Ann Hobbs (1991, p. 28) gave the following account: Here’s my theory: The Nevermind LP is a meeting point for all manner of rock enthusiasts; those who like the power ideal of Metallica but can’t stomach their lack of melody; Pixies fans still searching for Doolittle II who feel that Black Francis is beginning to fudge it; the grown-up Ned’s [Atomic Dustbin] appreciation society; even neurotic adolescents with shattered illusions of Guns’n’Roses – Most Dangerous Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World (ha!).

This shows the processes through which grunge was being constructed. It was being defined both within the hard rock genre/field and against other (older) bands

52


who were part of the same general musical style (see also Cameron, 1992a). Bourdieu specifically discusses the way that new generations appearing in a field must define themselves (or be defined) in opposition to what has come before them, and the uses that such oppositional definitions serve will be discussed in more detail below. Then, in the 4 January 1992 issue, came the genre-defining article in the form of a two-part piece by Steven Wells and Keith Cameron called ‘Grunge Hell’. The first part of this piece was in article form and explicitly dealt with what grunge was, while the second part consisted of a list of bands that were considered to fall under the definition. The article positioned grunge as oppositional to the ‘niceness’ of British pop, and gave the following definition: ‘Grunge – a staggering, swaggering bourbon-drenched, raw-throated genre that owes something to Hardcore, to Scum Rock and to Metal sans the poodles and the hairdressers. A jerking rock-dog that lustily celebrates the seedy, the spastic and the degenerate’ (Wells and Cameron, 1992, p. 16). This article is interesting in its uncoupling of grunge from Seattle and Sub Pop. The article half of the piece, while acknowledging that ‘Grunge is primarily an American phenomenon’, goes to great lengths to explain how it was relevant and important to British (and other) audiences. This was mainly done through contrasting grunge to the more recent trends in British music, in particular ‘shoegazing’, light-hearted pop-rock represented by bands like Lush, Revolver and Slowdive. The article firmly identified these shoegazing bands as middle class, and denigrated their sound as ‘music your mum would like’. By contrast, grunge is constructed as working class and anti-establishment. The article also examined broader trends in British society to explain the appeal of grunge, equating the shoegazing scene with the politics of Conservative Prime Minister John Major, and grunge with those who had suffered under or opposed conservatism. The list of bands – the exemplary artists of the newly defined genre – included most of the noteworthy Sub Pop bands (Nirvana, The Melvins, Tad, Mudhoney) and the female bands championed by the magazine previously (Babes In Toyland, Hole, L7), as well as other less (retrospectively) predictable and non-Sub Pop bands such as Helmet, Jesus Lizard and Pavement (later to be re-classified as ‘lo-fi’). Some UK bands were also included, such as Fudge Tunnel (‘grungier than most Americans’), Therapy? and Membranes. This article was appropriate at this time for a number of reasons. First, the invention of a genre (or the utilization of a genre label) to encapsulate the current musical trends was necessary as the bands involved could no longer be simply referred to as Sub Pop or Seattle bands. The type of music being described was no longer unique to Seattle (if indeed it ever was), and Sub Pop was no longer the home to many of the acts named, particularly Nirvana, who had released Nevermind through a major record label, Geffen. The surprise success of Nevermind also meant that this music and associated culture had become visible to many more people than before. NME, in its role as ‘arbiter of cool’, needed to present an authoritative position on this. The journalists here were also trying to create a homology between the position of audiences and the music through appeal to


53

class positions and age. They were in effect claiming that grunge was better than shoegazing because it said something about the concerns of real people, or of people who were marginalized in middle-class Britain. After this point, the usage of grunge became far more matter-of-fact, although hardly uncontested, as no genre is ever neatly contained without blurred boundaries (see Kirschner, 1994). The question of what is authentic in relation to grunge started to arise at this point, with bands that visually and aurally would seem to be firmly contained within the grunge genre being denied this label and its attendant benefits because journalists perceived them as either contrived or commercial, or both. The journalists attempted to maintain the boundaries of the genre by denying entry to those who might be attempting to ‘cash in’ on its success. The band that was condemned most in the process was Pearl Jam: Firstly, let’s blow out the Nirvana comparison. Nirvana’s rise was a beautiful, unpremeditated explosion. Geffen expected Nevermind to shift a few thousand units, and it shifts a few million. But Pearl Jam’s meteoric triumph was tightly sewn up before the album even hit British shops. … What you get is solid AOR, circa 1974 – nothing new. (Lewis, 1992, p. 34)

They were relentlessly denigrated by the magazine for the next 18 months or so (with their supposed feud with Nirvana playing a central role), along with bands such as Alice In Chains and Stone Temple Pilots, whose late appearance on the scene allowed the NME to question their authenticity (see also Cameron, 1992b; Frost, 1993; Moody, 1994). This attempt to deny entry to the scene to people perceived as being inauthentic indicates the beginning of the ‘instability’ phase discussed by Toynbee (1993), insofar as a scene which denies entry to most (if not all) newcomers will struggle to maintain itself over time as initial participants move on. Over this period, from 1992 to early 1994, the usage of the term ‘grunge’ reverted somewhat to its initial association with Seattle, with a number of articles and reviews making comments that suggested an automatic equation of ‘Sub Pop = grunge’ (Lewis, 1993a). For instance, an article on The Afghan Whigs described the band as: ‘well hard, they formed in prison, they brawl and break up, they’re the Sub Pop band who don’t come from Seattle. But the Afghan Whigs are not just another grunge band’ (Cameron, 1993, p. 9; see also Williams, 1993a, p. 7). This comment also indicated a certain sense of tiredness with the genre. New releases from Sub Pop were discussed as though the label was synonymous with grunge, with surprise being expressed when the label released albums that were not in line with the ideals of the genre. For example, a review of the ‘Sub Pop Flannel Fest’, a gig showcasing Sub Pop’s more recent signings held in February 1993, focused on the ‘change in tangent’ from grunge (Williams, 1993b, p. 44). This may have been an attempt to set boundaries around what could and could not be considered authentic in the now commercially successful and well-known genre by looking back to the roots of grunge. The continuing independent status of the Sub Pop

54


label was important at this point, as independent labels are often associated with authenticity in the music world (see Kruse, 2003). The bands described above as having been denied the grunge label first emerged on major labels, and this was part of their perceived inauthenticity. The year 1993 also saw the first articles using the term ‘Riot Grrrl’, which went through a similar period of genre-defining as grunge, and the beginning of the vilification of Courtney Love (both of which will be discussed in depth in Chapter 6). In general, the dramatic events surrounding grunge bands, particularly Nirvana, as a result of their sudden success and fame, were given much coverage, and served to frame a wider ranging discussion on the apparent contradictions between commercial and artistic success. For example, a Mudhoney live review from late 1992 states: In 1992, hardcore means ‘grunge’, means being apolitical, growing your hair long, sometimes behaving like beasts, being disillusioned, being chased around by A&R people with large chequebooks, remembering the best things about blighted ’70s rock that punk was supposed to kill off, having your capital in Seattle but sprouting up everywhere in the so-called west, ingesting all the crazy substances you can afford, especially alcohol, means trying to sound like Mudhoney. Have we lost something along the way? (Fadele, 1992, p. 56)

This description neatly encapsulates many of the geographical, cultural and musical elements of grunge, while also touching on the conflict between success and authenticity. Quite possibly the unexpected success of Nirvana also threatened the authoritative positions of the journalists and the publication in general, as something from a smaller artistic field became accepted on a mass scale. As the NME positions itself on the cutting edge of music, then continuing to support grunge when it had become accepted by a wider mainstream audience could have threatened this position. Overall, the articles produced during this time reflect the difficulties which journalists, audiences and bands experienced as the success of grunge threatened the field’s claims to authenticity and autonomy. The year 1993 also saw more suggestions of instability in the field. As early as January an article on 7 Year Bitch discussed the ‘alleged decline’ of the Seattle scene (Harris, 1993), and a review of Nirvana’s third album, In Utero, contained the following: ‘It’s not a grunge record, since the definition of grunge has moved on from meaning no-hoper gonzoid punks to embrace any metal band who wear dresses instead of leather kecks and are a little bit subversive for MTV – hello, Stone Temple Pilots’ (Mulvey, 1993, p. 31). This suggests the demise of the original meanings of grunge. Reviews of grunge bands such as Nirvana and Babes In Toyland started to become more critical, in particular accusing the bands of ‘predictability’ (Dick, 1993; Lewis, 1993b). Paradoxically, it is at this time that reviews and articles on Pearl Jam started to become more favourable. One revealing article at this time took a critical view of the most successful grunge artists, namely Cobain, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam and Billy Corgan


55

from Smashing Pumpkins. Their ‘honesty’, previously praised, had become ‘whining’; their newest albums were ‘diaries’ and therefore were ‘not art’; their authenticity was questioned; and they were condemned for not being able to find a solution to the problem of being anti-commercial and yet commercially successful (Sutherland, 1993b). This reading foreshadows future academic criticism of grunge. All the indications at the end of 1993 were that grunge had become unstable, and was entering the first stages of being killed off. The scene had become so successful that most people knew about it and imitators had begun to enter the field, which precluded it from continuing to be ‘cool’, and journalists started to turn on those bands who previously gained the highest praise. However, in early 1994 a number of sensational events took place. In March, Kurt Cobain was admitted to hospital in Rome after taking an overdose of sleeping pills, and in April he was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The journalists at the NME appeared shocked and saddened by this event, while being wary of condoning or glorifying suicide (see Mulvey, 1994; Sutherland, 1994). At the same time, Cobain’s death served to help bring about the end of the grunge phenomenon in the publication. A week after Cobain’s death was reported, a Soundgarden live review contained the following: ‘Before the initial shockwaves [from Cobain’s death] abated, pundits were blandly debating whether the death also symbolised a funeral wreath for the Seattle scene in general’ (Lewis, 1994, p. 46). While reports elsewhere have placed the end of grunge as late as the breakup of Soundgarden in 1997 (Shuker, 2005; Stout, 1998), for the NME the time of grunge as an ongoing genre was mostly passed at this point. Many bands that were defined as grunge bands during the period discussed above continued to receive coverage in the NME, but they were usually described in more general terms as rock. It seems appropriate that the term needed by the NME to help explain the newly successful Nirvana should die with Cobain. A further cultural change brought about by grunge, and one which was not covered extensively in ‘serious’ music-based publications such as the NME, was in the realm of fashion, which will be discussed only briefly here. Style is almost always a central aspect of youth culture and, as will be seen in the following chapter, this was a major theme in respondents’ definitions of grunge. One of the most notable features of the grunge era was the way that the styles associated with it were commercialized by large-scale, mainstream fashion houses and labels, and the speed with which this happened (although this is certainly not a story peculiar only to grunge style). From late 1992 onwards, articles appeared in various newspapers and magazines discussing the grunge trend in fashion, describing the look as consisting of the ubiquitous flannelette shirts and torn jeans, big boots and second-hand clothes (for example, see Howard, 1993; Jeannin, 1992). Almost simultaneously other articles appeared, asking, for example, how likely it was that selling newly made designer versions of the fashions that people were originally finding in op-shops would be successful, given that the appeal of such clothes was thus removed or fundamentally altered (for example, see Kobel, 1993). However, the style became

56


hugely successful, as a glance at any youth-oriented television show or movie from the time will attest. For example, old episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 show all the main characters in their flannel-and-jeans uniforms, and references to grunge in films such as The Brady Bunch (Thomas, 1995) and Singles (Crowe, 1992) attest to the predominance of the style at this time. This commercial co-optation of the grunge style connects again to the conflict mentioned earlier between the anticommercial grunge ethos and the success it achieved. The above has discussed how grunge was presented in the press from its antigeneric time (1989 to 1991) through its formative phase, to its apparent death at around the same time as Cobain. The definition of grunge given in the NME is typical of the way grunge was defined in other publications of the era (for example, see the selection of articles in DeRogatis, 2003), and is also the definition that has been accepted since that time. This is unsurprising because although the NME has been used as the only in-depth case study here, it was not creating the idea of grunge in a vacuum, but was itself affected by other media representations of the movement. References were made in articles on grunge bands to television appearances they made, radio interviews they gave, and articles written in other publications. All of these different media representations – and representations of fans and the bands themselves – fed off each other intertextually in creating a definition of grunge. Although it has been demonstrated above that initially the meaning of grunge was unstable, eventually a consensus appears to have been reached whereby the use of the term now consistently means the same things to different people. Conclusion This chapter has traced the development of the term ‘grunge’, placing it in the context of the time. Without knowledge of this context, grunge cannot be properly understood, nor can changes in how it has been perceived since this time be traced. It has also demonstrated how, as grunge emerged within the field of popular music, conflict arose between the autonomous principle (authenticity) and the heteronomous principle associated with commercial mainstream success. As grunge’s authenticity was constructed in the press as being associated with rejection of success as defined within the wider field of power, as soon as grunge started to obtain such success it began to undermine the basis on which that success was (partly) built. This conflict can be seen being played out in the reports of journalists at the NME, and also in accounts of grunge fashions. However, from these reports we gain an understanding of how grunge was initially constructed in the media. The following chapter will now turn to descriptions of grunge given by respondents, in order to compare and contrast them to media reports.

Chapter 4

Defining Grunge in Memory Having presented an account of how grunge was constructed in the media during the early 1990s, in this chapter I will discuss the centrality of the media to the creation of collective memories in contemporary societies. I will provide evidence that respondents to this study can be considered such a collectivity through examining their understanding of what grunge was. Despite some minor variations, the respondents show high levels of agreement on geographical, cultural, temporal and musical elements of grunge. Their shared understanding of grunge also includes emotional and embodied elements that take their recollections of grunge beyond knowledge of ‘facts’ about the past. Respondents also identify a number of areas where grunge presented a challenge to existing power relations. The main difference between the media and respondents’ definitions of grunge is that while it was possible to go back to old copies of music magazines to see how grunge was defined at the time, the definitions provided by respondents are their current definitions, or how they would define grunge looking back on it. Given the centrality of the idea of memory to this book, it is important to note that these definitions will almost certainly have changed over time. It is not possible to determine exactly how this may have occurred or what changes may have taken place. However, it is important to compare and contrast the definitions of respondents with those given in the media to discover whether they are similar or whether there are areas of difference, rather than assuming media and respondents are talking about the same phenomenon. This chapter will illuminate the areas of agreement (of which there are many) between and within the accounts of the media and respondents to give a more detailed idea of what grunge is and to further our understanding of where it is located within the cultural field of which it is a part. Between the previous chapter and this one, I aim to demonstrate that ‘grunge’ is not open to endless interpretation but has a definite centre or core of meaning consistent across different groups and has remained relatively stable over time. I will continue to develop the argument that grunge holds a particular position within the field of popular music, and that this position can only be understood with reference to other musical forms and the time at which it occurred. The chapter begins with a further discussion of memory. It starts with a more in-depth discussion of some of the issues that arise when people’s accounts of the past are used as a source of data, focusing in particular on the problem of subjectivity and the role that narratives play in shaping memory. This will be followed by a discussion of the relationship between media and memory, then move to an account of the

58


respondents’ definitions of grunge. This will help to theorize the connections between the definitions of grunge given by respondents and in the NME, and lead into the further discussion of these relationships in the following chapter. Subjectivity and Narratives in Memory Once memory became a central theme in this study, one of the most interesting aspects of analysing interviews was understanding the different ways in which memory influenced what respondents said. In regard to individual processes of remembering, it is almost universally agreed in the literature on memory (whether from a social, individual or psychological perspective) that memory is never an immutable, crystallized object that is a direct copy of what ‘really’ happened (see Misztal, 2003). As the theories on memory discussed earlier suggest, memory is, instead, highly subjective, and is constantly undergoing revision according to the present needs of an individual or group (while still being constrained by certain factual elements of the past). Memory is forged and re-forged by social requirements, and it is necessary to take this into account when analysing interviews. Halbwachs (1992, p. 47) states that: We preserve memories of each epoch in our lives, and these are continually reproduced; through them, as by a continual relationship, a sense of our identity is perpetuated. But precisely because these memories are repetitions, because they are successively engaged in very different systems of notions, at different periods of our lives, they have lost the form and the appearance they once had.

As Anderson (2004) and Fentress and Wickham (1992) have noted, memory exists at different levels of an individual’s awareness. First, there is unconscious memory, that is, the embodied day-to-day type memory through which individuals know how to do things automatically. This is a less immediately obvious form of memory as there is no conscious reflection on the past, and in this way it can be connected to the idea of habitus. However, it demonstrates how the past is always in the present through the way it enables the basic functioning of day-to-day life and shapes how we act. This type of remembering is less relevant to this study, as it has more to do with actions and reactions, which are not well suited to being captured in interview-based research. The second type of memory discussed by Anderson is ‘involuntary remembering’, where there is an unexpected memory association which is vivid and brings the past into the present. Rather than being a constant repetition of the same experiences through memory, ‘a focus on “involuntary remembering” enables memory to be linked to an account of repetition as difference, and thus divergence, by focusing on the “hesitancy, unfolding, uncertainty” of the past as it emerges’ (Anderson, 2004, p. 9). Hence, new experiences can be made out of old memories as they reappear in different circumstances.


59

Examples of such ‘involuntary remembering’ can be found in my interviews. During the interviews, respondents were played part of a song – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana – and asked what came into their head when they heard it.1 As has been shown in previous studies (DeNora, 2000), music is strongly associated with memory, and can serve to re-orient subjects in place and time, as well as within their own bodies, physically and emotionally, to wherever they were and what they were feeling at other times when the same music was heard. By playing this song, I was hoping to mentally and physically remind the respondent of the time we would be discussing, and in a way to place them in that time. What was said at this point often showed a lack of narrative structure as a number of different memories were evoked for the respondents: Oh, it reminds me of my boyfriend, or my not-quite-ex-boyfriend, or not-quiteboyfriend. He’s in the States, he’s married and has a baby, I mean this is like a long time ago. Reminds me of taking a belly dance class, and of working in the lab where I used to work, ’cos I used to play this all the time. Did you do belly dancing to it? Yeah. (Laughs) And it reminds me of getting tattooed, ’cos we were listening to this a lot during, when I was getting a really large piece on my back done, and I had to go for maybe five sessions to get it finished, so during that whole time, this had just come out, it was like, in fact I think I got it within a day or so of moving into a new apartment, my first apartment actually. (Louisa)

The emergent quality of these memories is quite striking. It is almost as though Louisa has so many memories evoked by this piece of music that she is struggling to articulate them all, and there is little order imposed on them by the account she gives. This is complicated further by Louisa’s need to include the present in this account of the past (thus reinforcing its distance) through her qualifications on the current status of the boyfriend being discussed. However, Louisa tries to share her memories, and this sharing can help to fix the memory for the teller, although never entirely. Louisa’s account seems to balance between memory that is able to be articulated and that which cannot be in that her experiences can be spoken, but (in the context of the interview, that is, being played this song at this time) almost as a ‘stream of consciousness’, with no further order imposed on them. Other respondents give responses with even less structure: I’ve got goosebumps! (Laughs) Get fucked! (Pause) I’m just going to sit here and listen to it (laughs) … Have you heard it recently? No, I haven’t, not for a long time. (Pause) I was 21 when this came out I think, yeah (pause) I can’t 1

This was played ‘out loud’ on whatever system was available if the interview was being held in a private area, but a personal stereo and headphones were provided for interviews in public places. During some interviews, it could not be played due to various circumstances.

60

Grunge: Music and Memory describe it, Catherine, I’m sorry, it’s just, it’s unbelievable. It was, and I mean it sounds a bit wanky, but it was all about feeling stupid and contagious, like no-one had any idea what to do with you or who you were or … had no sort of aspirations for you – I don’t think that’s the right – like no one ever sort of seem to look at you and think you would have any aspirations, or … and I don’t know … obviously that’s a projection, but … God … I don’t know. I remember when that came out, it was so exciting. It’s just that … they were hitting the nail on the head. It’s just describing exactly how, I don’t know, everyone seemed to be feeling. (Sonia)

Shortly after this point Sonia describes having experienced the same ‘goosebumps’ feeling the first time she heard the song. Arthur also makes an attempt to describe a feeling associated with the song, rather than a specific memory of a particular place or time: Can you just tell me what comes into your head when you hear this? (Listens for a while) Well, drinking beer (laughs), just moving fast and, not a care really. Bashing into things, or, aggressive, aggression, really, but not necessarily a horrible aggression but, you know, enthusiasm sort of thing, yeah. (Arthur)

Arthur’s comments attempt to describe a mood rather than to tell a story with an identifiable narrative structure. These examples show respondents attempting to share the ‘vague, un-systematic, attitude or mood’ (Anderson, 2004, p. 12) that hearing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ has evoked for them, which is not immediately associated with a memory that can be shared in a more conventional manner. Unlike Sonia and Arthur, most interviewees do not have such difficulties articulating their memories, or do not attempt to articulate that which is not easy to say. However, most accounts imply a qualitatively different experience to simply remembering an objective ‘fact’. They often involve an element of being re-embodied in the past, or experiencing the feelings and emotions from a different time. This was evident when respondents listened to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ during the interview, as responses to this often include very specific, concrete memories of a particular time and place. The articulated descriptions of these memories usually contain an emotional, and at times also a physical, element: I remember dancing at a dance and Nirvana came on, and it was in 1991 and I was at this disco, it was called the Black Pearl disco up in the Red Sea in Egypt, and a few people had been listening to tapes at the time but it hadn’t really sunk into popular culture at the time, the song would come on and me and whoever else would rush onto the dance floor, and we’d run against each other and bash against each other and stuff, and some people thought, oh no, these guys are getting really angry, and it was like, no, we’re not, we’re just being really physical, you know, we’re just getting into it, you know. (Martin)


61

There are similarities between what Martin is saying here and the comments made by Arthur above in terms of the association both make between this music and a certain type of aggressive physical reaction to it. The difference lies in the way that this is communicated. Martin gives a clear context (a certain place, a definite time and particular people) for what he is trying to describe. Arthur, on the other hand, gives no context for the feeling he is trying to articulate. It is possible that the relationship that these two accounts have with the present is therefore different. These accounts again show the different possibilities for involuntary remembering as memories are located on a spectrum between the unsayable and those that have been given a concrete (sometimes unchanging) form. While there are facts that can be objectively established regarding what happened in the past, in memory the context of these is constantly shifting, and meaning is given precedence over fact. As Delich (2004, p. 67) states: ‘objectivity tries, and sometimes manages, to separate facts from their meaning. In the memory meaning is given prominence over facts because they are constructed on the basis of their meaning.’ Factual accuracy was not a focus of my study – and as most of my interviews concerned personal memories of respondents, there was no practical means to determine how accurate their memories were – but there were occasions where statements were made that were demonstrably false. For example, when remembering the death of Kurt Cobain, Bill says: I remember hearing about it on Triple J and the day he died was, just so happened to be that Weird Al Yankovic’s take-off of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was released in Australia that day, and that was just coincidence, it wasn’t planned or anything like that, but just after the news story on Triple J, then they played it and there was complaints everywhere. A lot of people were complaining that it was disrespectful.

Factually, this statement is incorrect – the Weird Al Yankovic song was released in 1992, two years prior to Cobain’s death. How Bill comes to remember events in this way is open to interpretation. Maybe this was the first time he had heard the song and so assumed it was only just released, or perhaps the memory of when the song was released has been intertwined with his memory of the day of Kurt Cobain’s death. However, it seems likely that the song was played at some stage, and that there were complaints from listeners, and it is this that seems to have become meaningful enough for Bill to associate with his first memory about Cobain’s death. Similarly, a number of respondents mention the Spice Girls as being around at the same time as grunge, and being the ‘oppositional’ music to grunge. Given that the Spice Girls did not release their first single until 1996, it seems that again there may be some shifts in respondents’ memories since this time (although some were certainly still listening to grunge in 1996 and beyond). Furthermore, with a cultural form like grunge, there exist many embedded myths and untruths that have become accepted as truths. For example, there is the question of whether Cobain committed suicide or was murdered, and his claims

62


to have narcolepsy that were (apparently) false but have been faithfully repeated so many times since that they have gained the status of truth. At times participants in the grunge scene deliberately gave misleading information to the media. For example, in the early days of grunge, an ex-employee of Sub Pop provided English magazine Sky with a fake list of slang terms from Seattle (Frank, 1997, pp. 204–5). In situations such as this where audiences are almost always getting facts second hand at best, meaning begins to take precedence. To understand Bill’s relation to grunge, the factual error made in the above statement becomes far less important than the meanings attached to this memory. While the knowledge of objective facts is generally considered superior to other types of knowing in modern society, memories are often more related to subjective events and contain sensations, emotions and other less tangible elements. A focus on memory which is only concerned with its accuracy will miss this more subjective aspect of remembering. A memory that is factually inaccurate still holds meanings for an individual or group – and the inaccuracy itself might be related to the meanings contained within it, or itself serve a specific purpose (Bluck, 2003; Kuhn, 2000). Memories can also shift and change over time. This malleability of memory serves an important social function: Society from time to time obligates people not just to reproduce in thought previous events of their lives, but also to touch them up, to shorten them, or to complete them so that, however convinced we are that our memories are exact, we give them a prestige that reality did not possess. (Halbwachs, 1992, p. 51)

We are given an ability to reshape and revisit our memories in a way that means it is less likely that the past will be incongruent with our current identity and circumstances. On occasions during interviews, comments were made by respondents that made this process more explicit. For example, Bertha initially states that she cannot remember the circumstances under which she heard about Kurt Cobain’s death, but then goes on to give a fairly detailed account, before ending by indicating her continuing uncertainty: Do you remember where you were when you heard that he’d died? I don’t, actually, no I don’t. I think I was at school when it actually happened, and my mum I think told me when I got home from school – ‘oh, you know that guy you like? He’s dead, they found him dead’, and I’m like oh my god! So yeah, and then all the newspaper clippings started coming out and I read about it, but I’m pretty sure I was at school when it sort of happened, and I think my mum actually told me.

Bertha’s actual memory of this event appears to be incomplete, yet she still attempts to provide a ‘story’ for the interview, a story with the features that might be expected in relaying these events.


63

Anderson (2004, p. 12) notes that it is important to understand how vague, unformed memories (as discussed above) are translated into words and given an account or reflected upon. Most of the information presented in interviews was in the form of clearly articulated narratives based on factual knowledge. Clear, socially determined narrative forms provide a method for people to shift memory from the experiential and sensory to the propositional, or from a process of naming to that which is named, in order for it to be more easily shared with others. Bertha’s response shows the way that we use narrative frames to shape what we say to others about our memories. As Halbwachs and others (for example, Connerton, 1989; Jedlowski, 2001) have theorized, the narrative forms that we give to our memories reflect the conventional and authorized ways of telling stories that we are taught from childhood. Stories such as these need a beginning, a middle and an end, and are focused on events deemed to be socially important. The Popular Memory Group (1982) discusses how particular incidents are given precedence in the stories people tell. In their example, a respondent’s ‘first job’ became a focal point in a study on class relations, and they discovered that this story was almost always told by respondents, and that certain elements reoccurred in most people’s telling of this story, thus creating a narrative of ‘the first job’. For my study, the two main narratives were ‘the first time [important music] was heard’ and ‘the death of Kurt Cobain’. For instance, Bertha’s response above could be read as an attempt to construct a narrative around the death, even though one did not really exist for her. The context in which these stories were told – a formal interview – is likely to have encouraged such structured narrative forms (Jedlowski, 2001, p. 32), and the questions that were asked would have resulted in certain narratives being given precedence over others. Narratives involving the first listen almost always contain the following elements: where the respondent was, when they heard the music, who they were with and their initial feelings and reactions: First time I heard the album was, this friend had come back to [town] and there was a couple of us, and we were driving around in my car and he said ‘here, put this on’, and, yeah, listened to it driving around. (Claud) I heard it in the car on the way back from the beach. One of my friends had a tape, and we were just like ‘wow, what’s this?’, so yeah … (Ginny) I still remember the moment, as people probably often tell you stories about, I still remember the moment I heard ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. I was riding in the back of a car – I was actually trying to look like Vanilla Ice back in those days – but I was riding back in the car with some other young people that I knew from TAFE, we were all going to the shittiest – well, [town] only had shitty nightclubs – and listening to the shittiest music, and it was all really sad, you know. … So I heard that song, just heard this wild man screaming through this AM radio, this shitty little tinny speakers in this little car as we were heading off to some, off


64

to the beach or somewhere, the usual stuff, and everyone – it just struck me that everyone I was hanging out with, and there were some people who had some pretty narrow experiences and formed some fairly narrow opinions with me. In the country there’s often less choice so less experience for you to broaden your horizons as far as perspective on any given opinions and things. So these guys, I noticed everyone liked it, and they wouldn’t normally, you know, I mean normally they would hate this sort of stuff, so why did they like this song? It just hit me, just the power in Kurt’s voice and just hearing it you go ‘yeah!’, it pushes your yeah button, you know, and you go ‘wow!’ (Gordon)

This last quote from Gordon is particularly telling, as he adopts the standard narrative form that includes where he was, who he was with and the significance of the event. He also acknowledges the importance of accounts such as this in his expectation that ‘people probably often tell you stories about’ their first encounter with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. These quotes also contain other points of similarity. For example, other people are central to these accounts, as is the context in which the song is heard – in all of these cases, on a stereo in a car. The centrality of the media through which music is encountered is discussed further below. This discussion of how memory ‘played out’ in interviews furthers the discussion of the social nature of memory begun in Chapter 2, and highlights some of the main concerns that need to be taken into consideration when memory is a focus of research. Memory is malleable, is not always easily articulated and, when spoken, often takes narrative forms that are considered more acceptable by society, or that a speaker considers appropriate for the situation they are in, which may limit what is said about an experience. By focusing on memory itself, these issues can become sources of data rather than methodological problems, and what respondents said about grunge has been analysed with these issues in mind. Memory and Media As noted earlier, the respondents in this study have gained most of their knowledge of grunge not from the first-hand experience of being a direct participant in the grunge scene, but through reports in the mass media. Furthermore, music is today most often encountered in a mediated form, through recordings and technology, rather than in ‘live’, unmediated situations. It is therefore necessary to examine how memories are created through the use of mediated objects, and to ask how collective memories are shaped by media reports. Beyond memories based in lived experience ‘lies a much larger territory of mediated past, the territory we have in focus when looking at collective memory’ (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994, p. 19). However, Halbwachs believed that collective memory would disappear in advanced societies. He saw capitalism as being responsible for this decline, which would occur firstly through the simplification of collective memory due to the specialization within society that makes fewer


65

memories relevant to many people. It would also decline through the ‘destruction of a social framework that ensured the transmission of collective memories from one generation to the next’ (Misztal, 2003, p. 46), that is, the decline of ‘traditional’ groups based in shared identities, such as class, and the increased disconnection of individuals from one another. However, while Halbwachs and others have suggested that collective forms of remembering might begin to decline in a globalized media-driven society, other theorists have suggested ways in which new ways of remembering are developing around these very forces. Concerns such as those raised by Halbwachs have been echoed by writers such as Andreas Huyssen (1995). However, Huyssen argues that as modern society continues to change and global communication increasingly erases our ties to the space and communities around us, the past is not necessarily obliterated but can be a way to hold on to identities while everything else is changing. The past, after all, seems safe from change and upheaval. For Huyssen the media encourages amnesia as a part of the cycle of consumption, constantly offering up new and exciting stimuli and encouraging the abandonment of the old, or else re-appropriating the old as the new. This tends, however, to disconnect the old from the signs and referents it possessed before and make it appear to be free of history. According to writers like Huyssen, our continued interest in memory is at least partly due to the increased pace with which life is moving, away from the past and into an uncertain future (see also Radstone, 2000). Although there may be places where our relationship with memory is changing as society ‘speeds up’, in relation to culture Huyssen’s ideas of amnesia are perhaps less appropriate. If Bourdieu’s explanations of the way in which cultural fields always return to what has come before are taken into consideration, then this is less a disconnection from history than a continuation of an ongoing cycle where the past is drawn into the present in new forms. Other theorists have suggested that, rather than memory being deployed as a force destroyed by or resisting consumerism, memory and consumerism can become tied together in new ways. As George Lipsitz (1990, p. 5) has argued: Time, history, and memory become qualitatively different concepts in a world where electronic mass communication is possible. Instead of relating to the past through a shared sense of place or ancestry, consumers of electronic mass media can experience a common heritage with people they have never seen; they can acquire memories of a past to which they have no geographic or biological connection. This capacity of electronic mass communication to transcend time and space creates instability by disconnecting people from past traditions, but it also liberates people by making the past less determinate of experiences in the present.

This idea of experiencing a ‘common heritage with people never seen’ is directly relevant to the respondents in this study, who share a common understanding of grunge without having come into contact with each other.

66


Lipsitz argues that culture is often misrepresented as a conservative force, as agency is obscured by the creation of reified structures, or by ‘presenting culture as a way for societies to stabilize themselves as total systems’ (Lipsitz, 1990, p. 102), which ignores the fact that different elements of culture speak to the dominant and the disaffected in different ways. Culture and the media are not simply vehicles for dominant memory as is sometimes portrayed, especially as popular culture can be given radically different interpretations by different audience members (see also Frith, 1987). A further argument for why the respondents to this study can be considered a collectivity rather than a group of individuals is that their positioning at the time of grunge was such that they received similar meanings from the same objects, and this similarity has been maintained over time. As van Dijck (2006, p. 367) notes: Memories attached to songs are hardly individual responses per se; recorded music gets perceived and evaluated through collective frameworks for listening and appreciation. Individual memories almost invariably arise in the context of social practices, [which] appear almost inseparable from the memory of actual songs; as a sign of their time, popular songs create a context for reminiscence.

Further, in his discussion of how ordinary artefacts can be powerful sites of memory van Dijck (2004, p. 261) points out that ‘both memory and media constitute intermediaries between individual and society, and between past and present’. He shows how people use the media to construct their sense of self, and how it makes commonality no longer something necessarily connected to locality. Van Dijck argues that people both ‘produce their own memory documents and … are active collectors of mediated culture’ (2004, p. 273) that can ‘fuse’ with lived memory, or alter as the person changes. An example from the interviews shows how this process can happen. Roger provides an account that conflates his own initial reaction, memories of listening to radio reports happening at the time, his reaction when re-listening to those same reports ten years later and his continued emotional response in a way that shows the complicated relationship between these: Do you remember when Kurt Cobain died? Yeah. How did you react to that? I was listening yesterday or the day before, [radio station] Triple J are playing a thing, 30 years in 30 days or something like that […] and they said they were playing a clip from however many years ago, and it’s actually been ten years since Kurt committed suicide in 2004, and they replayed the first news story, they played the first announcement on, they played the same opening theme to their news and, you know, Kurt Cobain was found dead by an electrician, and that was, that grabbed me, I listened to the whole story, and they had interviews. When Kurt Cobain … I never really experienced death in the family, and, and I still haven’t. To me, Kurt Cobain dying was probably the closest thing I’ll ever get to it, so far. It was … I felt like crying, and I still feel like it now, but it’s


67

weird. It’s someone that I didn’t know, I just liked his music, I never saw him live, and I think, shit, he’s gone. And I had a feeling of being lost, like I didn’t know, I didn’t know what was going to happen next – what do I do was one of the thoughts that came to my mind quickly, what do I do, you know, what’s going to happen now? […] So, even now, I think about it, like, you asked me – I don’t know if you could pick it up on the microphone or not, but I got a bit teary there, when I just … just sitting in the car, it was even…

The mediated culture here is not a ‘collected’ item as van Dijck discussed, but something Roger was exposed to unexpectedly. However, this account still shows these processes of the ‘fusing’ of personal experience in the past with the present and with cultural objects. The images and sounds that form the basis of the interviews conducted for this study come from the same places and therefore provide a common ground for the memories of respondents. Respondents’ encounters with grunge were also enabled through similar technological means, which provides another aspect to shared meanings. As van Dijck (2006, p. 358) notes: ‘people become aware of their emotional and affective memories by means of technologies, and surprisingly often, the enabling apparatus becomes part of the recollecting experience.’ The experiences of some respondents who heard ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ for the first time on car stereos when driving with friends is an example of how technology becomes part of memories. As technology changes, shared memories of older forms of technology can become part of collective memories. For example, when respondents mention hearing Nirvana on a tape, this helps to position them in a certain time frame, a time when tape players were easily accessible (as they may not have been in earlier times) and before tapes were superseded by CDs and MP3 players. One of the notable aspects of the interviews was how mediated cultural items were not only used to invoke memories, but were also central to memories discussed by respondents. For example, the video clip to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is one of the first memories mentioned in relation to the song by eight respondents. Indeed, in some cases it is fundamental to the ‘first time I heard the song’ narrative: I know that that was my experience, when I first saw it, was just that all of a sudden this whole world opened up to me about things that I hadn’t seen. Do you remember when that was? I remember seeing it. It was on … crap, what show was it? Video Hits I think. I used to watch [late night music programme] Rage of an evening, it could have possibly been on Rage late one night, or it could have been on Video Hits first thing on a Saturday morning, and all I just remember is that it literally blew me away. (Adrian) I saw the video, the first time I heard it I saw the video as well, and just seeing him on stage where he’s growling and the hair hanging down and the pom poms and everything, and it was like, this is fucking cool. I can’t remember the exact date, but I just remember loving it straight away. (Isaac)

68


Michelle goes beyond the video to bring in other cultural elements such as radio and record stores: First of all I think of the video, I think of [radio station] Triple J playing it heaps, I think of going into Impact Records and getting Nevermind as an import and there being heaps of people in the shop that were just going ‘Yeah, that song, that song …’, how massive it was, being in the States and turning on the telly and it was on all the time. (Michelle)

This suggests that respondents’ memories of grunge are comprised of input from many different cultural and social sources, not all of which were able to be incorporated into this study to the same degree. While these individuals have had their own unique encounters with these sources and have constructed them differently, they are still essentially working from the same palette of materials containing limited possibilities for interpretation. Finally, media reports of grunge in magazines, on television and on radio gave respondents most of their basic knowledge of what grunge was, where it came from and who it involved. This will be discussed in more depth in the following three chapters, where it will be demonstrated that, although media reports shape respondents’ knowledge, they do not dictate meaning and can be contested. One example of how media reports help to reinforce the meaning of events and can possibly be conflated with the memories of individuals is found in examining respondents’ discussion of the gig Nirvana played at the Uni Bar of the Australian National University in Canberra during their Australian tour of 1991–92. Respondents’ accounts of this gig focus on the size of the crowd and the events that occurred when people who were denied entrance to the show broke in: They played here in Canberra, and that gig was kind of scary, frightening but really good and amazing and heaps of people and never seen anything like the crowd at the uni, so yeah, that’s what, when I think grunge I think mostly of Nirvana and […] seeing them play in Canberra and there being thousands of people outside the gig and the uni being … well, it felt like thousands of people, anyway, there were so many people outside, and then inside was just crammed. (Michelle) I remember when they played at the uni, and there was about 3,000 people outside, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that normally happens in Canberra, where if something’s really big you’ve got this – it’s really cool, you’ve got all these people that are really into it that are really pissed off that all these thousand fuckwits have shown up. That wasn’t the case, and it was a pretty good scene, it was bizarre, it was very strange. (Murray) Yeah, and they booked them in, and in between booking them in and having the concert they’d gone number 1, and that night was just insane, there were


69

people breaking the door down, and it was really a riot, you know, and it was just the release of that single, it just really, a lot of … it just really struck people, a lot of people identified with it, obviously, and, yeah. I mean it was a great pop song, but it was also grunge, so, you know, and everyone just sort of embraced it. (Joyce)

This event was reported on a local news broadcast, with the emphasis of the report being on the size of the crowd and their behaviour, and even included footage of one of the respondents quoted here. While it is not clear whether these respondents saw this news report at the time, such reports reinforce certain elements of an event in people’s minds and increase the likelihood of those elements being discussed and hence further reinforced in people’s memories. With this understanding of how media can help to shape memory, I will now give a more in-depth discussion of how respondents defined grunge. Respondents’ Definitions of Grunge Respondents’ definitions of grunge and the meanings that they associate with it are highly consistent across the group. Their definitions are also closely aligned with the media reports on grunge from the time (and over time, as media accounts have since remained consistent on certain major points, which will be discussed below). As will be demonstrated through comparisons with data from the previous chapter, respondents relied on the media to construct grunge for them, although they related it to their own lives and experiences in different ways. One of the questions asked of respondents was: ‘If you had to, how would you define grunge?’ Their responses can be broadly categorized as containing four elements: musical, geographical, temporal and cultural. In combination with an understanding of which specific bands were described as grunge by respondents, these produce an overall picture from which there is no significant disagreement from any individual respondent. This suggests that the basic definition of ‘what grunge is’ is highly consistent among the group interviewed. These definitions also correspond very closely to the media accounts discussed in the previous chapter. However, they are less closely aligned with, but not entirely different to, the academic views discussed in Chapter 1, and unsurprisingly do not reflect the negative view which academics take of grunge. The parallels between the media definitions and those of respondents are hardly surprising, as music media and music fans interact closely and are influenced heavily by each other (Thornton, 1995). This definition can be extracted out of the collective responses of the subjects. However, few respondents discussed all four of the features that were central to the definition. For example, some described only what the music sounded like, while others did not try to describe the music at all, but instead described other associated cultural objects such as clothes or the drugs they thought were connected to grunge.


70

Geographical and Temporal Elements Like the media, respondents associate grunge with a specific geographical location – Seattle (or the American North-west) – and a particular time – the ‘early 90s’.2 I suppose it’s, it’s sort of guitar music that came out of Seattle in that period [around 1992], I suppose is the strict definition of it. (Joyce) I guess it originated in Seattle, that sort of workers’ sound or something, from the background of industrial Seattle. (Kaye) It’s obviously West Coast America, early 90s. (Ginny)

While no respondents attempt to put exact dates on the beginning and end of grunge, there is general agreement that it is no longer an ongoing musical form (partly because the cultural elements such as the fashion associated with grunge are so acutely associated with this particular point in time). In the words of Missy, ‘it’s a period of time that’s pretty much been and gone’. The only exceptions to this are Louisa, who locates grunge in an earlier time frame than anyone else (describing bands such as Nirvana as ‘post-grunge’) and Lily, who is the only respondent to explicitly describe grunge as an ongoing musical form. In terms of the location of grunge, Figure 4.1 shows that all but one of the bands which respondents identify as grunge are North American, and are almost all from the Seattle region. The sole non-US band is Silverchair, an Australian group mentioned only by Seth. Hence, the collective memory of respondents concerning where and when grunge occurred is almost completely consistent across the group, and shows considerable agreement with the way grunge was constructed by the NME. Musical Elements The musical elements discussed by respondents are at times very specific. For example, Percy (himself a musician) says: Ok, so grunge in a definition would be four chords, a DS distortion pedal, a loud raucous guitar amp and a couple of guys who have only been playing for six months (laughs).

Guitars – loud, distorted guitars – are the key feature in how the music is described: 2 Such a temporal definition was not found in the media reports from the NME, because at the time it was not necessary. More recent media reports do use a similar temporal definition.


71

They just had good pop tunes with heavy distorted guitars I guess, and louder stuff. I don’t think there was any one particular style I guess, that you could say ‘oh, that’s grunge’. I guess maybe just the loud distorted guitars and the shouting maybe. (Michelle)

However, rather than actually trying to describe the exact sound of grunge, most respondents try to describe it by reference to other types of music or musical genres. Some respondents make unexpected comparisons. For example, Arthur compares it to blues music and Julie describes it as a ‘fusion of metal and folk’. However, the comparisons made most often are to punk and/or heavy metal. For example, Gordon says grunge is ‘downtuned, kind of like punk but slower, or metal but slower’. The fact that grunge drew heavily on elements of earlier musical styles, particularly punk, did not change its status as ‘new’, as this type of return to or reliance on the past is a common feature of cultural fields. According to Bourdieu (1993a, p. 109), such returns: ‘are always apparent returns, since they are separated from what they rediscover by a negative reference to something which was itself the negation … of what they rediscover (when, that is, the intention is not simply of pastiche, a parody which presupposes all the intervening history).’ These returns are more than a simple rediscovery or replaying of something that has gone before. In the same way that a full understanding of an artist’s meanings is impossible, these rediscoveries are being played out in different circumstances to those of the original, and thus even a direct copy will have different meanings to those producing and consuming it due to the temporal and spatial shifts in symbolic meaning of the components of the art. So while punk is the most common point of comparison by respondents, such comparisons are always tempered with a discussion of what made grunge different to punk. Louisa calls it an ‘offshoot of the punk movement’ and Martin (unusually) describes it as ‘kind of like happy punk’: I think it’s all about the underlying thing in punk rock, it’s a form of expression but at the same time it’s heavy, it’s dark, basically heavy and dark is how I would describe it with an underlying punk rock influence of self-expression, that’s how I look at grunge. (Dudley) So if you had to, how would you define grunge? I guess it had … I guess when I first heard what ended up being called grunge, I sort of would have described it as … kids that were into the ethics of punk rock and the lack of professionalism, but also having a wider musical background to draw from, because I sort of found that it was loud and at times fast or obnoxious or whatever, and had things that punk certainly had, but it also could go into acoustic and things like heavy metal influences. So I guess it’s sort of a punk approach to a wider expanse of rock music. (James)

72


Furthermore, where elements of punk were incorporated into grunge, this was done with the knowledge (at least for the producers) that the original punk movement was itself eventually commercialized and co-opted. It has been argued that this consciousness of the eventual commercialization of ‘authentic’ music contributed to the ironic element in grunge (Weinstein, 1995). This is not, however, a view found among respondents, who discuss punk in positive terms and position grunge as a rediscovery or continuation of the rebelliousness found in punk: I see punk as being purely a reaction to the corporatization of rock, where we ended up at a stage in the late 70s of very much manufactured music, and what I call ‘McDonald’s Music’, it sounded like it came off a production line. And punk came along to prove that anyone could pick up an instrument and bash away. I saw grunge as being the same, a similar kind of movement. (Patrick)

However, respondents’ discussion of punk, for most, suggests a more remote form of music that they do not describe in the same emotional or connected terms as grunge. Their understanding of punk is more based in ‘facts’ or ‘history’ than memory; grunge is what they imagine punk might have been like if they had been around to experience it: I mean it was like you’ve got the punk revolution of the 70s, where it was like ‘fuck you, we’re gonna do what we want’ and to me I guess it was like the 90s version of that. (Percy) I guess it was an attitude, and the music got all dirty and came out of the polished 80s, hair bands and metal bands and it was all just so, it got ridiculous, those guys just looked like 50-year-old women, and I really liked that grunge came along and, I guess like punk did in the 70s, when everything was bloated and disco and all that. (Barney)

This both demonstrates a collective understanding of what punk is that conceives of it in ‘classic’ terms as the 1970s movement (in the same way that it is often understood in academia), and provides an area of connection between field theory and theories of collective memory. Change in fields is premised upon a common understanding of what came earlier in the field – in this case their composition in terms of sound and so on – that allows for a comparison over time and for new meanings to be bestowed on emerging cultural forms. Participants in the field experience these changes on an emotional, embodied level and it is this interaction of memory and habitus that makes such change meaningful (as will be discussed further below). In terms of providing a more specific definition of what was included in grunge, respondents gave names of bands they considered to be grunge (and where this information was not volunteered, as it was in most cases, it was probed for).


Figure 4.1

73

Bands labelled as ‘grunge’ by respondents

As can be seen in Figure 4.1, only 23 bands were mentioned, with ten of these being mentioned by fewer than five respondents. Nirvana is mentioned by almost every respondent, with Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains being mentioned between 15 and 28 times each, suggesting there is significant agreement on the inclusion of these five bands in the label ‘grunge’. This again demonstrates a very high degree of agreement among respondents as to who are considered to be grunge bands and indicates the existence of collective memories of the movement. Although respondents were not asked who they did not consider to be grunge (as this would have been an absurdly open-ended question to ask), a number did name bands they thought were not grunge (Figure 4.2). These bands labelled by respondents as ‘not grunge’ are particularly interesting, as they assist in determining where the limits of the genre might lie. Presumably these bands are mentioned because there is the possibility that they might be considered to be grunge. No respondent mentions The Beatles or Mariah Carey because there is no prospect of anyone attempting to include them under the grunge label. However, the bands in this list that are not included in both lists – Pixies, Primus and Red Hot Chili Peppers – enjoyed success during the same time period as the grunge bands, and play a similar style of music based in hard rock. All of these bands (including the bands definitely labelled as ‘grunge’) could possibly be subsumed under the label ‘alternative’ (see Kruse, 2003). Many of the bands mentioned in the list of non-grunge bands are also those who had been, at least initially, denied the grunge label by journalists in the NME on the grounds that they were just marketed as grunge and were chasing

74

Figure 4.2


Bands excluded from ‘grunge’ by respondents

easy commercial success – most notably, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. The tendency for more respondents to exclude Pearl Jam than any other band shows agreement with the exclusion of Pearl Jam from grunge in the media, although for these respondents the shift that occurred within the media from being more negative and excluding Pearl Jam to being more positive and inclusive of them has not occurred for all respondents. As with respondents’ continued adherence to the perception that they had of Kurt Cobain during his lifetime that will be discussed in Chapter 5, a less malleable relationship with grunge than exists in the media is demonstrated, suggesting that the influence which the media might have on people’s perceptions and definitions of a genre like grunge may be limited to the early (formative) stages of the genre and that it is this period that is most important in shaping memories. However, it is also true in this case that criticism can often be as effective in bringing something into a field as praise (Bourdieu, 1993a, p. 42), and from the accounts of respondents it can be argued that this may have been the case for these bands, who are also some of those most often included as grunge bands. As noted in the section on the media construction of grunge, an important aspect of defining grunge is to understand what it is not. Bourdieu argued that as there is constant change within artistic fields, a new movement that is arising needs to have something that makes it unique and interesting. A successful new movement makes the transition from a marginal, contested position to one that is accepted and provides the definition (or part thereof) of the broader field. As a new artistic field arises, it will define itself in opposition to that which has immediately


75

preceded it, but also by referencing earlier movements (as demonstrated in the discussion of punk above). This is particularly necessary as that which has recently become accepted becomes more and more widely known, producing a requirement for more privileged knowledge that will allow audiences to maintain the distance between themselves and others. For grunge, the movement that held this position was ‘hair metal’, as discussed earlier with regards to media comparisons of grunge bands with bands such as Guns’n’Roses and other exemplars of the ‘hair metal’ style, including Poison and Mötley Crüe. ‘Hair metal’, which acted as the main ‘other’ to grunge, had been oppositional to broader social values in encouraging hedonism. While ‘hair metal’ took consumption to the extreme, grunge (explicitly) rejected commerce. Hair metal style centred on being extremely well made-up and dressed, while grunge emphasized dressing down (although in no less a stylized manner). The subject matter in hair metal songs dealt with women, parties and living the good life (Sloat, 1998), while grunge lyrics were more introspective, ‘dark’ and more often dealt with social issues (see Mohan and Malone, 1994). The musical style of hair metal valorized virtuosity in performance, with songs containing extended guitar solos and elaborate vocal performances. Grunge, by contrast, had a much simpler music style (although some bands like Soundgarden had more in common with metal bands in this regard). Respondents also comment on this oppositional quality of grunge in regards to ‘hair metal’: Can you say why grunge appealed to you? I enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t that 80s hair band, like the make-up and, it was ridiculous. It wasn’t saying anything that I could relate to I guess … It certainly brought, revived rock and roll and guitar music I think, which is a … again, those big hair bands, and shreds, shred was, I think it had become gymnastics as opposed to music a bit, a lot of guitar music which was prior to grunge was like metal and it was getting a bit silly, the music was just becoming maths and gymnastics, who could play the fastest and all that sort of stuff, so I think grunge brought back songwriting and soul and vibe a bit to music. (Barney) I think it was a response, a lot of it, was just to the over sort of imaged and structured and produced music that was coming out at the time, people got sick of it. It seems pretty obvious, maybe, when you think about it now, but you go from fucking, what was it, bloody tight-arsed spandex and coked up rock bitches to shoe gazers with really self-destructive tendencies and drug habits, which, you know, is similar to some extent, but they were coming from different ends of the spectrum. It just seemed the whole grunge thing was more DIY, sort of thing, where Mötley Crüe and all that, they were all just guys, they would have started off playing in their basements just like any other rock band, but I think they really really really really always wanted to be famous, they wanted to be knee deep in bitches, so to speak, but Cobain and all his cohorts, at the start

76

Grunge: Music and Memory seemed to me that they were, they would be happy playing to the same old stoner friends just in some shack somewhere, but, as they kept saying, every kid started listening. (Drew) I reckon it was a reaction to the music that was around at the time, you know, the end of bands like Mötley Crüe and Metallica were absolutely gigantic, but, you know, the hair, hair metal had died really, by that, was really on the way out and people were looking for something new that was heavy and you could get into and wasn’t, I guess, dance or anything. People who wanted guitar-based music were looking for something new at the time, and it really catered well, because Nirvana’s really so simple and so, so sort of lowest common denominator sort of pop stuff, it’s really really really basic and it really appealed to lots of people – it appealed to me too, you know, still like it. (Dylan)

In these quotes, the respondents indicate (retrospectively) that they were aware at the time of one ‘cycle’ of music coming to an end. They say, for instance, that people were ‘sick of it’ or were looking for something else, showing an awareness of the constant change within these fields. They also locate grunge firmly within a particular tradition of music, that which is guitar based, ‘heavy’ sounding, and not, as Dylan points out, ‘dance or anything like that’. Such responses again reflect what was said in the media about the position of grunge in relation to preceding musical forms. Respondents can also be seen to be creating or relating memory narratives in these quotes, where they are describing a logical progression of music from one ‘end of the spectrum’ to the other. This narrative may originate in the media, but it gives form to the changes in tastes that respondents experienced or observed. Other respondents, however, who have not previously had much experience with heavier musical styles, contrast grunge to ‘commercial’ popular music more generally: I think there was a reaction to very over-produced record company kind of music, like the 80s seems really dominated by pop music, which is all about people throwing lots of money and producing pop stars, and grunge was much more of a ‘we like playing music, we like listening to certain bands, we just want to play music and we’ll have a gig somewhere and if people come that’s great, and if they don’t who cares’, and that whole attitude kind of made it much more … there was quite a bit more integrity in it because it wasn’t about being a pop star, being Kylie, selling millions of records, it just happened to kind of capture a mood that people were interested in at the time. (Ginny) I think the other thing I enjoyed about it was that when I looked at the film clip to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ it was so different to everything else that was on. This is going to sound kind of funny … it’s like a good and an evil … this is going to be really amusing … everybody jokes about it, the ‘I like big butts’ song, it got


77

banned at the time or near enough to that time and it was kind of funny that the record companies were selling so much sex in that way, and then there was the cheerleaders in the Nirvana film clip and it was dingy cheerleaders, it was, the way it was, the film clip was really brown and really dirty, and the thing about it was it was meant to be dirty, it was made to be that way, and everything else around the time, things like MC Hammer were so disturbing I guess when you look back on it, because they were so pristine and crystal clean and there was nothing dirty about it at all, and I suppose in some ways it was kind of violating because it was clean. (Adrian)

This suggests that the oppositional qualities of grunge are seen by some as being related to what came temporally before it and was now in the process of being replaced (hair metal). For others the opposition was to the more constant field of popular music which surrounded grunge and to which it was oppositional throughout its existence. The connections between authenticity and autonomy can be seen in these quotes, with the idea that grunge musicians were really ‘only playing for themselves’ being associated with ‘integrity’. Thus, respondents give very similar accounts of the musical elements of grunge, which are built more around the relationship that grunge held with other musical genres. This in some cases refers to genres that grunge is seen as being similar to but not identical with, such as punk, or those that grunge is seen as being oppositional to, such as ‘hair metal’ and ‘commercial’ music more generally. Although respondents use different frames of reference for grunge, a consistent picture emerges from their accounts of grunge as a field. However, grunge is not only described in terms of its musical elements; cultural elements are at least equally important. Cultural Elements Respondents identify a number of cultural elements they consider to be of particular importance, including particular values and attitudes, and drug use. The most discussed cultural element is the visual aspect of grunge, and the clothing associated with it, most specifically the dressed-down look of flannelette shirts and (torn) jeans: I don’t know, you think of Seattle, a bunch of messy haired guys not wearing any shoes, and with tatty jeans or a cardigan on, something weird like that, it’s like daggy for the sake of being daggy, yeah. (Seth)

Eighteen respondents also think drugs were central to a ‘grunge lifestyle’. In particular, respondents mention heroin, marijuana and alcohol as being the particular drugs associated with the grunge scene: What you did was you went to pubs a lot, drank a lot of beer, took a lot of drugs, that was very heavy in the pot scene. (Arthur)

78

Grunge: Music and Memory I would probably say that people who listen to grunge probably smoke pot. Ok, yeah – was that something you did? Yeah. And I think that it had a lot to do with it, because you would, you’d sit at home, you’d smoke your joints and whatever and then you would relax and listen to your music, and I think that you associate grunge with pot smoking. (Clara)

However, all these elements are brought together by respondents trying to express a feel for an overall grunge lifestyle: I don’t think you’d get someone who was in love with grunge out on a Saturday night chewing down ecstasy pills and stuff like that, I just think that that … I’m sure there are people that do, but it’s not really the lifestyle, it’s more hanging out with your friends, having a drink, smoking pot, whatever, it’s more natural and organic, almost, the music’s more organic because it’s from real instruments and stuff. (Rita) I’d say it’s stoner music, and I’d say it’s, um, it’s, just the images that come to mind are Nirvana, and people smoking bongs and ripped jeans with flannies tied around your waist, like it’s just a, I think it’s a very, a much more casual and laid back style of music, or even, like, approach to life than a lot of others. I don’t think it’s as clean and neat and defined as a lot of things, I think it’s a period of time that’s pretty much been and gone. (Missy)

The most common themes in respondents’ descriptions of cultural elements of grunge (aside from the music) are therefore fashion elements such as flannel and a casual/ unkempt look, the taking of depressant drugs and alcohol, and the idea of a ‘laid back’ lifestyle unconcerned with the pursuit of ‘success’ in the way it is defined by ‘mainstream’ society (the field of power). While drugs and, more often, alcohol were mentioned in the NME, they were not a major focus of what was written. This is unsurprising, as there is doubtless a need for circumscription when discussing such matters in the press, especially in relation to illegal substances. Respondents’ discussions of drugs are more about their own drug-taking than that of musicians. In fact, all cultural elements are discussed as they relate to the respondents’ own lives, in that these are the clothes they were wearing, the drugs some were taking, and the values they were adhering to. So while these accounts do not differ significantly from the media accounts, they are more to do with lived, bodily experience (that is, drug consumption, clothes and a sedentary pose) than the discussion of who grunge bands were and where they came from. This demonstrates that despite the media influence in the construction of grunge, respondents’ understanding of it goes beyond ‘factual’ knowledge to impact on their daily lives. This supports the idea that we are dealing with ‘collective memories’, in the sense that Halbwachs set out, whereby those involved are emotionally connected to the object of memory.


79

In addition to the above discussion of grunge being seen as oppositional to that which immediately preceded it in the field of hard rock and the overall field of commercialized popular music, the final level on which respondents see grunge as being oppositional is to society on the whole (that is, the field of power): Maybe it was slightly a bit rebellious, to the lifestyle I’d come from with my family and their sort of values and my school, that was very anti – well, to me it seemed very anti that sort of way of life. (Shelly) I know it’s a contradiction, but it was for people that didn’t want to be considered norm-like, your normal everyday kind of growing up goody-two-shoes kind of kid, or they didn’t want to be the opposite of that, like … I remember the rap thing got really big around that time too, and everyone was walking around with big baggy jeans, and it was either, you were in that rap group or you were in this other, kind of really goody-two-shoes, and grunge was like an identity for everyone else in the middle that didn’t want to be labelled as one little thing, and it was like you’d be your own person, and you wouldn’t care what people were saying, telling you to listen to, like the radio was saying you’ve got to listen to the Spice Girls, and you’d be like, urr, can’t be bothered, you know? (Jeremy)

For example, the word ‘anti-establishment’ is used by eight separate people, and comments are made such as: It was anti-society, anti-establishment, and I guess anti-life in some instances (Arthur) Just trying maybe to push yourself, to do good … to see how far you can go in whatever direction you’re interested in but not necessarily in the … what’s commonly thought to be success. (Donald)

This last quote by Donald raises the point that grunge was not simply a rejection of broader societal values, nor a rebellion for the sake of rebelling, as youth cultures can sometimes be portrayed, but an active struggle for control over the definition of important things. For example, here Donald highlights what for him seemed to be a contest over the very meaning of ‘success’, which in grunge terms was dislocated from material wealth and was more associated with ‘pushing yourself’ to do well at what you see as important. According to the schema set out by Bourdieu (1993a, p. 41), this redefinition occurs within any field of cultural production: The struggle in the field of cultural production over the imposition of the legitimate mode of cultural production is inseparable from the struggle within the dominant class (with the opposition between ‘artists’ and ‘bourgeois’) to

80

Grunge: Music and Memory impose the dominant principle of domination (that is to say – ultimately – the definition of human accomplishment).

Although Bourdieu felt that, given the strength of the field of power, outside the smaller field such attempts at redefinition are at best only partially successful, elements of this struggle can be seen in many of the comments that respondents made about the ‘values’ and ‘attitudes’ of grunge and the oppositional position that it originally held or was perceived to hold, even as it became part of the mainstream. In this way we can see that although respondents rarely mention any explicitly political agenda of grunge or grunge bands, they see the values it espouses as standing in opposition to wider society. This demonstrates further the way in which academic accounts of grunge have sidelined the political potential of the movement. As will be shown in following chapters, an interest in or adherence to such values has impacted on respondents’ lives in various ways, even though for the most part this struggle is seen as lost. Respondents also show an awareness of how the existence of grunge caused change within the encompassing field(s) despite their apparent opposition: I don’t know, it’s a kind of simple form of music in a way, and that’s kind of good, and I think it also allowed really daggy people to succeed in the music industry, whereas before in the 80s it was all about kind of poppy awful fashion and things like that, but now normal people … it probably paved the way for a whole heap of new music to come through and be accepted readily, even though it was dirtier and more raw and stuff, I guess. (Janie)

The effects of the success of grunge are further reflected in discussions of the commercialization/authenticity duality as seen in the media reports. This is given a different meaning by respondents than is found in the critical reading published by the NME. One of the most agreed-upon points across respondents is that the success of grunge was ultimately a ‘good thing’, and they are not as critical as the media (or academics) of the commercial processes that allowed this success. This opinion comes from a very pragmatic place: the respondents repeatedly express an awareness of the fact that, as Donald says, ‘if it hadn’t been successful I would never have heard it’. I don’t live in Seattle and I wasn’t connected to that underground scene, so I wouldn’t have heard of any of this at all, and you know, if it hadn’t have been successful then a lot of the stuff that’s come later (inaudible). If Nevermind had bombed then a lot of other people wouldn’t have followed, so you wouldn’t have got a lot of the other stuff that we’ve had and that I think is very good. And also I think it’s really cool and I think it kind of has a … kind of had the right type of bands at the right … if grunge hadn’t been successful then … who’s the guy who won Australian Idol? Guy Sebastian? Rather than him being successful, or people like Guns’n’Roses being successful – like, their message is ‘how many


81

girls can we shag on this tour?’, which is kind of … or ‘how much money can we make’, that kind of thing, so I think it’s good that it was successful and popular that way. But, on the other side it seemed like, and a lot of them in interviews said this, they weren’t expecting that or weren’t interested in that or weren’t asking for that kind of level of success, weren’t able to handle it and so a lot of kind of bad things happened to them personally. (Donald) I think, like I said a while ago, it just really helped kind of breach this gap between what counts as mainstream and what counts as alternative and nobody’s ever heard it. I think it was really good, it gave a lot of people an opportunity to hear stuff they wouldn’t have heard before and it gave bands an opportunity to reach an audience they wouldn’t have reached before. (Ginny) I think it’s a bit elitist to say that it’s a bad thing and it shouldn’t have been popular, it’s such a shame that it got corrupted, because I think that’s a silly thing to say often. Maybe it would have been better if it hadn’t got so big, but I think that the bands would probably have other things to say about that. (Kaye)

These quotes offer a different take on the effects of grunge than those offered by academics. Rather than emphasizing the negative way in which grunge was commercialized, they concentrate more on the changes that grunge caused as it became part of the mainstream (which most respondents acknowledge grunge eventually did). The increased choice of music available to them as a result of the success of grunge is characterized universally by respondents as positive. While this does not invalidate the concerns of academics over the increasing commercialization of areas of life previously less concerned with money, it is also worth noting that, as respondents point out, grunge was a colonizer as well as colonized. Its movement into the mainstream (the wider field of popular music) caused changes within that field that ultimately were beneficial to respondents. They were presented with greater musical choice, and the values and ideals contained in grunge also reached a wider audience than would otherwise have been possible. Rather than the commercialization of grunge being a dire harbinger of the end of ‘underground’ music, it can instead be seen as part of the ongoing cycles of art. Just as grunge was seen as a reaction against the music that preceded it, new music scenes that gained popularity in the mid-1990s were constructed as being oppositional to grunge. For example, Brit Pop has at times been presented as an upbeat, UK-centric response to grunge’s seriousness and American flavour (for example, see Bennett and Stratton, 2010). In his article on indie rock, Hibbett (2005, p. 58) continues to trace the line of succession of other rock movements, firstly positing that the emergence of indie rock was a reaction to the commercialization of grunge (which he conflates with ‘alternative’). He says: By the late eighties, the term ‘alternative’ was well in use, becoming a platitude of mainstream culture with the explosion of Seattle bands, most notably Pearl


82

Jam and Nirvana, in the early nineties. It is out of this Oedipal tradition, and in rebellion against the all-too-efficient metamorphosis of what was ‘alternative’ into something formulaic, that an indie consciousness emerged.

He then sets up the emergence of what is currently known as ‘post-rock’ as a response to ‘indie’, continuing the cycle of oppositional movements replacing each other. He demonstrates that artists still gain cultural capital through adherence to the autonomous principle (rejection of commercial success), and that these artists have continued to find ways to reject or avoid becoming part of the mainstream. In regard to memory, comments made by respondents concerning the nature of grunge show high levels of agreement within the group, suggesting the existence of collective memories among them. Respondents’ definitions are also very closely aligned with what was said in the NME at the time of grunge, both in how it was defined and in the way it was positioned in terms of wider social norms and other types of music. However, some shifting has occurred. Many more bands were defined as grunge by the NME than are named by respondents, and respondents name some bands that the NME denied the label. Of course, the NME was only one example of the way that the movement was covered, and the respondents were influenced by a wider range of media sources. Conclusion This chapter argued that the respondents in this study can be considered to hold collective memories of grunge in the sense that their accounts are similar in many important respects. They are demonstrating that despite the variable nature of meanings surrounding popular culture they have obtained similar meanings from their encounters with grunge. This raises the possibility that, rather than bringing about the decline of collective memory, mass media images and sounds can create new ways to remember collectively. Collective memory itself both reproduces social relations and power structures and provides possibilities for change, as will be demonstrated further in the following chapters. This chapter and the previous one have also attempted to use the theories of Pierre Bourdieu to explain how grunge has been positioned by fans and media, both at the time of its popularity and retrospectively. It has been demonstrated that although grunge cannot be given an unequivocal definition, there are certain cultural, musical, temporal and geographic elements associated with the movement – as well as certain bands and people – that serve as a basis for understanding what grunge is. It has also been shown that grunge found the success that it did at a specific point in time when it represented new, oppositional ideas to those prevalent in music during the time immediately preceding its rise. Grunge cannot be fully understood without understanding the social and cultural climate in which it became successful.


83

It has also been demonstrated that one of the central forces for change within grunge was the tension between the autonomous principle associated with artistic fields – the idea of ‘authenticity’ and the rejection of commercial success – and the heteronomous principle associated with the surrounding field of popular music and wider capitalist society. Both journalists and respondents identified grunge as an anti-commercial movement. While the rejection of capitalist values gained grunge bands symbolic capital with journalists and audiences who related to this attempt to redefine success, the more these audiences grew and the more positive was the press that bands received, the greater the tension became between rejecting commercial values and being commercially successful. The subsequent chapters will explore the concept of collective memory further, specifically by examining the relationships between respondents’ accounts and ‘official’ accounts of grunge, and also by examining how these memories are positioned in relation to social power in regards to age and the gender order.


Chapter 5

The Memory of Kurt Cobain The most recognizable figure of the grunge era is undoubtedly Kurt Cobain, and this chapter will deal with some of the media accounts and memories of respondents that relate to him. The centrality of Cobain to respondents’ accounts highlights the important position he holds in terms of the definition of grunge. Nirvana was the only band almost all respondents agree could be called ‘grunge’, and some go so far as to suggest that Nirvana was the only band that should be categorized as such. However, discussion of the other members of the band was limited. Cobain’s face and music have come to epitomize the grunge era, and, in fact, ‘The 90s’ more generally. As tempting as it is to give a biography of Cobain as an introduction to this discussion of him, the details of his life and death have been extensively examined in books (for example, Cross, 2001; True, 2007), magazines (such as the anniversary editions discussed in this chapter) and elsewhere (for example, the documentary About a Son (Schnack, 2006)). Sources such as these should be consulted if necessary to gain an understanding of the main events in Cobain’s life. This chapter, however, is more interested in exploring how the ‘facts’ of a person’s life can be used to support specific constructions of them, and can be different, or can be emphasized in different ways, depending on who is telling the story. Because of this, any attempt to ‘explain’ Cobain at the outset would probably work counter to the aims of the chapter. Instead, it will examine how respondents’ memories conflict with current media accounts of Cobain and asks how this might be significant to the potential for resistance in collective memory. Although the previous chapter demonstrated that respondents’ memories of grunge as a whole are very cohesive, and correspond closely to the way grunge was and is described in the print media, when it comes to Cobain, respondents’ recollections have not remained aligned with the media in the same way. It will be suggested that the requirements which the media and respondents have in the present for their memories of Cobain differ, and this promotes the construction of different accounts. Finally, it will examine how Cobain is commemorated by respondents and other groups, including community groups in his hometown of Aberdeen, and asks what significance these different forms of commemoration have for how he is remembered, who can ‘control’ his memory, and what his memory means for the identity of those involved. This chapter will demonstrate that the relationship between what people remember and how they are told to remember is hardly straightforward. Dominant and marginal accounts play off each other and those involved retain or discard what they need in order to maintain their own sense of continuity and identity.

86


Furthermore, the idea of setting up media and fans’ accounts in opposition to each other in terms of ‘official’ versus ‘collective’ memory is shown to be problematic when the media accounts are written by people who are themselves fans and fans’ memories originate in the media. Olick and Robbins (1998, p. 130) discuss how the study of reputations is related to work on memories, as ‘it concentrates in an unprecedented way on how individuals are remembered rather than how they lived’. One of the most important questions to be asked with respect to reputations is: who has a stake in wanting a person remembered in a particular way? Examining painters and classical musicians, Olick and Robbins conclude that how artists are remembered does not necessarily have anything to do with talent, and that greatness (and evil) tends to be exaggerated in retrospect. They draw on the work of Lang and Lang (1990) to explore how the symbolic usefulness of an artist (in Cobain’s case, as the ‘voice of a generation’) can be more important than their talent in whether and how they are remembered. Lang and Lang also examine the importance of death, concluding that dying at the ‘right time’ (that is, when your work is still considered important and enough people remember it, and preferably unexpectedly at a young age) is vital for the survival of artistic reputation. The circumstances of Cobain’s death (by his own hand, at a young age and at a time when he was famous and still producing music) were such that he was guaranteed to be remembered as an important figure in popular music. However, as will be shown, the way in which he is remembered differs depending on the needs of those doing the remembering. Commemoration An important aspect in the building and maintenance of collective memories is whether the subject of the memories is commemorated, and if so, how. The question of what is worthy of official commemoration on the level of the state is a highly political subject, and the space (places of commemoration, symbolic items such as statues) and time (official days of remembrance or holidays) components of commemoration are often highly contested (Carrier, 2000; Nora, 1989). However, commemoration goes beyond official events to encompass ‘the action of speaking or writing about memories, as well as the formal re-enaction of the past that we usually mean when we use the word’ (Fentress and Wickham, 1992, p. x). The question to be asked here is what place a figure of popular culture once associated with a certain form of commercialized rebellion and anti-social actions such as drug-taking and suicide holds in people’s minds, and what is happening in terms of how he is commemorated that might affect how he is perceived in the future? The concept of commemoration in its official form can be connected to the debate around the perceived division between ‘memory’ as a living, experiential thing and ‘history’ as a complete object disassociated from the subjectivity of the present, as discussed in Chapter 2 (also see Nora, 1989; Olick and Robbins,


87

1998). Depending on the type of commemoration and its object, official commemoration can serve the function of crystallizing representation in a form acceptable to certain vested interest groups, such as the government of a nation, religious groups or the military. However, commemoration can also be one of the most powerful ways of building and maintaining communities of feeling – even to the level of the nation – by involving many people in a simultaneous celebration of some aspect of their shared identity. An example of this would be holidays such as Australia Day or Anzac Day, where the public as a whole is called upon to reflect upon what the nation, or the concept of being ‘Australian’, means. Barry Schwartz (1997, p. 471), however, suggests that the relationship between history, memory and commemoration is hardly straightforward, arguing that ‘collective memory … is a representation of the past embodied in both commemorative symbolism and historical evidence’. Schwartz attempts ‘to move beyond an analysis of how commemoration differs from history, showing instead what commemoration adds to history’. Schwartz, in his in-depth examination of Abraham Lincoln and how his image has changed over the years to reflect public tastes and concerns, looked at the transformation of a man from one who was openly opposed to the establishment of equality between African and white Americans into a symbol of racial tolerance. Schwartz begins with the premise that commemoration never happens in isolation, but is ‘a system of interlocking symbols to which people turn to comprehend the world … commemorative symbols make sense of the world’s structures and activities by “keying” them to selected events of the past’ (1997, p. 471). In the past, figures in popular culture have rarely become the object of ‘official’ commemoration in the same way that figures such as Lincoln have (except in limited ways, as the discussion of Cobain’s hometown below shows). They have not generally been useful figures for nation or community building, as their association with either rebelliousness (as in the case of Cobain) or commercial interests make it harder for them to symbolize communal values in the same way that politicians, military figures or royalty may do. Popular culture has not usually been considered ‘serious’ enough to warrant official commemoration. However, it is worth noting that this may be shifting as rock musicians are increasingly seen ‘not merely as sub- or counter-cultural icons, but as key contributors to the essential character of late twentieth century culture per se and an integral aspect of the way in which this era of history is to be remembered, represented and celebrated’ (Bennett, 2008a, p. 226). This is associated with the continuing breakdown of the divide between what was once considered ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture as mass cultural forms become fundamental to how people think about themselves and their history (Bennett, 2009). However, the less official commemoration that is undertaken by fans and in the media still plays a large part in maintaining the memories of those who were a part of popular movements such as grunge and constructing a sense of what happened for those who were not involved, and it is this that will mainly be the focus of this chapter.

88


Anniversary Journalism In the absence of state-sponsored commemoration of figures such as Cobain, the most prominent form of commemoration is found in the media. In understanding how the media have come to remember Kurt Cobain, I will concentrate on the commemorative journalism that appeared around the time of the tenth anniversary of his death in 1994. The memory of popular cultural figures such as Cobain is revisited and reinforced in the media through the marking of anniversaries of important events in that person’s life. Such anniversary journalism serves ‘to remind us – journalists and audiences alike – that we are part of something … greater than ourselves’ and thus reinforces feelings of collectivity, while at the same time allowing journalists to ‘position themselves as public historians’ (Kitch, 2002, pp. 48–9). The events most often singled out are the occasions of the person’s birth or death. The commemorative anniversary journalism dealing with Cobain’s death took four basic forms, all of which can be seen to be fulfilling some role in the creation and/or maintenance of the myths and memories surrounding Cobain. These were reprints, historical articles, articles consisting of direct quotes from various people and articles discussing Cobain’s character. While the following discussion mainly concentrates on the last of these, the first three will also be described briefly. First, there were articles that consisted of reprints of interviews, articles and photos from the time, republished in relatively untouched form without much additional commentary. Articles such as these serve a documentary function, and act as a way of connecting the reader to the time while reinforcing the version of events put forward in the media by appealing to the ‘facts’ contained in these articles. Such documents ‘are themselves archives on which editors and writers can draw, republishing previous photographs or texts and explaining them in terms of their lasting significance. In doing so, they reshape as well as merely “revisit” the past’ (Kitch, 2002, p. 48). These articles inhabit an interesting space, in that while they are simply reprints, the context in which they are presented – a magazine commemorating the death of the main figure in most of the articles – guarantees that they will be read with these circumstances in mind. One such article that appears more than once is a reprint of Cobain’s ‘Last Interview’, which appears in the 2004 commemorative edition of Rolling Stone with the following introduction: In what ended up being his last interview, Kurt Cobain spoke of being happier than he’d ever been. He was clean, healthy and claimed to be dealing with the psychological effects of fame – something that had crippled him only a year before. He was in love with his daughter Frances and wife Courtney, but most eerie of all, Cobain spoke of a future. (Fricke, 2004, p. 82)

Throughout the article, certain quotes from Cobain are chosen to be printed in extra large font (‘pull quotes’), immediately drawing the reader’s eye. These


89

quotes, such as ‘I’m really thankful, and every month I come to more optimistic conclusions’ (p. 88) and ‘I’m thought of as this pissy, complaining, freaked-out schizophrenic who wants to kill himself all the time’ (p. 86), serve to emphasize the same frame for the article – as ironic and (apparently) ‘eerie’, given the contradictions between statements like these and his later actions. However, even without this introduction and presentation, it is likely that this interview would be read with his subsequent death very much in the reader’s mind, and possibly in the spirit of trying to find ‘reasons’ for what he did. Second, there were historical articles, relatively straightforward accounts of what happened and when. These articles were often presented in the form of timelines, giving a chronological listing of the events in Cobain’s life deemed to be important. Uncut Legends, for instance, gives us a ‘Day by Day’ account of Cobain’s life in three parts – ‘The Early Years: 1986–1990’ (2004, pp. 27–9), ‘The Glory Years: 1991–92’ (2004, pp. 52–8) and ‘The Final Years: 1993–94’ (2004, pp. 94–7). This neatly compartmentalizes Nirvana’s career in distinct ‘periods’ and provides an apparently comprehensive narrative of what happened when. These are the only articles in the magazine that do not have an author’s name attached to them, perhaps to suggest that they were not ‘authored’ but are an objective account of what happened. Most other publications do not have as much space to devote to such exhaustive lists, and give abbreviated timelines, with some concentrating solely on Cobain, and others (such as Beaujon, 2004) broadening their scope to cover ‘grunge’ in general. However, all of these timelines have points in common. The date of Cobain’s death is, unsurprisingly, a major point in all of them, and all mention certain other events that are deemed to be important. For example, the marriage of Cobain and Love, the birth of their daughter and Cobain’s near-fatal overdose in Rome are universally included. With these few exceptions (which are themselves indicators of how memory narratives are socially constructed), the timelines are markedly different. The Rolling Stone (‘The Life and Times of Kurt Cobain’, 2004) example takes less than an entire page, and concentrates almost exclusively on events in Cobain’s life that show how unhappy or suicidal he was. This is done by listing dates such as when his uncles committed suicide in the 1970s and early 1980s and noting every possible suicidal action by Cobain over his lifetime. The effect of this is to make his suicide seem inevitable. This stands in contrast to the Uncut Legends timeline, which, while including most of the events mentioned in the Rolling Stone timeline, does so in a much broader context which includes more positive life events and day-to-day information. When presented in this manner, the ending seems less ‘obvious’ or apparently foreseeable. Chronologies such as these can be interpreted as attempts to shape memory and knowledge in certain ways (although they would probably not be seen as such by their authors), creating narratives that are familiar and predictable to readers. Third, there were articles which consisted of quotes from non-journalists, either ‘people who were there’ or people such as current musicians saying how their lives have been affected by Cobain. These articles serve the purpose of granting certain

90


people authoritative voices and privileging their memories over others, either due to their position at the time or their current status. Many of the ‘people who were there’ are indeed insiders from the grunge scene (for example, the owners of Sub Pop, or close friends of the band). If cultural capital is bestowed by being temporally and physically close to a scene such as this, then these interviewees possess the ultimate in grunge capital, bettered only by the band members themselves. This certainly appears to be a factor in their inclusion, as well as their apparent ability to give us the ‘facts’ we would otherwise be unaware of. Others who are quoted are often people who are currently active and well-known figures in the music scene who were fans of Nirvana at the time. Sometimes included are straw polls of ‘ordinary’ fans who discuss the effect that Cobain’s death had on them. This can be interpreted as an attempt to legitimize the press’s approach by adding outside voices to those of the journalists, making the memories being discussed seem more collective and less ‘top-down’. Having current musicians discuss the influence that Cobain had on them also helps to bolster his ‘mythical’ status (discussed below) by positioning him as a creative source for others who may not have taken the path they did had Cobain not existed. For instance, Daniel Sanders from the Australian band Gyroscope told Rolling Stone that ‘Kurt was honestly the only reason I picked up a guitar in the first place’ (‘Our Artists Reflect’, 2004, p. 81). Uncut Legends (‘Verse Chorus Verse’, 2004) includes a twelve-page article consisting solely of quotes from music industry figures such as Butch Vig, Evan Dando, Josh Homme, Jack Endino and Lars Ulrich, commenting on certain Nirvana tracks and answering questions such as ‘What made Kurt special?’ This format allows for many comments on how Nirvana influenced these people, and also gives an impression of ‘authorlessness’ similar to the historical articles. In addition, these collections of quotes serve the function of bringing the past into the present. The reprints and historical articles are almost museum-like in that they fix the past and then present it in a ‘dead’ form. The articles of quotes, however, evoke a connection to the past through those who were affected by the events that occurred. Finally, there were articles discussing the character of Cobain. The remainder of this chapter will concentrate on these, for while all four types of article perform important commemorative functions, these give the most explicit representations of how the media portrays Cobain. The magazines commemorating the tenth anniversary of Cobain’s death will be particularly useful to this discussion, as they were published within a year of any of my interviews taking place, making the perspectives of the media and the respondents more comparable. It is these articles that will provide the clearest point of contrast with the accounts of respondents. ‘It’s hard to headbang to a saint’: The Media Characterization of Cobain The anniversary articles on the whole portray Cobain as an exceptional, extraordinary human being. In some cases, he is portrayed as having a status


91

beyond that of human, becoming a supernatural or godlike figure. The most extreme example of this is a Spin magazine article entitled ‘The Ghost of Saint Kurt’. After describing Cobain as ‘a ghost’ and drawing analogies between Nirvana and various religions such as Shintoism, Buddhism and Christianity, the author, Chris Norris (2004, p. 56), discusses how people listening to the music today supposedly react: Nirvana may sound somewhat like today’s modern-rock playlist, but their music feels very strange. The songs elicit perplexing emotions. For one thing, it’s hard to headbang to a saint. And this guy’s image pushes some hard-wired buttons. I mean, look at him. The striking clear-blue eyes. The sharp, nobly set features. The thousand-yard smirk coming out of the photos and videos. The unkemptness almost makes him more dusty-prophet biblical. And listen to the oblique, electrifying lyrics and airy vocal lines, the way they waft surprising harmonies over a neo-heavy-metal roar, leaving melodic vapour trails. In a way, the cynicism you feel you should have about all the grunge mythologizing smacks of a naysayer’s denial.

This quote makes a direct correlation between Cobain and religious figures such as saints, and also calls upon the reader to bear his apparent sanctification in mind whenever they listen to his music. ‘Headbanging’, or reacting to the music in an unrestrained, physical manner, is deemed inappropriate or difficult. In a way, this hearkens back to the work of people such as Adorno (1990[1941]) who are critical of bodily responses that do not allow for a ‘proper’ appreciation of music. Cobain (and indeed grunge itself) is constructed as a ‘serious’ subject worthy of ‘serious’ consideration. Furthermore, Record Collector’s commemorative edition, which otherwise deals mainly with the price of rare Nirvana memorabilia, states that ‘Nirvana have become an industry which, ten years to the month after the suicide of their frontman, still seems to be gaining the sort of momentum from which religions start’ (Kennedy, 1990, p. 82). Uncut magazine devoted an entire edition of its ‘Legends: The Definitive Guide to Rock’s Ultimate Icons’ series to Cobain, leaving no doubt as to their position on his status. In this publication, examples of a different construction of Cobain’s exceptional status can be found. Instead of simple assertion, examples are found from his lifetime that illustrate how special he was. One article traces his life, seemingly to work out how he became so ‘abnormal’, concluding that it ‘all pointed to a bad end – his family history, his initial high and free spirit suppressed by Ritalin, leaving him a profoundly disaffected, morbidly weird anti-boy’ (Stubbs, 2004, p. 25) – that is, not one of us. He is portrayed as a moody ‘artist’, who could not be comprehended by even those close to him, and it is claimed that ‘you could be sitting next to him, but he still seemed a million miles away’ (Lamacq, 2004). Similarly, in Revolver it is claimed that ‘even to those who knew him best, Cobain was almost spectral’ (Cross, 1997, p. 52).

92


The impression given in these articles is of someone beyond comprehension by normal people, inevitably destined for greatness and eventual tragedy, on a trajectory unavailable to mere mortals. The ‘reluctant icon/generational spokesperson’ tag surfaces often, with the idea of his reluctance never negating the veracity of his apparent iconicity. In fact, his reluctance usually enhances his status through giving the impression of humility, an important element of grunge working-class, anti-commercial authenticity, and, for that matter, a trait of most religious figures. There are a number of reasons why it became important for journalists to frame Cobain in such a manner. Schudson (1990) shows how journalists can portray their own world-view as being universal, especially when embedded in a culture that reinforces this view. Once certain views are put into print as ‘fact’, these then become a point of reference for other writers. For example, Schudson demonstrates how Ronald Reagan was constructed as being exceptionally popular during the first part of his term by journalists who were using their own impressions of him rather than relying on any empirical data, such as polls, which showed his unpopularity. Similarly, journalists writing on Cobain could construct his image through references to other journalists and the accepted ways of writing about dead rock stars, especially as this portrayal of Cobain as superhuman fits in with a well-established narrative in rock journalism, that of the ‘tragic artist who dies young’. However, Jones (1995), in his paper ‘Covering Cobain: Narrative Patterns in Journalism and Rock Criticism’, notes that Cobain’s death initially represented a challenge to this normalizing narrative, due to his death being somewhat unusual in its (explicitly) self-inflicted nature. Despite this, Jones argues that Cobain’s death was eventually subsumed into a stereotype of ‘youth gone wrong’ and moral decay which were used to explain so many other rock deaths. Jones (1995, p. 115), following Frith, notes that: the music press and music critics (and, I would add, the mainstream press when it reports on popular music) have a ‘general image of the world’ and a ‘general interpretation of rock’ … that provides space only for particular narratives. When circumstances fall outside the parameter of those narratives, reporters and critics make sense of them in ways that essentially recapitulate the dominance of those narratives.

This process is described by Zerubavel (2003, p. 14) as ‘emplotment’, that is, creating a logically structured story/narrative with ‘essentially conventional structures’ out of past events. I would argue that an important part of such narratives is the mythologizing that creates gods and saints, as demonstrated in the articles quoted earlier. Jones has perhaps understated a particular narrative associated with the suicide of artists, one that can be traced historically back to nineteenth-century romantic traditions of the artist as a tragic other-worldly figure who never fits in. This can be found in accounts of other musicians who committed suicide, such as Ian Curtis, Nick Drake or Elliott Smith (Stubbs, 2000, p. 41), and artists such as Van Gogh. It is also worth considering that such accounts play into effective


93

marketing strategies, as ‘tragic rock god genius who forever changed the world’ is more attention grabbing than ‘ordinary bloke who’s really just like you’. Anniversary journalism provides an important way of reinforcing collective memories through allowing audiences to revisit the events of the past through the images and words from that time. However, the way that the past is presented conforms to certain journalistic conventions and uses narrative structures that are repeated for all ‘dead rock stars’, resulting in the possibility that some of the specific meanings that Kurt Cobain may have had for his audience could be lost. I will now turn to the accounts of respondents to ask whether they have remembered Cobain in the same way as the media. Ordinary Heroes: The Account of Respondents In contrast to the media accounts, the respondents in this study portray Cobain as profoundly unexceptional. The respondents for the most part feel very positively towards him. As demonstrated in Chapter 4, Nirvana is the band that respondents associate with grunge more than any other, and Cobain is by far the individual most often mentioned by interviewees, to the point that a minority see grunge as being mainly about Cobain and Nirvana. One of the questions asked of respondents was about their reaction to his death, and more than half report experiencing strong feelings when they found out he had died. Fourteen of these respondents recount what could be characterized as ‘flashbulb memories’, that is, memories of particularly dramatic or traumatic events that are associated with strong emotions and are recalled with an unusual amount of detail (Finkenauer, Gisle and Luminet, 1997; Talarico and Rubin, 2003). Only one quarter of respondents have no or only a vague memory of the time of his death. Despite acknowledging his importance and the influence he had on them in various ways, respondents reject attempts to construct Cobain as anything other than human, and a flawed human at that: I just remember feeling really shocked, and just feeling a bit empty, not because he was a big hero of mine, I thought he was cute and a good musician, and all that stuff, but, basically I just thought the circumstances were sad you know. (Uma) I just felt this sadness, it wasn’t like, oh my god the grunge hero is dead kind of thing, it was just sad. (Lily)

Many people related their sorrow at his passing not to the loss of a ‘great’ individual, but directly to the loss of future musical releases: It was a shock to think that, oh, he’s not going to put out any more music than he’s actually dead … it’s more that he’s not going to write any more songs. (Claud)

94

Grunge: Music and Memory I was just so depressed that he was gone, and I knew that that was the end of Nirvana, you know, without Kurt there is no Nirvana, it doesn’t matter how much they release of the greatest hits or what they release after, it’s, he’s gone, that’s it, it’s over. And I think that the fact that I knew that there was no more music coming from them just saddened me, really, it was just so sad, and I was thinking, you know, I do like all these other bands and they have got the grungey thing going but no one’s Kurt, you know, he’s him and that’s that. (Bertha) I remember feeling an incredible sense of loss because there wasn’t going to be any more music, and I don’t know whether that sounds selfish or not but that was the thing that got to me the most, the fact that this wonderful … this guy was not around anymore, like that’s it, you weren’t going to hear anything new from him, and that made me very very sad. (Drew)

In a similar manner to the media accounts, respondents also comment on the nature of fame and the role this played in Cobain’s death: I don’t think that he wanted [fame], and I don’t think that he expected anything from it, and I think it really did freak him out, I think that he was a very quiet man, and was very, sort of, personal, and wasn’t interested in that huge number of people loving him and calling to him and all that kind of thing, so I think the only bad side of the popularity would have only been his personal problem with it. (Bertha) There’s footage of him at a family barbecue just sitting by the river just looking out, he’s just so depressed the whole time, he couldn’t handle … he just wanted to play music and I don’t think he was prepared for everything that came with that, you know, he’s such a personal person, and then he had that blown open, everyone knowing everything you were doing, I think it just fucked him up. (Isaac)

According to Kitch (2000) this is a familiar narrative in journalists’ accounts of the death of famous individuals. An explanation is required for what happened, and often this takes the form of a ‘villain’ that caused the death in some way. For example, the manner of John Lennon’s death provided an obvious villain in Mark Chapman. However, in deaths with a less clear causal agent, such as Princess Diana or John F. Kennedy Jr, the pressures of ‘fame’ are often cited as a factor. Although the respondents also use fame as a type of ‘villain’ (and also at times grant the same role to Courtney Love), they also use Cobain’s negative response to his status as another way of reinforcing his normality and authenticity. Equally important is his ability to express his normality: I thought that people like Kurt Cobain and that had good things to say because they weren’t ... they were in these loud rock and roll bands, but they weren’t


95

necessarily the aggressive, belligerent rock and roller or something, they were people that, certainly, when they were singing songs, or they’d write songs about themselves and they were quite candid often about their experiences in life or things like that, so I guess it’s bound to speak to you, to some degree. (James)

Quotes such as this show Cobain is being granted authenticity because of both his perceived normality and his ability to express emotions or write about experience that respondents could relate to. This adds extra weight to his ordinariness, in that respondents feel that if they could relate to what he was expressing then he could not be too different to them. However, unlike in the media accounts, this conceptualization of Cobain as unexceptional and authentic, and his rejection of fame, leads respondents to explicitly reject the ‘Cobain as religious figure’ concept: But I didn’t become disillusioned or anything, I didn’t shed tears over him or anything, have a little shrine set up in the back yard or anything like that. (Dean) Nirvana wasn’t the religious experience for me, they were just a band I thought was good … I heard about people who were just, took it as, it’s just like the death of Jesus or something. (Trevor) I didn’t kind of go out and build a shrine or take a pilgrimage anywhere, but, yeah, it was really sad. (Janie) There was all this stuff about him being this new sort of super-duper dude and the saviour of everything and it’s just like ‘yeah, bah!’ He’s a skinny little guy from a place that rains a lot and he’s written some bloody great rock, but he’s, you know, (laughs) he’s not the messiah, he’s just a naughty boy! (Dylan)

This rejection of the construction of Cobain as a religious figure stems from the way identification was central to the accounts of respondents. Of great importance to their positive feelings towards Cobain is an impression that, as Gordon says: He was on our level, he was really no different to us except 50 million times more talented possibly, but he was one of us and he died. I’d just have to say my reaction was definitely like losing a close friend. (…) Because he was – by not wanting to be a spokesman he was, you know, by just being honest and saying don’t believe all this shit about me, I’m not any better than any of you guys, it’s probably the most empowering thing someone in that position can say to you.

That is, he was someone who could be related to in his anger and suffering and humanity. Respondents also often give examples of the places where Cobain’s biography fitted in with their own, reinforcing the idea that they strongly identify with him:

96

Grunge: Music and Memory [Hometown]’s very similar to Seattle, from what I’ve read (…) I was one of these guys that wore op shop clothes and hand-me-downs all my life, and when it became cool it was like, yeah, well, ok, I used to get teased for this, but I really was walking around with the hole out of the arse of my jeans because I couldn’t afford other ones. So although I was going, I’ve had my fair share of going through phases, but grunge I really did relate to, genuinely, because I didn’t have to change anything about the way I was to fit in with this great little fad, I was already looking like that. Coming from the country, we already wear our checked shirts and stuff you know (laughs), it’s like hick town, just like where a lot of these bands came from. So I think it’s actually culturally, you know, geographically we’re apart, but culturally I could relate to this music on a level that maybe people in other parts of Australia may or may not have been able to. (Gordon)

At one point Gordon also describes himself as being ‘a little carbon copy of Kurt Cobain’ when he was a young grunge fan, suggesting that not only did he identify similarities between himself and Cobain, but actively tried to emphasize them as much as possible. Most respondents feel that the only features that set Cobain apart from them were his musical talent and his ability to express shared emotions in a recognizable way. Yet, even here the lack of musical prowess he displayed made being like him an attainable goal, and made him more mundane and less exceptional. A number of respondents, who are themselves musicians are actually quite disparaging about Cobain’s musical abilities (while still not denying his talent): It wasn’t about being musical, it wasn’t about being able to play every scale on the guitar, it was about the feel, like, the feel that Nirvana had was in the music, and then, a lot of other bands were a part of it, but the feel that Kurt had in his music was amazing, if you can write a song with two chords or three chords, like ‘Molly’s Lips’ was only two chords, but still it’s a cool song. You get other songs like ‘Something in the Way’, which I guess is only two or three chords, but the feel that he put into it was just amazing. (Percy)

Respondents also comment on the egalitarian ideals that the grunge scene was built around, and during his life Cobain was portrayed in line with the accounts that respondents give – an authentic, ordinary, flawed person struggling with a difficult situation. While the media has shifted its emphasis onto Cobain’s exceptional qualities to stay in line with its own narrative forms, it is still vital to fans that their idol (I use the term advisedly in this context) is someone close to them, that they could talk to, be friends with, or even be. Few people feel they can aspire to be a genius, or a saint, and the media accounts presented in the anniversary magazines thus failed to gain a hold in the collective memory of these fans. It is also interesting to note that respondents not only contradict the media reconstruction of Cobain, but are aware of it and express cynicism towards it:


97

I didn’t hang out with your grunge crowd, but since then, meeting people who are still fairly obsessed by it, even seeing things like in Who magazine last year when they had a big spiel on the tenth anniversary of his death, and you sort of think, well, was there this much publicity ten years after Elvis sort of thing, so it’ll be interesting in the future to see if that … almost vigil keeps up, I guess, and see if he is bigger than Elvis, really. (Claud) I remember at the time being surprised but also realizing very cynically that that was the beginning of the end, because once he’d died he was going to join the bar in heaven with Jimi Hendrix and Elvis and everyone else, and that the Nirvana legend would forever be changed. Death … they will forever be the most popular band out of grunge because of that, so, you look at a band like Pearl Jam and say if Eddie Vedder had died the situation would be reversed, everyone would be going ‘oh, Pearl Jam Alive is the best song ever written’. (Seamus)

Seamus and other respondents show an awareness of the nature of mythmaking and the reproduction of certain narratives with respect to such premature deaths, or compare Cobain’s death to that of other significant rock figures. When asked if he remembers when Kurt Cobain died, Max, the oldest respondent at 45, says: ‘Oh, not nearly as well as I remember when John Lennon died (laughs), no.’ Max’s comparison with John Lennon here, and Seamus’ and Claud’s comparisons with Jimi Hendrix and Elvis show that they are aware of how such deaths become homogenized through the way they are reported. Max’s quote also touches on the relationship between being affected by such events and youth, which will be discussed further in Chapter 7. The question of contestation is important here as it appears to show the creation of an alternative ‘truth’ to the accounts of the powerful, those in control of the means of mass communication, and therefore one of the means of creating both memories and history. Thus we see, at the time of the tenth anniversary of his death, conflict between ‘official’ and private/collective accounts of the meaning of Cobain’s life. However, a pivotal point to bear in mind is that the respondents’ accounts are not completely removed from media accounts. Kitch (2000, p. 190) notes how one of the central features of the narratives created during the initial coverage of celebrity deaths is the ordinariness of the deceased: ‘they explain the famous in terms of the ordinary, uniting audience members with each other and with the celebrity through “basic” values.’ This also allows the celebrity to represent the reader. In this way, the accounts of respondents continue to align with an earlier account of Cobain, that used by the media during his lifetime and in the immediate aftermath of his death, when there was less call for his sanctification and he was, indeed, still just a man. The perception of Cobain as an ordinary person is central to respondents’ ability to identify with him, and as a result still maintains a strong hold. Thus, respondents are not creating something new; rather, they are preserving an earlier set of symbols that retain importance to them.

98


However, it is not only fans who are attempting to retain this image of Cobain. When Aberdeen announced plans for a statue of Cobain to be erected, Nirvana’s bass player Krist Novoselic responded by writing a letter to the local paper threatening to knock it down: Kurt would hate the idea of a statue. When Kurt is put on a pedestal, it leaves him exposed to attack, be it from self-appointed judges who harshly condemn the junkie outcast, the well-meaning misguided fans whose idolatry is proof that they never understood what Nirvana was about or just from pigeon droppings fouling up the likeness of a man who talked about the real things people should understand. (Columbian, 2007)

Furthermore, the media accounts themselves have not become set in concrete (as already demonstrated by their change over the ten years following Cobain’s death). For example, Mazzarella’s (1995) research on what was being written in the media immediately after Cobain’s death found that a major theme focused on how the suicide was portrayed as an image of all that was wrong with ‘Generation X’, and was used by the media to try to explain and understand this generation, which they mostly were not a part of. This theme is still present in the anniversary media, but only as a marginal theme. This seems to be at least partly because the journalists writing at this point are younger, part of what is called ‘Generation X’ themselves, meaning they are less likely to accept the veracity of such an all-encompassing label (Pecora and Mazzarella, 1995). The complicated relationship between fans and media (see Thornton, 1995) is evident here, as many of the journalists contributing to the tenth anniversary magazines were themselves fans of Nirvana at the time of Cobain’s death (although some were the same people who were reporting at the time). Although it might be expected that these younger journalists would interpret and remember this event differently to the journalists who wrote the earlier accounts of Cobain’s death, the generic ‘rock death’ template appears to exert the stronger influence. Given the shift towards this account, it appears that, overall, the accounts of fans have remained more constant than that of the media. This shows that although the memory of audiences comes from media reports, it does not necessarily continue to conform to them. Further demonstrating this changeability of media accounts is Rolling Stone’s commemorative issue, which makes no mythologizing statements, and says of its attempts to gather quotes on people’s current feelings on Cobain: ‘Some are dismissive, and the reverence afforded Cobain does invite some retrospective scepticism’ (Wooldridge, 2004). Similarly, a letter printed in NME’s anniversary edition notes: … over the last decade the man has been transformed into something beyond human … Although Cobain was an exceptional talent, it is increasingly undignified to see him endlessly spunked over like some kind of chocolate Jesus


99

… Let us all try to remember him as a real human being. Not as a dead rock star. Not as a god. (Marsh, 2004, p. 17).

This letter draws out a possibly sarcastic, possibly supportive response from the editor;1 but these voices are being given some space, showing the interaction between dominant and marginal accounts, and that the hegemonic dominance of the mass media is perhaps not as solid as we are sometimes led to believe. It can be seen from the evidence above that remembering is a complex process. Although some groups within society possess greater resources and power when it comes to shaping memory, this does not result in the straightforward ‘imposition’ of memories on the less powerful. Dominant and marginal accounts play off each other and change according to the way that each group constructs its present identity. The memories of media and of fans have taken their own trajectories specific to their requirements. Respondents need Cobain to continue to fulfil his role as an object of identification, whereas for journalists he has become a ‘legend’ or myth and therefore more emphasis is placed on elements of his life or work that can be used to portray him as beyond human. For both groups, however, the memory of Cobain is still strong and his artistic reputation, while being emphasized in different ways, is ultimately unchallenged. In terms of reputation, one area in which the memory of Cobain is similar in the accounts of respondents and media reports is in his status as an ‘artist’. Becker (1982) discusses how people defined as ‘artists’ are the ones who undertake the ‘core activities’ during the creation of a piece of art, while others do ‘support’ activities and are not granted the same status. Artists are also seen as being unlike other people: At an extreme, the romantic myth of the artist suggests that people with such gifts cannot be subjected to the constraints imposed on other members of society; we must allow them to violate rules of decorum, propriety, and common sense everyone else must follow or risk being punished. The myth suggests that in return society receives work of unique character and invaluable quality. Such a belief does not appear in all, or even most, societies; it may be unique to Western European societies, and those influenced by them, since the Renaissance. (Becker, 1982, pp. 14–15)

That Cobain has been accepted into this type of framework is particularly evident in the media accounts (where he is ‘superhuman’), but it is very clear that both 1 ‘Is this a good time to state my … opinion that Nirvana were a monumentally overrated bunch of dreary, whining corporate-board-Pixies who singlehandedly fucked up American alternative music for the best part of a decade by angst-coating and homogenizing the late-80s popcore of Husker Du and Black Francis for the jocks, thereby snatching US alt.rock from the filthy experimental paws of Sonic Youth et al and handing it to Alice In Chains on a soggy grunge platter? (…) And that I wouldn’t spunk over them if they were a nougat Jesus? Thought not.’

100


journalists and respondents do not see Nirvana as a collectivity through which the music was created, but see Cobain as the artistic talent around which the group revolved. Nirvana’s bass player Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl are discussed very rarely by respondents, and are mentioned most often in media accounts in their capacity as ‘people who were there’ and who can therefore give us a first-person account of what Cobain was ‘really’ like. Their contribution to the music-making process is rarely if ever discussed. The only mention that this receives is in a negative sense, as when it is emphasized that Cobain contested the group’s policy of splitting songwriting royalties evenly, and was awarded 75 per cent of royalties (for example, see DeRogatis, 2003, p. 32). Even in the context of Grohl’s current success in Foo Fighters, where it is recognized that he is the main creative force in the band, the role that the other musicians played in Nirvana is downplayed to the point that they become artistically invisible. This portrayal of Cobain fits in well with how the media has constructed him. Other rock stars who have died early are often similarly portrayed as the creative centre of the group of which they were a part, regardless of how accurate this may have been before they died – Jim Morrison and Michael Hutchence can be seen as examples of this trend. This emphasis on Cobain as the solitary creator of a body of work also emerges from the respondents’ accounts, suggesting that despite their emphasis on Cobain as an understandable human being, the myth of the romantic genius artist has enough of a pull to skew their understanding of the band away from seeing it as a collective enterprise. A further question to raise with regard to the areas where media and fans disagree is whether either of these accounts will eventually oust the other. Will the image of Cobain as merely ‘one of us’ fade as the people who lived through the time of his popularity and death lose their feeling of group membership in regard to this time and retell this story less, and as new fans who ‘discover’ Nirvana take on the media’s contemporary account as the only one available to them? Will the marginal account cross into the media and become the dominant narrative, or will the media account continue to be transformed in accordance with other factors? Although this question is not a major focus of this study, at the present time both ways of conceiving of Cobain identified in this chapter appear to be present among younger fans, and seem to be actively competing with each other. A quick examination of online communities based around Nirvana or Cobain (in this instance, I have used Livejournal.com as my source) demonstrate this. While some posters frame their appreciation of Cobain in terms that sound decidedly ‘worshipful’, they are relentlessly ‘flamed’ by others who do not see this as appropriate. An entertaining ‘flame-war’ in a community called ‘_kurt_is_god’ (http://www.kurt-is-god.livejournal.com) illustrates this perfectly. One poster, ‘eyes_of_kali’, takes issue with the name of the community: Let’s cover something shall we: – you don’t LOVE him at all, there’s a difference between fangirl worship and love – listen to the music don’t idolize the singers. That’s what real fans do – do you realize how disrespectful you’re being to him?


101

He’d be embarrassed by this community. He was a person, a person that if any of you kids met you’d turn your nose up to him. Don’t lie.

A less aggressive poster, ‘missy’, responds to being asked whether she thinks Cobain is God by saying: ‘He is in a way, maybe not a God, as he was a “normal” guy from Aberdeen USA, but he is a true inspiration, especially to me.’ While what is going on here is probably more about matters of distinction and cultural capital, with these individuals trying to find ways to establish themselves as ‘better’ or more ‘authentic’ fans, we can see Cobain’s memory continuing to be a site of contestation, even for newer fans. However, it seems likely that for the majority of people, Cobain has/will become interchangeable with other dead ‘legends’ from across the years. In early 2008, for example, a series of greeting cards appeared in newsagents featuring pop culture icons. Among the images of James Dean, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles sits what has become the ‘classic’ image of Cobain,2 the generic dead rock star for those under 40. Having examined the memories of journalists and respondents, and drawn out the similarities and differences between these, as well as raising the question of the memories of Cobain held by younger music fans (a topic that requires further research to be fully understood), I will now turn to other types of commemorative activities that have been associated with Cobain. This will allow exploration of sites of memory in other sectors of society with different access to power and memory formation than either of the groups discussed above. Official Commemoration of Cobain As noted earlier, pop culture celebrities are rarely, although more so than in the past, the object of official state commemoration (in terms of statues, parades, plaques and official days of commemoration) as happens with other public figures or events. However, they are increasingly becoming commemorated in various forms at the physical locations they are (or were) associated with, often in order to attract tourists. For example, in Liverpool the Council encourages Beatles-related tourism (Homan, 2006a, p. 67), and in 2010 the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing in London was given heritage protection. The home and grave of Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee is also a major tourist destination (Gibson and Connell, 2005). The most official form of commemoration of Cobain can be seen occurring in his hometown of Aberdeen, where the (private, not for profit) Kurt Cobain Memorial Project was started in 2004. This group aims to establish memorials to Cobain in order to ‘provide a token of our deep appreciation for Kurt, his music and his kindred spirits all over the world’. In mid-2005, the group achieved the 2 Taken by Martyn Goodacre, this photo features a pensive looking Cobain wearing heavy eyeliner staring up into the camera.

102


first of its goals, with a large plaque reading ‘Come As You Are’ (the name of a Nirvana song) being added to the sign welcoming visitors to Aberdeen. In the next few years, the group aims to build a park dedicated to Cobain – ‘complete with memorial-related art, including a graffiti wall’ – and a youth centre. The group attempts to construct the figure of Cobain in a way that is in keeping with the essentially ‘mainstream’ character of a community group aiming to help youth and engender civic pride. The FAQ page on their website (http://www. kurtcobainmemorial.org/) makes the following claims: Is it true Kurt Cobain hated Aberdeen? No. While it is true that Kurt said some derogatory things about Aberdeen from time to time and had some negative experiences here it has been stated by Krist Novoselic that neither he nor Kurt hated Aberdeen. In fact, in a 1995 speech to the Hoquiam City Council, Krist told a story about how he and Kurt liked to talk about the good times they had here. Is it true Aberdeen hated/hates Kurt? No. Kurt has received the same reaction from conservative older folks that any ‘rock star’ would receive. Nirvana was probably more popular here among younger people than most places across the nation. National journalists searching for an ‘angle’ for their pieces tended to focus on the negatives of Aberdeen and looked for evidence to back that up. This included one legendary example of a reporter going into a tavern at noon and searching for anyone there who might say something to back up their theory that Aberdeen residents as a whole are poverty-stricken alcoholics lacking in culture. In sum, you find what you’re looking for. (http://www.kurtcobainmemorial.org/ faq.shtml)

The website also seeks to further Aberdeen’s claim of ‘ownership’ of Cobain by refuting suggestions that he may have been born elsewhere. These examples show the town not only attempting to lay claim to Cobain, but also actively tackling other attempts to construct him in a light that is not in line with their aim to claim him as ‘their own’ – that is, reports that say he did not like the town and was not even born there. Such retorts are also necessary for the project to gain legitimacy through portraying itself as something Cobain himself would have approved of. By creating memorials to him, the citizens of Aberdeen are attempting to attach physical locations within the town – and arguably the town itself, through the sign at the entrance – to the memory of Cobain. The project emphasizes certain aspects of Cobain’s life and personality (for example, his creativity and success) while downplaying others, such as his drug addiction and stated dislike for institutions such as those here being established under his name. This is done in order to create a figure that can justifiably be commemorated in a context not far removed from ‘town hero’. Just as Lincoln’s image went from supporter of racist policies to equal rights campaigner, Cobain – for this group and in this context – has been transformed (and perhaps sanitized) from an anti-social outsider to a


103

worthy (if somewhat tragic) civic figure. This can be seen in the statement that the addition to the welcome sign ‘will help bring attention to Kurt, Nirvana, and our Community’s commitment to a positive, welcoming spirit’. Although Cobain’s rebellious aspects have been retained in other contexts, such as in the continued marketing of him to young music fans, they serve no function for this group. This Kurt Cobain Memorial Project is based around the importance that physical places can hold in memory. The places where events have occurred, or where important figures have been, can be powerful in evoking the past and providing a feeling of connection to it. The Aberdeen group needs to make the strong claims that they do because most people associate Cobain more with Seattle, the city in which grunge was seen to have its origins. The importance of place can also be seen in the journeys that some fans make to locations associated with Cobain. For example, numerous fans visit the Young Street Bridge in Aberdeen where Cobain supposedly slept for a time when he had nowhere else to live, and which he reportedly sang about in the song ‘Something in the Way’. However, for most Nirvana fans a trip to Aberdeen or Seattle (where the Experience Music Project has established a museum with a significant amount of floor space devoted to documenting grunge) would be out of the question, and would be rejected by them as taking their adoration of Cobain ‘too far’ or in the wrong direction. Another aspect of commemoration, which can be accomplished on an individual level and requires little in the way of resources, involves the remembrance and marking of important historical dates, in this case, the anniversary of Cobain’s death each year. For a minority of respondents, marking such dates is part of their relationship with music: Early April every year I still get out one album and put it on, around the time of his death. I do the same for Jeff Buckley as well. In June I always listen to Alanis for her birthday – on my calendar I’ve got them all marked, birthdays and death days and things like that, I’ll try and match up my, I’ll do a week of Nirvana or something around the time of his death to show my appreciation for what he did. (Bill)

Roger mentions hearing the replay of the news breaking on Triple J on different occasions, to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the death and Triple J’s 30th year on air. However, this form of commemoration is not mentioned by most respondents, and is seen as being inappropriate by some: I don’t even know his death day by heart, people who don’t even own a Nirvana album will tell me ‘oh, today’s Kurt Cobain’s death day’, it’s like, oh, that’s nice (laughs). (Seth)

This discussion shows the importance of commemoration and how places and dates can be used by different groups to remember and to put forward different accounts of the past and the people involved in it. Although people such as Cobain

104


are rarely the subject of official commemoration in the way that political figures are, they are still commemorated and the form that this takes is a site of contestation for those with vested interests in how he is remembered. Conclusion This chapter has highlighted a number of ways in which Cobain has been used symbolically for different groups with different agendas: as a down-to-earth, understandable individual for fans who need to feel connected to him; as a focus for charity work and civic pride for those to whom he has become a symbol of community; and as a literal ‘rock god’ for those in the business of music journalism. To some extent these ways of remembering Cobain are in conflict with one another insofar as these different groups have different requirements for Cobain. However, there are other places where the accounts are similar, as with the consideration of Cobain’s status as an ‘artist’. This discussion suggests that people do not necessarily agree with how memories are constructed in the media, despite the apparent power that the media has to portray the past in certain ways, and the vested interest it has in doing so. Such challenges to dominant accounts seem to be most successful when the memories of the less powerful are important to their identity in some way. However, there are limits to such challenges, and these will be examined in more detail in the following chapter.

Chapter 6

Gender and Grunge1 The previous chapter concentrated on how Kurt Cobain is remembered differently according to the present needs of different groups. This chapter will argue that what has been forgotten about grunge is just as important as what has been remembered. In particular, despite the important contribution of women to the grunge scene, they do not have a strong presence in the memories of either respondents or the media. The woman who is most often remembered, Courtney Love, is used to reinscribe traditional gender relations through condemnation of her rejection of them. The other women musicians from the time of grunge and the challenge they made to gender stereotypes (along with male musicians of grunge who were also committed to gender equality) have been either forgotten or re-labelled as ‘Riot Grrrls’. This re-labelling allows the threat being posed to patriarchal relations to be compartmentalized and contained, while the ‘grunge’ label is reinscribed as a form of ‘masculine’ rock. This chapter will first examine the literature around the position of women in rock and in history, before discussing the tendency towards gender equality and underlying feminist stance that existed within grunge, particularly with regard to its relationship to the Riot Grrrl movement that it was contemporaneous with, and the media accounts of the time. It will then examine the fate of these tendencies through the accounts of respondents and more recent, retrospective media reports. Finally, it will examine how gender issues associated with grunge are connected to questions of respondents’ gendered identities, particularly for those few respondents who still remember the gender equality message of grunge as being central to its importance. Gender issues associated with grunge were not initially expected to be a central theme of interviews with respondents, except perhaps to note the existence and the positive outcome of the message of gender equality. The findings uncovered in regard to gender were therefore unexpected. As an example of a bias a researcher can bring to a study, my own experience with grunge was not something I had ever thought about in gendered terms, except perhaps to acknowledge its gender neutrality. However, despite my feeling that the gender equality message was an important component of grunge, it was mentioned only by a small minority of mostly female respondents. As a consequence of my assumptions, there were no specific questions in the interview about gender and it was only in the later phase of interviewing and in the analysis phase that I noticed these themes appearing (or 1 The first half of this chapter has also appeared in the Journal of Popular Culture and has been reproduced by permission.

106


failing to appear). Noticing this allowed me to add questions on the issue in the final interviews, and to include this as an example of the importance of forgetting to understanding memory. Why Do Women Disappear? There is a trend within contemporary society for women to become invisible and be forgotten when the past becomes ‘history’. Joan Wallach Scott (1988, p. 5) notes that: Historians searching the past for evidence about women have confronted again and again the phenomenon of women’s invisibility. Recent research has shown not that women were inactive or absent from events that made history, but that they have been systematically left out of the official record. In the evaluation of what is important, of what matters to the present in the past, women as individuals or as a definable group rarely receive mention.

This phenomenon of disappearing women has been discovered in many areas of culture. For example, the contribution of women such as Harriet Martineau and Beatrice Webb to the early years of the social sciences has only recently been acknowledged, as the accepted narrative of the ‘founding fathers’ has been challenged by feminist researchers (McDonald, 1994). Furthermore, in their examination of etchers from around the turn of the twentieth century, Lang and Lang found that although there were many well-known women etchers when the art form was popular, ‘with few exceptions, neither their names nor their works seemed to have survived’ (1990, p. 269). Lovell (1987) notes the failure of most female novelists from the nineteenth century to gain entry into the literary canon and their subsequent disappearance. Even within the history of feminism itself, Henderson (2006) notes that early feminist crusaders are often not well known by their contemporary counterparts (see also Sawer, 2008, p. 251). Numerous reasons for women’s tendency to disappear have been suggested. For example, it could be due to women’s lack of involvement in record keeping (Kleinberg, 1988) and their lack of control over the way in which language and symbols are used to reproduce power structures (Henderson, 2006; Lovell, 1987; Wallach Scott, 1988). Lang and Lang (1990) suggest that women may not guard their own legacy as effectively as men, by not ensuring that their works are identifiable, properly catalogued and archived. However, the examples provided by writers such as Wallach Scott regarding the disappearance of women from history in general, and the findings in this chapter that show women disappearing well before their deaths, and in circumstances where their work is as well catalogued and as easily accessible as men’s, suggest that being female is in and of itself enough to make being forgotten more likely. Although Wallach Scott notes that currently the voices of women are being heard and recorded in many aspects of modern life (although

Gender and Grunge

107

this does not necessarily guarantee their preservation in the future), this is still for the most part not the case in rock or ‘serious’ popular music (Leonard, 2007). In fact, women involved in relatively recent music scenes such as punk have already been for the most part omitted from the history of that movement (Reddington, 2007), and a similar pattern can be observed with grunge. This can in part be explained by the overall position that women hold in popular music. Many researchers (for example, Shuker, 2005, p. 119; Thornton, 1995) have noted the way that women’s contribution to popular music is mostly denigrated as ‘pop’, as opposed to the ‘serious music’ produced by male bands, which reproduces the general association of women with ‘low-brow’ culture and men with the ‘high-brow’ (Huyssen, 1986). Even where women have ‘infiltrated’ the rock scene (not an easy prospect; see Bayton, 2006; McRobbie and Garber, 1997; Whiteley, 2000), they are far more likely to be sexualized vocalists than to play instruments. It is also possible that as sounds themselves can be heard as gendered (Järviluoma, Moisala and Vikko, 2003), so even when women do participate in rock the association of the sound of this music with the masculine is difficult to contest. Furthermore, as Helen Davies (2001) argues, the male-dominated press responds to women’s attempts to break into the world of ‘serious music’ by reducing the woman in question to her gender, either through concentrating on her physical attributes or through endless comparisons with other women artists, as though sharing the same gender is enough to make all female artists the same in a way that male artists are not. It was demonstrated in the previous chapter that rock journalists tend to conform to specific narrative forms. Davies (2001) demonstrates how the dominant culture within rock journalism can affect what is – and more importantly what cannot be – written, how this stems from overarching societal norms, and shows the effects this can have on readers’ perceptions. In particular, she argues that women are not considered capable of producing ‘serious’ music, usually because the assumptions surrounding what comprises ‘serious’ music – particularly as regards the issue of credibility – are constructed by a patriarchal music press in a manner that systematically excludes women. Credibility is closely associated with the idea of authenticity, and this is automatically denied to women who are seen as being in any way manipulated or not in control of their own material (for example, by singing other people’s songs). If they are not performing their own material, then they cannot be expressing something ‘real’ about themselves. Credibility is also associated with intelligence and seriousness, and when women display these (for example, by commenting on politics or talking about depression) they are often derided, although male artists doing exactly the same thing are often lionized. Finally, credibility is associated with subcultures and being separate from the ‘mainstream’, and it ‘is difficult for female performers to separate themselves from the mainstream because … the mainstream is often defined precisely as music associated with girls and women’ (Davies, 2001, p. 306). It will be shown here how the intelligence of a woman like Courtney Love can be used against her, and how although Riot Grrrl was a subcultural movement centred on females, its

108


very separateness has been detrimental to the women associated with the more mainstream grunge movement. Most significantly, Davies (2001, p. 302) notes that although the press must include women in order to ‘create images of themselves and their publications as liberal and non-sexist’, this occurs periodically in what is fashioned in each instance as a ‘discovery’ of the ‘new’ presence of women in rock. This can occur because retrospective writing on ‘serious’ popular music excludes the women who may have been at the forefront of any given movement. As Davies (2001, p. 302) explains, the ‘exclusion of women from history’ means ‘[w]omen are a perpetual novelty, and each new group of successful female performers is heralded as the first’, leaving audiences with no sense of the ongoing presence of women in the music industry. Women are also excluded through their absence from the canon, as can be seen in the lists of the ‘best’ grunge albums discussed below (see Leonard, 2007; Strong, 2010; von Appen and Doehring, 2006, for a discussion of how this occurs). Grunge, Riot Grrrl and Gender In his article on the politics of grunge, Shevory (1995) identifies gender politics as one of the four main political themes of the movement (along with generational conflict, independent recording and style). He notes that ‘Grunge supported, and was supported by, an alternative culture that has begun to substantially change the position of women in white rock music’ (Shevory, 1995, p. 43). The prominent male figures of grunge, such as Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, were vocal in their support of tolerance and equality, not just for women but also races and sexualities other than white heterosexuals. Kurt Cobain in particular enjoyed playing with gender roles. He allowed his own sexuality to be called into question by often wearing dresses and/or make-up on stage, in film clips and on photo shoots, and wrote explicitly feminist songs, such as ‘Sappy’ or ‘Been a Son’. Grunge bands in general avoided imagery that objectified or degraded women. No longer were women in film clips scantily dressed and dancing provocatively, but instead were more often portrayed as equally participating audience or band members. The gender equality message of grunge has also been documented by Schippers (2002) in her ethnographic work on the alternative hard rock scene of the early 1990s. Schippers provides further examples of how the best-known grunge musicians supported gender equality. In interviews that she conducted with musicians such as Eddie Vedder and Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, the musicians openly identify as being committed to feminist ideals and reject the objectification of women that so often occurs in rock. In addition to this, Schippers provides accounts of how participants in alternative rock scenes performed gender in ways that challenged gender norms on an everyday level, which will be discussed further below. In these ways, Schippers identifies the alternative hard rock scene as a place where not only were statements being made about the desirability of

Gender and Grunge

109

gender equality, but where she could observe actual changes being made to the way gender was performed and understood. The time in which grunge was successful in particular saw the rise of the ‘female bass player’ (for example, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Kim Deal of The Pixies and The Breeders, and Sean Yseult of White Zombie). This trend is examined by Clawson (1999), who argues that the feminization of bass playing through an appeal to stereotypical gender traits (for example, women are good at playing bass because it requires more ‘instinct’ and ‘feeling’) served to devalue the role of the bass player in the band. However, Clawson notes that this still meant roles as musicians were opening up more to women, which was a step forwards from the almost invisible female musician of before (a claim that itself serves to reinforce the disappearance of earlier female musicians). A number of the female bands associated with grunge, particularly L7, Hole and Babes In Toyland, became commercially successful during this period also. Thus, at the time of its greatest popularity, grunge offered a message of gender equality and presented a higher proportion of women participating as creative band members than had been apparent in recent rock history – particularly in comparison with hair metal. Part of this message of equality originated in and was reinforced by the associated Riot Grrrl movement. What is Riot Grrrl? Riot Grrrl has been the subject of a greater amount of academic research and comment than grunge due to the explicitly political feminist nature of the movement. For example, Gottlieb and Wald (1994) give an in-depth account of the origins and aims of the movement, incorporating feminist and subcultural theory, and Leonard (2007) analyses the development of the movement and its subsequent trajectory (see also Meltzer, 2010). Briefly, Riot Grrrl was a women’s collective, organized around the music scene, that produced fanzines and recordings, and organized and supported gigs of female musicians, while maintaining sharp social commentary on the position of females in society at large. The Riot Grrrls focused on the support that females can receive from one another, and problematized the female body by talking about female desires, body parts and more taboo subjects such as incest and rape in an up-front and confrontational manner. They placed a strong emphasis on allowing younger females to express their experiences, as demonstrated through the fact that they were ‘Grrrls’ not women (see Wald, 2002). Participants used their bodies as message boards by scrawling provocative words (such as ‘Slut’ and ‘Whore’) on their arms, legs and abdomens (Attwood, 2007). For example, a famous photo shoot of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love with their daughter, Frances Bean, showed the infant girl with ‘Diet Grrl’ written on her stomach. While on the one hand encouraging female support of one another, Riot Grrrl also encouraged participants to express anger that they felt at the way that they had been treated or victimized due to their gender, thus colonizing the ‘traditionally’ male territory of anger (Klein, 1997).

110


It has been argued by some academics that since its inception in the early 1990s Riot Grrrl has suffered the same fate of incorporation and normalization as grunge. They note that the appropriation of parts of the message of Riot Grrrl by ‘mainstream’ performers such as Alanis Morissette has the potential to spread this message further, but on the other hand takes away the DIY message of the Riot Grrrls and turns the movement into another product to be sold. As Schilt (2003, p. 228) notes: ‘It was a realistic assumption that girls inspired by Bikini Kill could and would start their own bands. But how realistic was it for girls to aspire to be the next Alanis Morissette or Baby Spice?’ In the early 1990s the Riot Grrrls, tired of being misrepresented, declared a media black-out, and refused to speak to any mainstream journalists or allow documentation of their activities (Kearney, 1998; Rosenberg and Garofalo, 1998). However, the movement has still continued, in somewhat altered forms, since this time (Leonard, 2007). Despite the difficulty associated with applying genre labels authoritatively (as discussed in Chapters 1 and 2), there is strong evidence that grunge was closely associated with the Riot Grrrl movement. Both grew out of the same ‘art world’ that was centred around Seattle in the late 1980s, and grunge had ‘important cultural connections to what Bikini Kill has called “REVOLUTION GIRL STYLE NOW”’ (Shevory, 1995, p. 43). The Riot Grrrl label would be denied to most (if not all) exclusively male bands, but the female bands involved could be – and have been – classified either as Riot Grrrl, grunge or even punk. There is demonstrably a significant overlap between these genres. For instance, as will be shown below, there is a shifting of labels of female bands between ‘grunge’ and ‘Riot Grrrl’. The two movements were geographically and temporally very close, and there was a constant sharing and exchange of personnel and ideas. One oftrepeated illustration of this interaction is in the story behind the title ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, which was a phrase written on the wall of Kurt Cobain’s house by Kathleen Hanna, singer of Bikini Kill and co-founder of the Riot Grrrl movement (Aizlewood, 2005, p. 53). The use of this phrase as the title for Gottlieb and Wald’s article on Riot Grrrl discussed above reinforces this association. A further demonstration of this overlap can be seen in a Sub Pop compilation album from 1991, ‘Sub Pop – The Grunge Years’. The tongue-in-cheek nature of the title can be seen in the cover photograph of two suited men talking on mobile phones in the back of a limousine. The album title should not, therefore, be read as a straight-forward labelling of any of the bands involved as ‘grunge’ or indicative of their acceptance of such a label. However, it does demonstrate that ‘grunge’ was an operative term at this time and suggests which bands would be described as such. Of the 13 artists included on this compilation, three (Hole, Babes In Toyland and L7) are all- or almost all-female bands (the only exception being the guitarist in Hole, Eric Erlandson), and two more bands (Beat Happening and The Walkabouts) have female members. A perusal of the Sub Pop roster shows many female bands on the label, including many ostensibly ‘Riot Grrrl’ bands such as Dickless. While hardly overwhelming female representation, this is a far more healthy showing of female musicians than in most forms of ‘rock’ (see Walser, 1993, for a discussion

Gender and Grunge

111

of how women were excluded from genres such as hair metal). This illustrates the high female participation in grunge and the overlap between it and Riot Grrrl. Despite the closeness of the two movements at their outset, over time they became increasingly separate from each other. In looking at media reports from the time, again mainly concentrating on the NME, this chapter will make the case for the existence of two separate ‘waves’ of female bands. The first was firmly a part of the grunge ‘explosion’ which occurred around the release of Nevermind where, despite the occasional use of labels such as ‘foxcore’, the female bands were not singled out but were part of the wider musical movement (Cameron, 1991a; Dalton, 1990). This wave included bands such as Babes In Toyland, L7, Hole and Calamity Jane, which are explicitly singled out as some of the ‘best proponents’ of grunge (Morris, 1992; Wells and Cameron, 1992). These bands are heralded as the new wave of women in rock: For all the lump-em-together bollocks that all female or female-dominated rock bands have had to endure, it would be foolish to deny that there are more and stronger role models for females in rock than at any time since the late ’70s and that is A GOOD THING. (Ridges, 1992a, p. 49)

A lengthy article on this new wave, ‘The Witch Report’ (Page, 1992) notes that: ‘The fem-grunge onslaught in America has produced the celebrated, scathing foxcore of Babes in Toyland, confrontational noise merchants Hole, LA femmetallists and “female Nirvana” L7, and an ever increasing groundswell of newer names …’, while making no mention of Riot Grrrl. Articles such as these in the NME at this time help further illustrate the phenomenon described above whereby women are constantly rediscovered. While the female grunge bands had always been given coverage beforehand, during late 1992 and 1993 there was an explosion of articles dedicated to the ‘new wave’ of women in rock. While the later articles appear to have been prompted by the ‘discovery’ of Riot Grrrl in the UK, they give coverage to women in rock more generally. With titles such as ‘Rage Against the Man Machine’ (1993) and ‘The Witch Report’ (Page, 1992), these articles make claims such as: Women have grabbed rock by the balls and made it squeal in agony … They are reclaiming rock from the strutting, posturing macho Metal peacocks and the fey, fumbling, characterless boys and dragging it down into a cathartic sexual/ emotional hell for a slice of long-overdue feminine judgment. Women are suddenly not afraid to rock. (Page, 1992, p. 18)

This article (‘The Witch Report’) then goes on to reduce the women to their gender, as Davies (2001) describes, by asking a group of female artists who have little in common aside from being female questions such as: ‘Have you ever found it difficult to express yourself and your sexuality freely in your music?’ These articles erase most previous female contributions to rock with their claims that this

112


is the ‘first’ time women have done these things (although ‘Rage Against the Man Machine’ (1993, p. 14) does make the admission that women have lacked role models in music ‘thanks to the untold, patriarchally obscured history of women’), and continue to reduce these women to little more than their gender, even as they claim to be doing the opposite. Articles such as this also ‘work against the normalisation of women working within rock’ (Leonard, 2007, p. 35), reinforcing the idea that women are unusual in this area. However, from the start of 1993 the NME starts to report on the second wave of female bands, a ‘new’ phenomenon which is identified as ‘Riot Grrrl’ for the first time in this publication (Harris, 1993; ‘Love Is in the Bear’, 1993). In particular, the genre-defining article ‘Rage Against the Man Machine’ (1993) sets out the meanings of Riot Grrrl. It identifies the movement as having been in existence for around two years, but only in the UK for six months or so. At this time, there is suddenly a clear demarcation between grunge and Riot Grrrl. For example, Courtney Love is described in terms such as ‘an influential forerunner of the Riot Grrrl movement’, thus establishing a temporal gap between one and the other. The differences between grunge and Riot Grrrl can also be seen in the way that the bands position themselves. While the newer Riot Grrrl bands such as Bikini Kill are almost militant in their feminist stance and deliberately call attention to the fact that they are female in their attempts to claim a space for women in the rock world (for example, see ‘Rage Against the Man Machine’, 1993), the earlier grunge bands follow a more ‘traditional’ line in asking for their music to be taken on its own merits regardless of their gender (for example, see Harris, 1993; Morris, 1992). Thus while I do not deny the existence of Riot Grrrl as an entity in its own right, especially in its non-musical forms, I wish to argue that it has since become a convenient label for any female bands from this time. There is a stronger case to be made for including bands such as Hole, L7 and Babes In Toyland under the ‘grunge’ banner than that of Riot Grrrl, based on media reports of the time, accounts of respondents in this study and statements by the bands themselves. In interviews with members of some of these bands, Schippers (2002) finds that they are far less willing than male grunge bands to be described as ‘feminist’ or to want to discuss feminist issues in depth, because of a weariness with being framed solely in terms of their gender. They are also wary of the separatist nature of Riot Grrrl. The message of Riot Grrrl gained more public attention through the success of grunge than it otherwise would have had (which was at least partially facilitated by some male grunge musicians), and musically there is often little to separate grunge from Riot Grrrl except the presence of female musicians. However, it is significant that as time has passed all female bands from this era have been pushed (not always entirely successfully) more towards the Riot Grrrl label (for example, see Ali, 1997; Attwood, 2007; Huq, 2006, p. 140; Nicholas, 2003). Moreover, the label ‘Riot Grrrl’ has increasingly been applied to any female performer (for example, see DeRogatis, 2003; Raphael, 1996), again serving to reduce women to their gender, regardless of the differences between their performances. This serves to separate the women performers from the men, leaving the label ‘grunge’

Gender and Grunge

113

to describe the latter and thus allowing the entire movement to conform more to journalistic ideas of what rock is about. This is also the case in the accounts of respondents, as discussed in the following section. The erasure of women’s history can also be seen in academic writing on Riot Grrrl. Despite acknowledging the prior presence of women in rock, even Gottlieb and Wald (1994) still refer to Riot Grrrl as a new, unprecedented phenomenon, and make claims such as that the ‘recent visibility of women in rock … signals greater access for women to male-dominated realms of expression’ (p. 251), without addressing why they believe this incursion of women into male territory will not suffer a similar fate to previous ones and be forgotten. This fits in with the pattern of women’s history being lost described by Wallach Scott, and with the societalwide pattern of the participation (and emancipation) of women being repeatedly heralded as new (see also McDonald, 1994). If the accomplishments of women in the past are constantly forgotten, it makes it easier for each new generation – as with the journalists in the music press – to congratulate themselves on the progressive nature of society. The Disappearing Women Despite the prominence of female musicians at the time, both the female bands and the message of gender equality and tolerance have almost completely disappeared from the accounts of respondents, particularly male respondents. Some of the male respondents explicitly identify grunge as a masculine thing. For example, Gordon identifies it as ‘mostly male’, in a similar manner to other respondents: The grunge stuff was very different because it was very deep, very masculine, but also it could be croony or it could be full of anger. (Burton) Can you say what the sound was? Yeah, it was full, and it was generally fairly loose, ah, it had a degree of anger attached to it, and in that sense it was an honest expression of adolescent rage, you know, the new angry young man, in a way, as it’s defined in the dictionary kind of – not that I’m making a sexist comment, but, you know, it was that expression of that time. (Max)

In a more practical sense, ways that respondents report using grunge in their day-today lives suggests that it was perceived as existing in a masculine territory. Three female respondents describe using their liking of grunge as a way of improving their relationships with males they knew: Most of the girls weren’t really into music, it was like girls don’t do music, sort of thing, and so I think a lot of [the boys] thought I was pretty cool because I did actually appreciate music and I could talk about music with them, whereas

114

Grunge: Music and Memory a lot of the other girls, you know, they wouldn’t talk about music, they’d talk about other things, so that sort of put me on a different level with guys, because going to an all girls school, there’s just a different sort of … first the boys are a bit weird because they go to an all boys school, and they’re like ‘oh, girls’, so if you can talk to them about something they relate to I think that puts you on a different level with them. So I guess that sort of changed my relationship with guys. I think I got along with them better in terms of that sort of interest because I did like music whereas a lot of the other girls didn’t. (Kaye) Do you think it changed your relationship with anyone, with people that you knew? Hmmm ... no, no I don’t think so. Although maybe, maybe, my friends Jack and Barry, they really liked that I gave them that copy of that Gluey Porch Treatment by The Melvins, they were really sort of like ‘Ohhh’, it kind of gave them this new sense, ’cos I think they thought ’cos I was a girl that, you know, I wouldn’t like that kind of stuff (laughs), I was just like oh no, you have no idea. (Louisa) Did you know a lot of other people who were listening to grunge? Um … yeah, I think … it was mostly males, like my male friends that would be into that, a lot of my female friends were listening to whatever was on the radio and stuff like that, yeah. I think it was more my male friends in school who were into it. (Rita)

Only Louisa’s account here suggests any shifting of the status quo in terms of her challenging her male friends’ notions of masculine and feminine music. In the others, Rita and Kaye use what is accepted as a masculine cultural form to gain acceptance with males on their terms or ‘turf’, rather than causing any shift in the males’ perceptions. That respondents remember grunge in these masculine terms suggests that the message of gender equality contained in grunge may in some ways have had little impact ‘on the ground’ in the lives of fans, making it unsurprising that this message and the female musicians are remembered less than an examination of media reports from the time may indicate. In terms of the female artists associated with grunge, Figure 4.1 (on page 73) shows bands explicitly labelled as ‘grunge’ by respondents. It contains only three bands, Hole, L7 and Babes In Toyland, which would be called ‘female bands’, and two bands, Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth, with female bass players. While Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth has always been portrayed as an equally participating band member, Smashing Pumpkins has been constructed as being centred around the tortured-romantic-artist stereotype of singer-songwriter Billy Corgan, and female bass player D’arcy reduced to the role of ‘eye candy’ (for example, see Ridges, 1992b). As a result of this and the contested position of Sonic Youth in regard to ‘grunge’, this discussion will focus more on the other three bands mentioned. These bands were also identified by the media as belonging to ‘grunge’, at least initially (as discussed above).

Gender and Grunge

115

One question that arises in relation to Figure 4.1 is whether there is a correlation between commercial success and the likelihood of being remembered as ‘grunge’. To a certain extent there is such a correlation demonstrated in the chart. Nirvana and Pearl Jam were the most commercially successful grunge bands, and Soundgarden also had a number of high-selling albums in Australia (Barnes and Scanes, 2003). However, the presence of Mudhoney as the second most named grunge band causes difficulty for this claim as they have never had any significant commercial success in Australia. The fact that they are mentioned by so many respondents could be interpreted as an attempt on the part of respondents to lay claim to a certain amount of cultural capital by being fans of a more obscure band who are also seen as ‘pioneers’ of the movement. The amount of success achieved by L7 and particularly Hole would be on a par with, if not greater than, that of Alice In Chains or Screaming Trees. However, it would appear that female bands have not become markers of cultural capital in the same way that male bands are to the majority of respondents. Taking L7, who are mentioned by five respondents, as an example, two of the respondents who discuss them are female (although one of them [Michelle] isn’t quite sure if they were ‘grunge’ or not), and two are males who had worked in a company responsible for distributing L7’s music in Australia and thus have a greater reason to remember them and regard them as important. The fifth respondent is a male, one of the last interviewees, and I asked him directly about female bands, as I had begun to realize they were missing from what most people were telling me: Did you ever listen to any of the female bands associated with it, like Hole or L7? Yeah … Hole, Courtney Love is just a dirty rock slut (laughs), there’s no other way to put it, I mean the way that she met Kurt (inaudible), she came over when they were both drunk, didn’t even introduce herself, and poured a drink from his jug. How dirty rock slut is that? And good looking girls know they can get away with that stuff. L7 I didn’t really get into, Courtney Love, I saw Hole but didn’t really get into it. (Percy)

What is noticeable here is that the respondent does not dispute the inclusion of bands like Hole and L7 under the label ‘grunge’, but needed prompting to remember them. The same phenomenon emerges in the other interviews involving this question, implying that the reason for disregarding female bands is not that respondents had never heard of them in the first place or were unaware of their association with grunge, but they have not been retained in their memories in a way that makes it important or relevant to mention them when discussing grunge. As the grunge movement has become more and more distant in memory, so have the female participants in the scene become reduced in stature and importance in the media also, with the significant exception of Courtney Love. As discussed in Chapter 5, the tenth anniversary of Cobain’s death spawned

116


a number of magazine articles which gave retrospective accounts of the grunge era. The text of these articles focused exclusively on the male bands, predominantly Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Mudhoney, and the two male founders of Sub Pop. A number of these articles include lists of ‘The Best Grunge Albums’, and here women do appear – if the list is long enough! Mojo magazine’s ‘Early Grunge Classics’ (Alexander, 2005) lists only five albums, with no female artists included. Revolver’s ‘Flyin’ the Flannel; 10 Essential Grunge Albums’ (Tepedelen, 2004) also contains no female artists. However, lists of 20 or more albums find room for the female bands. For example, Spin’s ‘20 Greatest Grunge Albums of All Time’ places Hole (Live Through This) at number 7, L7 (Bricks are Heavy) at number 11 and Babes In Toyland (Spanking Machine) at number 16 (Beaujon et al., 2004). Guitar One’s ‘Plaid to the Bone; The 25 Greatest Grunge Albums’ includes as the last and third to last albums listed Hole’s Pretty on the Inside and Babes In Toyland’s Spanking Machine (a Smashing Pumpkins album also appears on this list). This again shows the grunge canon being reclaimed as a male space. I have demonstrated above that, despite the importance of female bands and musicians at the height of grunge’s popularity, they are rarely mentioned by respondents and are disappearing from media accounts. This process of marginalizing and forgetting these women began when the Riot Grrrl label became available as a way of separating women playing heavy rock-style music from the men. This is in keeping with a wider societal trend for women to be forgotten more easily than men, and provides a case study demonstrating how this happens. Not all women, however, were forgotten, and I will now turn to an examination of the memory of Courtney Love. Memories of Courtney Love People hate [Yoko Ono], they really do. Did you know that to Yoko someone is a verb in America? It’s something the boys say if they’re hanging out with you too much and they’re going to school or if they have a band. It’s almost a myth that’s used to suppress women. Y’know, ‘You’re gonna Yoko me. You’re gonna destroy me.’ (Courtney Love, NME, 17 April 1993)

One woman from the grunge movement who has not been forgotten is Courtney Love. Reflecting again on the earlier quote from Percy where he discussed female grunge musicians, the most remarkable element of this quote is that the first thing he says is that Courtney Love is ‘a dirty rock slut’. Briefly, Love was the singer of punk/grunge band Hole, and in 1992 married Kurt Cobain and had a child with him, Frances Bean. Even disregarding her association with Cobain, she has always been a contentious figure. Between being outspoken and articulate on issues of gender equality, making use of her body and image to further such critiques, claiming to be bisexual and battling drug addiction

Gender and Grunge

117

(and at times various other musicians), she has always provided plenty of sensational press. While never a ‘tomboy’ or cross-dresser as such, Love’s use of clothing during the grunge era (less so in recent years) could itself be read as a commentary on gender roles and expectations. For example, her ‘baby doll’ dresses were simultaneously inappropriate wear for a grown woman and suggestive of deviancy through the combination of adult sexuality and symbols of childhood. Love is praised by many academics for her feminist stance. Heywood and Drake (1997, p. 5), for example, discuss the ways in which Love can be seen as a combination of elements of both second and third wave feminism: Love’s star quality and personal ambition may be a legacy of the Reagan 1980s and a quality discouraged by the collective movement ethos of second wave feminism, but it was the second wave that made ambition a realizable possibility for women. Equity feminist, postmodern feminist, and victim feminist all at once, Love combines the contradictory aspects of these discourses in a way that recognizes and makes use of complications that young women working within dominant culture face today.

However, as will be demonstrated in this chapter, Love is more often than not an object of dislike and criticism for journalists and audiences. Academics, journalists and indeed Love herself (as in her song ‘20 Years in the Dakota’) recognize parallels between her and rock’s other infamous widow, Yoko Ono (or even rock’s other destructive blonde stereotype, Nancy Spungen). Yoko’s name itself has become symbolic of the assumption of a ‘misanthropic role for any woman purported to be pivotal in the life of one or more members of a venerated male collective’ (Scodari, 2007, p. 58), and the operation of this ‘Yoko Effect’ can certainly be observed in Love’s case. Both Ono and Love are strong, outspoken women who are artists in their own right, and who have been criticized for their influence over their dead husbands. At times, the media has joined academics in praising Love for her feminist stance (for example, see Iley, 2006; Sutherland, 1993a). This praise fulfils the necessity for the press to appear liberal and non-sexist, as pointed out by Davies (2001). However, such praise is reserved for interviews with her and far more criticism (implied or direct) is found in gossip-style reports on her actions, whether they be taking drugs, getting into fights, being taken to court, having plastic surgery or losing custody of her child. Such reports both deny Love the right of reply which she might have in an interview situation, and reinforce public opinion of her as a deviant woman and therefore unfit mother. The fact that this deviance comes in the form of a white woman is also significant. Although not as obvious (or as theorized) as the marking out of non-white femininity, the construction of white femininity is central to the understanding of whiteness and its ‘others’. In her study of the ways in which the image of Princess Diana has been used since her death to reinforce the meanings

118


of white femininity and erase actions of hers which did not fit into this mould, Shome (2001, p. 323) observes that: As symbols of motherhood, as markers of feminine beauty … as translators (and hence preservers) of bloodlines, as signifiers of national domesticity, as sites for the reproduction of heterosexuality … and as sites through which ‘otherness’ – racial, sexual, classed, gendered, and nationalized – is negotiated, white femininity constitutes the locus through which borders of race, gender, sexuality and nationality are guarded and secured. This consequently marks it as a threat, since it is a site through which the nation can spill into otherness.

Love’s embodiment as a white female and a mother makes her use of her body and her behaviour of public interest. She is seen as the ‘keeper’ of the legacy of Kurt Cobain through his genetic material, his daughter, a more important position now that Cobain himself is lost to us. As such, powerful notions of motherhood come into play, particularly regarding the idea that a woman should put her family before her own desires. One of the most damaging attacks on Love was an article in Vanity Fair (Hirschberg, 1992) in which Love is accused of using heroin during her pregnancy, an allegation which saw the newly born Frances Bean Cobain removed from Love and Cobain’s custody during the first weeks of her life. The publication of this article in September 1992, and Love’s pregnancy more generally, mark a significant turning point in the way that Love is portrayed in the NME and other media sources. Prior to the announcement of her pregnancy, references to Love in the NME were universally flattering. She was hailed as a groundbreaking musician and her strong personality and forceful opinions praised (for example, see Walsh, 1991). Some weeks after the announcement of her pregnancy, the only reference to Hole in an article dedicated to the ‘new’ women in rock is to them being a ‘lesser talent’ (Maconie, 1992), and the following week an article by Roger Morton (1992) presents a summarized version of what was contained in the Vanity Fair article. As well as accusing her of taking drugs while pregnant, it also suggested that she was responsible for Cobain’s addiction to heroin. From this point, criticism of Love in the magazine was unrestrained. An article on Nirvana the following week, unsubtly titled ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (Double, 1992), is an extraordinary piece of character assassination, spending a great deal of time describing what a ‘pain in the arse’ she is and ridiculing many of the traits for which she had previously been praised, such as her outspokenness. Love’s personality had not changed, but the shift of her status from ‘single woman’ to ‘wife and mother’, and her refusal to fit in with dominant societal views of how wives and mothers should behave, resulted in condemnation and the reinscription of patriarchal norms by the supposedly liberal music press (Leonard, 2007). These concerns were, on the whole, presented as concerns over Love’s influence on Cobain, and I will now turn to an examination of the construction of their relationship.

Gender and Grunge

119

Love and Cobain While the contribution of women tends to be lost when the past becomes ‘history’, one way in which the reputation of some women survives is through their association with men. For example, when examining women artists from the nineteenth century, Lang and Lang (1990, p. 308) find that: (w)hile most of the women and their work have been forgotten, some have been less forgotten because they are linked in memory to other artists – almost always men – who are remembered. Social ties to the famous can promote the posthumous survival of a reputation and, indirectly, of the artistic output on which that reputation is based.

Love’s association with Cobain has provided the basis for her persistence in memory where the other women of grunge have faded. Thus while Love’s band Hole is mentioned in interviews with respondents more often than other female bands in relation to grunge, it is the notoriety of Courtney Love that has given her band a higher profile than the other female bands. Love is also mentioned by respondents far more often than Hole (13 respondents discuss Love, while only six mention Hole), and it would appear that her role as a musician has been vastly overshadowed by her role as a wife and mother, and her apparent shortcomings as such. Love’s performance of femininity, while challenging in its own right, is even more confronting when paired with Cobain’s (lack of) masculinity. The use of Love as a ‘foil’ for Cobain places an even stronger emphasis on the unacceptable extremes of her personality and makes her seem even more of a failure as a female. Cobain was known for playing with gender roles (for example, wearing dresses and make-up), and also had other traits that might be considered ‘feminine’. He had an unusually slight build (to the point where it was reported he would don extra layers of clothing to make himself appear larger), and was described in terms of passivity through being ‘sensitive’ (a feminine trait), uninvolved in events around him and ultimately unable to deal with life itself (see Muto, 1995). For example, the damaging Vanity Fair article describes Cobain thus: Kurt is wearing pajama bottoms, is bare-chested, and has a sparkly beaded bracelet on his wrist. He is small and very thin and has pale-white skin. His hair, which he’s dyed red and purple in the past, is now blond, and his eyes are very blue. His face is quite beautiful, almost delicate. Where Courtney projects strength, Kurt seems fragile. He looks as if he might break. (Hirschberg, 1992)

And in Uncut Legends, the dynamic between Love and Cobain is described as: ‘Physically slight and with persistent, chronic health problems, Kurt was almost uniformly perceived as hyper-sensitive, passive, dependent, emotionally insecure and the “female” of the relationship. She was the “male” – physically dominant,

120


tougher, more assertive, confident and outspoken’ (O’Connell, 2004, p. 83). While Cobain also demonstrated masculine tendencies, particularly anger as expressed through his music, he was by no means an exemplar of ‘masculine’ behaviour; and in comparison with Love she can appear the more masculine.2 One of the accusations made against Love before Cobain’s death was that she was essentially a ‘bad influence’ on him. As mentioned above, the damaging Vanity Fair article blamed Cobain’s drug addiction on Love, and other articles comment on her apparent dominance over him. Such accusations can be seen as critical of both parties and their rejection of social norms – of her as being unfeminine in her assertiveness, and him as unmasculine for not being assertive enough. The way that Cobain is constructed as an ‘artist’ provides somewhat of a buffer for him, insofar as it is acceptable for artists to break with social conventions. Love, however, is not granted the same status and is therefore fair game. Love is also unfeminine in that she displays a rejection of the ‘caring’ role that women (especially mothers) are expected to take on. Coates (1998) notes that part of the reason that Courtney is portrayed as a bad mother is that she does many things that mothers are supposed to warn their children not to do (for example, stage-diving, taking drugs). Similarly, in supposedly encouraging and facilitating Cobain’s drug use, Love is perceived as rejecting this caring role that is socially prescribed for women, and as falling in line with a more negative feminine stereotype, that of the controlling, sinister witch (Leonard, 2007, p. 80). The frail, often ill, Cobain is portrayed as someone who needs care, and in apparently not providing this appropriately for him, Love is held responsible for his deterioration and eventual death. This issue of Love’s ‘control’ over Cobain is strongly reflected in comments on Love by respondents. Isaac says: And I watched, my sister’s doing a media course at the moment, and she watched that Kurt and Courtney documentary the other night, that made me even more depressed, to hear how fucked up she made him and how she completely warped his relationship with his kid. (Isaac)

Love was also more likely to express anger, to physically as well as verbally fight with people (something Cobain made a point of never doing), and was as sexually transgressive as Cobain in terms of the use of her body. While he wore dresses, she would adopt physical stances more commonly associated with men, particularly on stage. Love’s version of white femininity is, then, not a matter of concern to national identity, as in the case of Princess Diana, but to the place that women are expected to occupy in popular music and in culture more widely. These ideas cross national borders, and are deeply pervasive in the Western world. While 2 When discussing the idea of the ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’, I am not meaning these as essentialist or fixed notions; rather, I am discussing stereotypes which do, still, hold a lot of power.

Gender and Grunge

121

sexual transgression along the lines of that offered by Cobain can arguably ultimately serve the status quo in that it removes the need for women in rock through providing the feminine in men (Bannister, 2006; Davies, 2001; Huyssen, 1986), the sexual transgression of Love is a threat that needed to be somehow contained. Judging by the negative reaction of respondents to her, this has been accomplished quite successfully. Love has also come under repeated attack for her sexual behaviour. Criticism of Courtney for being, as Percy notes in the quote included earlier, a ‘dirty rock slut’ comes from all angles – fans, press and, most tellingly, other musicians. A number of bands have released songs which are reportedly aimed at Love – for example, Nine Inch Nail’s ‘Starfuckers Inc’, which includes lines such as ‘I sold my soul but don’t you dare call me a whore’,3 or Tori Amos’ ‘Professional Widow’ (‘Starfucker just like my daddy’)4 – which usually comment either on her sexual or ‘wifely’ behaviour. It seems almost unnecessary to point out the hypocrisy present in the rock world (and in society in general) as regards the sexual behaviour of women and the condemnation that they receive for the same behaviour glorified in men. For example, the book Rock Bottom by self-confessed ‘groupie’ Pamela Des Barres (1996) gives short accounts of the lives of 21 musicians who died young. Only one woman is included in this book – Janis Joplin – and while the sexual conquests of the men discussed in the book are recounted as well-deserved awards for the success that they have achieved, Joplin’s sexuality is pathologized. Love has never hidden the fact that she has sexual desires and does indeed act on them. The fact that she has often engaged in public affairs with other musicians has made it easy for others to label her a ‘starfucker’ – in essence, a groupie, something that some male journalists (at least) have long suspected is the only role for women in rock (Davies, 2001, p. 315). This again detracts from Love’s talent as a musician and refocuses attention on her body. Death and Motherhood The only point at which these feminine roles have worked for Love was during the immediate aftermath of Cobain’s death, when as a ‘grieving widow’ – a role which she performed more in line with social norms by being seen openly mourning and apparently taking solace in her child – she was given some positive coverage and 3

As regards the Nine Inch Nails song, this was apparently the result of a sexual encounter between Trent Reznor and Love. Love’s comeback to Reznor’s subsequent attacks on her was to suggest that ‘Three Inch Nails’ would be a more appropriate name for his band. 4 The definitive target of this song has never been confirmed by Amos. However, the fact that it is widely rumoured to be about Love suggests that the sentiments which it contains reflect how people either feel about Love or would expect others to feel about her. For an example of a discussion of this song, see .

122


sympathy from the press. For example, Select magazine (Greene, 1994) describes a ‘distraught’ Love’s search for Cobain during the days before his body was found and gives a sympathetic account of her grief after his death. Similarly, the NME praised Love’s vehement condemnation of Cobain’s actions (Sutherland, 1994) and it has since been suggested that her stance may have discouraged ‘copycat suicides’ (Martin and Koo, 1997). However, only one respondent retains this sympathetic view of Love, saying: I thought it [Cobain’s death] was incredibly sad for him personally, and for his wife and also his child … I found some of the ways that other people reacted to it a bit heartless, like … it was all Courtney’s fault … I think more so for his child and his partner it was really devastating. (Shelly)

However, this is an isolated response, with the tendency to blame Love for the death being far more prevalent. Other respondents are unhappy with her adoption of the widow role in that it ‘gave licence to Courtney Love to be the martyr’ (Seamus). Various conspiracy theories since Cobain’s death – mainly fueled by the Nick Broomfield documentary Kurt and Courtney (1998) – have accused Love of driving Cobain to commit suicide or actually paying someone to have him killed. Coates (1998) notes that theories connecting Love to Cobain’s death have ‘been disseminated widely through the World Wide Web and tabloid television’, and they continue to circulate today. These theories are picked up on by some respondents: How did you feel about Kurt Cobain’s death? Well I was just … I just remember being pissed off that it was him and not Courtney Love, basically (laughs). I just thought she … yeah, it was just like, I had this perception of her at the time that she was this groupie slut who, you know, got to go out with Kurt Cobain and then, you know, driven him to kill himself, which was pretty much my opinion at the time. (Missy) I fully blamed Courtney Love (laughs). I don’t care what everyone else says, it’s her fault, whether she did it herself or whether she drove him to it. (Bertha) … he was a fairly unstable sort of a guy, and I guess anyone who, marrying Courtney Love … aww, that’s enough reason to kill yourself, I reckon, just that in itself (laughs). (Dylan)

While the humour inherent in these responses needs to be noted, the dislike and hatred directed towards Courtney is nonetheless genuine. Cobain is constructed by respondents and media accounts as weak and in need of protection and care; Courtney is seen as not only neglecting her wifely duties to provide these, but as actively working to damage her husband. It is hard to imagine a much stronger

Gender and Grunge

123

condemnation of someone than to suggest that they killed their partner or drove them to suicide – unless it is the suggestion that they are acting in a way that is harmful to their child. Since Cobain’s death, Love’s care of her child has been closely scrutinized, culminating in Frances being again taken from, and then returned to, Love’s custody in 2006. In 2010 Frances was again removed from her mother’s custody and took up residence with her paternal grandmother. As Shoemaker (1997, p. 112) notes, ‘it is amazing how easy it still is for conservative representations to silence and subvert strong female role models, reducing them to their biological functions with disturbing ease. Vanity Fair demonized the latest media ‘whore’, Courtney Love, for her alleged heroin abuse during pregnancy.’ However, Shoemaker notes that the media has praised Madonna for her more ‘appropriate’ response to motherhood, and in fact have somehow put her back on the ‘virgin’ side of the virgin/whore dichotomy because she acted in a manner considered more natural by putting her energies into raising her child instead of into her career. Love, on the other hand, did not step out of the spotlight after giving birth to Frances to concentrate on her child. She continued to pursue her career as a rock star, and opened herself up to more criticism by bringing her child into the spotlight with her, for example, by having photo shoots with the baby Frances and later taking her on tour (for a more in-depth discussion of this and Love’s ‘bad’ mothering, see Coates, 1998). Love’s (and to a lesser extent, Cobain’s) parenting skills are also questioned by respondents: Courtney is still a bad role model. These people were caught in a lifestyle that, they unfortunately take on roles as role models, but they had a child, and they were setting such a bad example for the way you should raise your child and that sort of thing. (Bill) But I probably, if anything I just thought, my first initial reaction [to Cobain’s death] would probably have been ‘oh poor Frances’, even though she was little, we thought that she’d be left with Courtney Love and have a screwed up life. (Clara)

The criticism of Love here is twofold. First, her ‘bad’ mothering will be detrimental to her own child as she grows up, and second, her ‘bad’ mothering will be detrimental to other children because she is providing a bad example for other parents. Positive Accounts of Love However, not all respondents have a negative view of Love. Some report liking her music, and Clara, while ambivalent about Love overall, finds positive as well as negative sides to her:

124

Grunge: Music and Memory See, that’s my other big problem – I look at her and I don’t want to buy albums from her when she looks good, I’d buy albums from her when she looks like trash, because I feel that’s when she really lets her real self out, not when she’s all being pretty and girly and stuff – even though I do like it when she looks like that. So you were listening to Hole back at the time when you were listening to Nirvana? Yeah, it’s probably got to do with the fact that I’d seen Kurt Cobain and Courtney were married, and a friend of mine was really big into Hole. Did you find her … was she a role model to you at all, do you think? Definitely by looks. I’d try to dress like her I suppose. I wouldn’t say that I wanted to be like them, because they didn’t have the best lifestyles. I do, I’m one of those people that buys books and reads about new stuff, and Courtney Love was a role model to me for a while just because she did clean herself up, cleaned herself up for Frances Bean when Kurt died and stuff, and I was like, I’m so proud of her for doing that, but she’s fallen back into it again, so …

Bill also finds some positive effects that he believes Love had on other people he knew: I like that because, probably because Courtney was so raw and, you know, the more you read about Courtney the more interested I was, and her addictions and her stripping lifestyle and that sort of thing. I had a lot of friends who were sort of, could be described as wrong side of the tracks and that sort of thing, and they could identify with her and they supported her, and I supported her.

Here we see the concept of authenticity being central to respondents’ approval or identification with musicians. Clara and Bill are hardly approving of Love and her lifestyle, but her ‘realness’ and personal struggles create empathy for her. In being seen to be expressing something ‘true’ about herself, she is creating a connection between others who have suffered similar difficulties in their lives. In a way, though, this puts Courtney again into a caring role, in that her own failures can be seen as a catalyst for failure in others. Charlie gives a different account of what he perceives as the positive potential contained in Love’s persona: I would even go so far as to say that the ‘fuck you’ attitude in pop and the open sexual thing is a product of things like Courtney, because Courtney made women go ‘fuck you’, really for the first time openly in music history. There was always women with attitude, but there was no one with that sort of attitude, and that sort of attitude you see a lot in young girls today, and I think that’s a very prevalent sort of thing, and I think from what anybody ever thinks about Courtney – I met her – she is who she is. (…) I really respect her because she’s not fake, she is who she is, and she’s never been shy about it, and she really does epitomize that American … fame thing, if you know what I mean. Even though she comes from a really punk rock thing she has always wanted to be famous,

Gender and Grunge

125

and she really did work at it. I think especially on the female side she’s a huge influence on attitude and things that are going on now.

This opinion corresponds with the readings given in academic articles on Riot Grrrl and Courtney Love – that the presence of women in the rock apparatus is positive, posing a challenge to the male status quo and offering role models and alternatives to young women who come into contact with them (Attwood, 2007; DeChaine, 1997; Gottlieb and Wald, 1994). Overwhelmingly, though, this potential is contained and defused by the normalizing effect of ‘official record keepers’, in this case mainly the music press, erasing the influence of women and vilifying women who do not fulfil what are deemed to be appropriate feminine roles (Davies, 2001). The only woman involved in grunge who is remembered by respondents is Courtney Love, and she is remembered in an almost overwhelmingly negative light. The quotes above represent the only positive comments that respondents have to make about her, as opposed to a far greater number who remember her negatively. In this case, the retrospective narratives of grunge and the memories of respondents appear to be in alignment – as opposed to the situation with the perception of Kurt Cobain after his death – which suggests that respondents’ present identities are supported more by remembering grunge as a masculine cultural form. This is something that needs to be kept in mind, and possibly researched further, as women who actually do pose a threat to the status quo can in this way be silenced over time, even with the full co-operation of the fan base that is supposedly the target of change for the transgressors. Female Respondents and the Gender Equality Message of Grunge While the message of gender equality in grunge has not survived on a collective level, it did impact on a minority of respondents in a way that has had lasting consequences for their identity. Three of the female respondents describe how, for them, grunge opened up the possibilities of different identities and different ways of being female. Clara describes feeling as though certain people looked down on her, so I asked: The people that were different to you at the time – what were they listening to at that point? It was the Spice Girls! We had lots of girls that liked the Spice, ’cos, at [high school] lots of girls liked the Spice Girls and I used to get picked on big time for the music I listened to and the way I dressed, but I liked grunge clothes because you could be yourself and you don’t have to sit there and put on lots of make-up and be all princessy, you can just go around in a t-shirt and pair of jeans, and shoes, and become cool. That’s another thing that I love about grunge, you can be yourself and no one really looks down upon you, that’s in that same circle anyway.

126


Here Clara contrasts a more conventional femininity with what she felt grunge allowed – ‘being herself’, being comfortable, not playing on sexuality. Janie gives a similar account: OK, basically, I used to be much more of a girly girl, and I’d wear skirts and stuff, and I always felt kind of comfortable, but I knew that I could be more comfortable, kind of thing, and I wasn’t quite sure about the whole thing, and then basically I went out and I got this outfit – well, I bought my first pair of really cool jeans, before that I always had really daggy jeans, but I bought these mad grungey kind of jeans that had rips, and they were great, and they were beautiful, and I still love them and miss them, but then, yeah, I wore this kind of, I wore Converse, I think I’d bought my first pair of Converse, which I associate with all that thing, and I bought this Chili Peppers t-shirt which I cut the sleeves off, and I had this top tied around my waist, and it was kind of ultimate grunge fashion, and I felt so comfortable, yeah, and I went to the school dance like that, which was really unusual, ’cos before that we had all been incredibly girly, you know what I mean, and we always tried to look kind of stupidly sexy and stuff, but that night, it was wonderful. I felt great, and from that moment on I always dressed like that, very casually, and never wore short skirts again or anything. Yeah, I don’t know, in a way – I just found that fashion really relaxed, and I found the whole scene really, it was all about kind of, I don’t know, it just wasn’t putting on airs, and it was just all very mellow, and that’s what I liked.

Although these examples are principally about clothes (and in Janie’s quote some questions could certainly be raised about the commercialization and marketing of these fashions), these women are relating a discovery of different ways of being which have been presented to them through grunge. These accounts are similar in many ways to Schippers’ (2002, p. xiii) descriptions of the ‘gender maneuvering’ that she observed in alternative hard rock audiences in the 1990s. This is where ‘one or more people manipulate their own gender performance or manipulate the meaning of their own or others’ gender performances in order to establish, disrupt or change the relationship between and among masculinities and femininities’. Schippers observes that the fashions adopted by the female participants in the scenes she studied involved a combination of ‘hyperslutty’ clothes such as mini-skirts or fishnet stockings, with items such as work or army boots more conventionally coded as masculine, or with presentations of the body informed by feminist ideas (for example, unshaved armpits or legs). These combinations worked to disrupt the expectation that women will be the objects of male gaze. While the respondents here did not adopt the ‘slutty’ elements of this trend in the same way, the shift they describe from a ‘girly’ self-presentation to something more gender-neutral or even masculine can still be seen as an instance of gender manoeuvring, although possibly an unconscious one. A third example, Lily, goes even further. She describes in much more depth her first encounters with some of the female grunge bands, and the challenge that they

Gender and Grunge

127

presented to her ideas of gender. Here she describes her reaction to the L7 single Shove, given to her by her uncle: I loved L7 – I was terrified but I thought they were kind of cheesy at the same time, because it was Shove and Fast, those two songs, and I loved it, I thought it was kind of daggy but awesome at the same time, and also the picture on the cover scared the fuck out of me, I don’t know if you’ve seen the cover to Shove, the single, they’ve just got blacked-out teeth and eyes rolled back in their heads, and to me who’s used to seeing at that time Madonna and glammed-up chicks, I was just like ‘oh my god, who are these women – are they actually women?’ I wasn’t sure if they were women or boys, I was like ‘are they dudes with long hair or what?’

She also remembers and describes elements of the equality message of grunge discussed earlier: Because, particularly, Kurt Cobain, he was able to speak his mind, and he was awesome, very pro-choice, pro-women, these things meant heaps to me in particular, and he was fairly anti-violence, even though he appeared to be, although I didn’t know the guy, violent in his own nature kind of thing, just a lot of energy which I think is a really healthy good thing, just smashing things and just ‘ahhh!’ and then he killed himself, which is the worst.

A recurring theme in this interview with Lily is the idea that grunge facilitated a process of discovering the possibilities of gender manoeuvring and alternative ways of living, which she has pursued since, being heavily involved in playing in bands (particularly all-female, grungey sounding [as she says] bands) and promoting the cause of women in rock through radio shows and other methods. The only bands which Lily classifies as grunge are Nirvana, Hole, Babes In Toyland, L7 and a more recent band fronted by a woman, The Distillers, suggesting that her idea of what constituted grunge may be significantly different to other respondents in that she seems to connect it much more strongly to feminine aspects of the genre than anyone else. There is only one instance of a male respondent discussing these new gender possibilities. Burton was in a band and noticed fashions changing at the time. He says: When I first saw my singer turning up to gigs wearing my grandfather’s clothes, I wasn’t very happy, because I was used to wearing leather pants and a leather jacket and all black and throwing my hair around, sort of thing, and he was wearing his grandfather’s clothes, and the next minute the other guitarist is wearing flannies, and the bassist, she’s wearing jeans that are way too big for her – and she had a great figure, you know, I was like ‘you look fantastic, all the guys love you, look what you’re wearing, you look ridiculous’ sort of thing.


128

This is an interesting quote because it shows a male response to this shifting of female roles away from objectification. It is also worth noting that although Burton was initially challenged by this, later in the interview he does say that after a while he grew to like the grunge fashions, at least for himself: I guess over time I found those clothes comfortable – leather pants are very uncomfortable, but ripped jeans, very nice, yeah, and you get very hot up on stage – the flannie, very nice, you can just rip it off and have a singlet or t-shirt underneath. It’s a different sort of showmanship, I guess, it was also more laid back, which I liked, I began to appreciate that.

While Lily appears to have fully incorporated the gender equality message of grunge into her memories of the movement, Clara and Janie do not explicitly discuss the feminist ideals of the time. However, all three of these respondents have continued to adhere to grunge ideals of femininity at the everyday, embodied level of the habitus. Even though Clara and Janie do not identify this as a feministinspired change, their shift to a less ‘princessy’ or ‘girly’ mode of dress and presentation represents a challenge to the gender order that they continue with to the present day. That this challenge has become unquestioned habit for these women shows the partial success of grunge’s gender equality message and that it continues to exist in memories, even as the names and music of the women of grunge are being forgotten. While on the one hand ‘unfair political requisites can be performed “intuitively” and hence silently by social actors … and even collective minutiae such as shared gestures and affects can thence help foreclose alternative futures’ (Narvaez, 2006, p. 70), the opposite must also be true: where actors silently and intuitively resist social norms, as these women do, then alternatives and possibilities remain open. Despite the reinscribing of gender norms described above, given the limited scale of my sample relative to the overall audience for grunge at its height, if only three respondents to this study (7 per cent of respondents) report a change on this embodied level, then the potential overall effect on society is significant. However, further research is required to fully understand or measure such an effect, especially for males. Conclusion In the years since grunge was at its peak, the women who were celebrated as an important part of the movement have either been mostly forgotten or have been vilified. The first half of this chapter presented an account of how women’s history fails to live on, both in written accounts and in the memories of people who participated at the time. Where bands such as Hole, L7 and Babes In Toyland have not been forgotten, they have been conveniently subsumed into the Riot Grrrl movement, a move that serves to separate women’s history out from a more mainstream male history of conventional narratives and to compartmentalize it. I

Gender and Grunge

129

have also examined how the potential threat of a woman like Courtney Love, who rejected stereotypical gender roles, can be contained and defused by the reduction of women to their bodies and their bodily functions, particularly reproduction and the roles associated with it that are still largely unchallenged and unchanging in the Western world. However, this rather bleak picture is mitigated somewhat by the minority of female respondents in this study who took enough from the equality message of grunge to make a difference to their own presentation of femininity and behaviour on a very personal level, bringing about change on the level of the habitus. Although the cultural signs and circumstances that made this possible for these respondents may not still be available to other, younger, women today (at least not in any broad sense), they continue to be embodied in these, and other, women from this time. The constant recycling of fashions makes it almost certain that at some point these ideas will be revisited – and will no doubt again be heralded as a new breakthrough for women.


Chapter 7

Generation X, ‘the 90s’ and Youth This chapter will examine three ways of organizing memories that have become available for framing the time of grunge. At the time of its popularity it was often associated with the concept of ‘Generation X’. Theories of generations developed in sociology will be briefly explored, and the possibility that collective memories may be developed around shared generational identity will be discussed. More recently, grunge has become a marker for ‘the 90s’ and it and the culture associated with it have become a shorthand way of referring to this period. Finally, for respondents grunge was something associated with their youth and, as youth is connected to generational theories and it is the youth culture of the 1990s that represents this time, this holds all three of these concepts together. While some postmodern theorists and studies of the ‘life cycle’ in Western societies have suggested that the life cycle is no longer standardized and the idea of youth is no longer associated with biological age, the way that the concept of youth is used by respondents when recalling grunge suggests it performs important functions in organizing memories. As such, the focus of this chapter will be on the reproduction of social power through memory. This chapter brings the discussion of the different available ways of organizing memories of the time of grunge back to a discussion of youth and how the construction and memories of youth help to maintain social hierarchies. As Bourdieu (1993c) has pointed out, the way in which youth is structured is important because it: reminds us that the logical division between young and old is also a question of power, of the division (in the sense of sharing-out) of powers. Classification by age (but also by sex and, of course, class) always means imposing limits and producing an order to which each person must keep, keeping himself in his place.

Examining memory provides a way of understanding how such divisions are maintained and justified over time. It will be demonstrated that the idea of generations and generational conflict as constructed by the media helps to keep the ‘youth of the day’ in a subjugated position, while the way that individuals remember their own youth allows them to justify the inequality suffered by those younger than them. It is worth mentioning at the outset of this chapter that the nature of the respondents to this study makes social reproduction (rather than social change) a more obvious line to pursue, as the respondents are for the most part functioning


132

members of society embedded in societal structures of employment and/or education. Individuals who are not (actively) challenging the status quo can, as I have mentioned elsewhere, be ignored in cultural sociology, or researchers can struggle to find political meaning or resistance in their actions that may not exist. The respondents to this study are not, on the whole, involved in such actions. The possible exceptions to this are Barney (who at the time of his interview had recently quit his job to pursue a career as a musician) and Lily (whose explicit challenging of gender roles was discussed in the previous chapter). This is not intended to be a negative comment on my respondents, merely an explanation for the exclusion from this chapter of detailed exploration into questions of how and why societal change occurs. However, this does not mean that grunge can therefore be automatically associated with societal reproduction. The methods of recruitment employed for this study were unlikely to find those outside ‘conventional’ society. Generations In very general terms, the sociological idea of generations is based around the concept that as one group in society ages and makes way for the next group, there will be differences and probably conflict between these groups. Karl Mannheim (1972, p. 105), whose article ‘On the Problem of Generations’ is the starting point for most sociological debate on this subject, argued that: ‘Generation location is based on the existence of biological rhythm in human existence … Individuals who belong to the same generation, who share the same year of birth, are endowed, to that extent, with a common location in the historical dimension of the social process.’ Mannheim’s work has been elaborated on by writers who have argued that generational inequality is as important as other aspects of inequality such as race and class, and as such needs further attention and theorizing (Turner, 1998). These writers argue that the particular set of historical circumstances under which a group of people grows up creates a ‘generational habitus’ that gives this group a similar outlook on life and helps to shape their opinions and actions throughout their lives, leading to a definition of a generation as: … a cohort of persons passing through time who come to share a common habitus, hexis and culture, a function of which is to provide them with a collective memory that serves to integrate the cohort over a finite period of time (Eyerman and Turner, 1998, p. 91).

These theories of generations are connected to work on memories both through the innate connection between habitus and memory, and through studies that show that memories of public events are connected to age. Generally, events that occur during late adolescence are remembered more and seen as being more important (Conway, 1997). The collective memory of each generation will therefore be based around different events or will frame them in different ways (Schuman and Scott, 1989).


133

However, while the term ‘generation’ is used frequently in literature on youth cultures, the exact definition of the term is still contested. As David Kertzer (1983) points out, while the idea of generations has established a strong hold in many fields of social and political science, as well as in the popular imaginary, its meaning varies widely. He identifies four categories which represent the most common usages of the term in the social sciences: ‘generation as a principle of kinship descent; generation as cohort; generation as life stage; and generation as historical period’ (1983, p. 126). However, he notes that even these usages are often not clearly set out, or are used simultaneously with one another. Furthermore, it is still unclear exactly how generations are created or how meaningful divisions can be created within age cohorts that allow the idea of generations to continue to be meaningful. For example, while the existence of ‘global generations’ based around shared media exposure has been posited (Edmunds and Turner, 2005), other studies continue to show the importance of place to the way that events are remembered (Griffin, 2004). It has been suggested that ‘generation units’ may exist which embody the ‘spirit’ of a generation while not encompassing every person of a similar age (Mannheim, 1972); that specific ‘traumatic’ events are required to create a generation (Eyerman and Turner, 1998); that generations coalesce around shared style or culture that not all persons of an age group share; or that a generation must have a consciousness of itself in order to be considered as such (Edmunds and Turner, 2005). It has also been suggested that generations may exist as fields in the Bourdieuian sense, and individuals create their own positions in relation to these generational fields (Gilleard, 2004). While I am therefore wary of using the term ‘generation’ because of the difficulties in defining what this means and the possibility for the term to be misleading due to the way that it suggests homogeneity across groups that may vary considerably, there are elements of the discussions of generations that may help explain the position of youth. In particular, it is important to note that age can be an element of collective memory, and that the specific historical circumstances in which a group of people grow up will inevitably give rise to habituses peculiar to that point in time. However, a distinction needs to be made between the sociological attempts to define generations and media usage of the term. I am more concerned with the more popular use of the word, and in particular the media construction and populist use of Generation X and the continuing relevance of this term. The sociological work is noted here mainly as a way of acknowledging the difficulties in using the term in a meaningful way and the importance of thinking about it critically, and noting the power relations that are inferred when the differences between people of different ages are discussed. It is also unclear whether the issue of generations can be separated out from the issue of youth and ageing. As Irwin (1998, p. 307) has argued, inequality between different generations stems mainly from the difference in their ages. The young lack power and privileges, but acquire these as they grow older. By this reasoning, the central issue becomes that of the treatment and positioning of youth, and this will be returned to later in this chapter.

134


Generation X The concept of Generation X is important to grunge, as the two were closely associated in the media coverage at the time. Given the difficulties that the concept of the generation involves, I will not be treating the existence of Generation X as a ‘fact’; however, the way in which it has been constructed in the media and popular works on generations is relevant to the way that the memory and the youth of this group has been constructed. In the following sections, I will explore how Generation X was constructed and its relationship to grunge, and then move on to an examination of whether or not this has become a way of organizing memories. As Ortner (1998, p. 416) notes, descriptions of Generation X have: ‘… been contested at one point or another, by one writer or group or another. The characterization of Generation X … has shifted over time, as different groups temporarily gained control over the image.’ However, there were certain representations that were most prevalent at the time of grunge, and these will be focused on here. Kitch (2003, p. 186) has noted that ‘generational characterizations in news media are primarily phenomena of the last quarter of the twentieth century, and these reports have been closely linked to a labelling trend that emerged simultaneously in marketing’. She argues that both marketers and mass media have found the concept of generations useful in selling products to particular audiences. In her exploration of the ‘discovery’ of new generations in the print media over the last 50 years, she demonstrates that new generations are almost always being discovered when they are teenagers or young adults and are framed as posing some sort of challenge or difficulty to wider society. Kitch (2003, p. 197) describes how journalists define the generation in terms of particular cultural items which the journalists choose to emphasize, while making this choice ‘seem to “come from” the story’s subjects and audience’. Journalists also choose a ‘defining moment’ that unites the generation (Kitch uses examples such as Woodstock for the Baby Boomers and September 11 for Generation Y, but she does not say what this defining moment might be for Generation X). This media discovery/creation of generations suggests an attempt to impose a top-down way of ordering memories, which is constructed to serve the purposes of capitalism. Bearing this in mind, the construction and constitution of Generation X needs to be explored. To begin with, as the concept of generations is bound up with the concept of youth, Generation X was most often discussed in the media when they were young (around the time of grunge). Kitch (2003) notes that youth is central to the way in which journalists construct the concepts of different generations. When new generations are ‘discovered’ by the media this is usually (but not always) when this generation constitutes the youth at the time. The young are often portrayed as being somehow problematic, particularly through the appeal to the good qualities of the youth of previous eras who are referred to nostalgically. Furthermore, it needs to be established who is generally considered to be a member of Generation X. Although initially defined by demographers as being those born between 1965 and 1976 (the ‘baby busters’) (Ortner, 1998), the age


135

limits for members of Generation X soon expanded. Huntley (2006), in her work on Generation Y, describes Generation X as ‘the age cohort born between the early 1960s and the late 1970s’ (2006, p. 5) while Generation Y are ‘commonly defined as young men and women born in or after 1982’ (2006, p. 2) (the generational status of those born in 1980 and 1981 is never explored). Anyone older belongs to ‘the Baby Boom Generation’, and both Generation X and Generation Y are described as their children. Howe and Strauss (1993) and Brabazon (2005) give similar definitions of the age group which Generation X is considered to cover, proposing that it extends from 1961 to 1981, preceded by the Baby Boomers. Epstein (1998) gives the years of birth of Generation X as 1964 to 1979. Overall, although there is no consensus on the exact dates, Generation X covers those people born from the early 1960s to the late 1970s. The term Generation X is believed to have first been associated with this particular age cohort after the publication of the Douglas Coupland (1991) novel of the same name. This book describes the lives of three young people who feel disconnected from society but closely reliant on each other, and was taken to be a good indicator of the feelings of youth of the time. Such ideas of disconnection and alienation typify how Generation X has been described. In their book 13th Gen (their name for the generation), Howe and Strauss (1993), while ostensibly trying to provide a picture of this generation (in the US) in order to help understand them, describe Generation X in generally negative terms. They describe how they are less well educated than previous generations, tolerant of difference but cynical, live lives centred on consumption and mass media, and are overwhelmingly downtrodden by the more successful Baby Boom generation. Best and Kellner (1998, p. 77) also describe Generation X as relatively uneducated, and document their economic disadvantage and increasing levels of violence. They attribute this violence to exposure to violence in mass media, where ‘life is rendered simply devoid of value, as impoverished social conditions breed anger, apathy and violence’. Brabazon (2005, p. 19) believes that the most persistent portrayal of Generation X has been ‘as bored, listless, over-educated, underemployed media sophisticates’, which agrees with other accounts, with the exception that her Xers are over- rather than under-educated. Other authors give even more dire assessments, a good example being Furek’s (2008) The Death Proclamation of Generation X: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Goth, Grunge and Heroin which, from the alarmist title on, predicts nothing but disaster for the group. Another term which was sometimes used to describe members of this generation was ‘slackers’ (Epstein, 1998; Ortner, 1998), which refers to their supposedly apathetic view of the world. In particular, Generation X was purportedly uninterested in politics and current affairs, and did not engage with attempts to bring about social change. This supposedly apathetic attitude was also reflected in the way that the term ‘slackers’ was closely associated with the grunge scene. The woes of Generation X were initially constructed in the media as being connected to economic issues, such as declining home ownership rates, a lack of fulfilling jobs (despite there being little empirical evidence for the existence

136


of these problems for this particular age group), as well as social problems ‘including a soaring divorce rate, high rates of working mothers and latchkey children, ecological disaster, the AIDS epidemic, and so forth’ (Ortner, 1998, p. 418). However, the terrible future predicted for Generation X has not come to pass as they have moved into their thirties and forties; rather, they have taken up positions in the existing social structure just as their parents did, albeit with some minor changes (Campbell, 2004). Aside from the ‘moral panic’ tone that accompanied much of the writing on Generation X, the way in which the group has been constructed is problematic in that it attempts to use ‘generation’ to describe all people of a certain age group, and as such fails to acknowledge the differences in this group. As Crawford (2006, p. 11) points out, differences in race, religion, gender and sexuality are subsumed under one label, which itself seems to be based around middle-class lifestyles. As an example of the way in which the label is applied to the entire age group, when discussing Generation X, Howe and Strauss (1993, p. 12) ask: ‘Are they a “generation”? Yes, with a personality that reaches across the board – rich and poor, black and white, Hispanic and Asian, male and female, celebrity and everyman. Whatever a 15- or 24-year-old’s individual circumstances, he or she can sense a composite personality, a generational core.’ However, Ortner (1998, p. 421) points out that although it was often claimed that Generation X was ‘diverse’ and ‘tolerant’, little empirical evidence can be found to support such claims. She notes that: Despite these indications of greater diversity, the actual Generation X public culture – the journalism, the novels, the films – is almost entirely white. And despite the vast influence and popularity of African American performers in popular music, most of the musicians and groups taken as epitomizing Generation X (such as Nirvana, Beck, Hole and Offspring) are white.

She also notes that members of other ethnic groups do not feel connected to the idea of Generation X. Ortner also sees class as being the defining feature of the ‘Generation’, and argues that ‘both the source and the target of the Generation X imagery is the middle class’ (Ortner, 1998, p. 421) and the particular relationship they had with the changing economy in the early 1990s, rather than generational conflict or an all-inclusive cultural moment. The lack of a single cultural movement to unite this age group is emphasized by Brabazon in her book From Revolution to Revelation: Generation X, Popular Memory and Cultural Studies (2005). Brabazon sub-divides Generation X into a number of different groups by separately examining a number of different cultural forms. These are the dance and house movements, boy bands, and the film 24 Hour Party People with its focus on Factory Records and the music scene in Manchester through the 1980s and early 1990s. Grunge is only mentioned briefly, and in a disparaging manner: ‘Rock has become the can(n)on, firing at differences, with both punk and grunge following the path of disavowing the


137

status quo and then perpetuating it’ (Brabazon, 2005, p. 89). Note that this is the usual mode of criticizing grunge as discussed in Chapter 1, whereby the political message and potential of grunge is dismissed because of its success (although in this case punk is also criticized rather than being used as an exemplar of the things grunge was not). These examples of the empirical diversity of a group of people that the label Generation X attempts to homogenize suggests the difficulties created when generation and cohort are confused. The more academic definition of generation discussed earlier concentrates instead on the idea that a group needs to recognize itself as a group and feel united by some cultural moment. It thereby avoids some of this confusion by not automatically including all people of a certain age under the same label. I will now turn to an examination of whether grunge provided such a cultural moment and helped define Generation X. Generation X and Grunge At the time that grunge was popular, and particularly after the death of Kurt Cobain, a major theme in media articles was the supposed correlation between what was being expressed through grunge and the experiences of Generation X (Pecora and Mazzarella, 1995). The association between grunge and Generation X is so strong that alternative labels sometimes used for the generation are ‘Grunge Kids’ (Saunders and Bauer, 1998) or ‘the Grunge Generation’ (Campbell, 2004). Returning again to Shevory’s (1995) work on the politics of grunge, generational politics is one of the main themes that he identifies. Shevory is critical of the emphasis which he says grunge placed on opposing older generations, particularly the Baby Boomers, and argues that this emphasis means grunge musicians (unlike British punks) failed to focus on more important issues such as class and race, a critique which ignores the importance of age as an aspect of inequality. However, he offers little evidence for this supposed fixation of grunge rockers beyond an interview with Soundgarden and quotes from Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X. As Shevory himself notes, the motif of youth standing up against their elders has been central to rock music since its beginnings, and grunge was no exception to this trend. However, it would seem to make sense that grunge became so big at that point in time because there was a resonance between its producers and audience, which happened to be a large section of people of a certain age. Bourdieu (1993a, p. 44) suggests that artistic movements that occupy a dominated space within the artistic field will often find an audience among those who occupy a similar dominated position within the wider structure of society. A great deal has been written about the way that grunge was supposedly a reflection of the values and experiences of Generation X, suggesting that there was a certain amount of harmony between grunge and a significant segment of young people at the time (Davis, 1999). A number of respondents attempt to explain the appeal that grunge had for them by

138


referring to the social position that they had held at that time and explaining how grunge resonated with that position: Did you feel as though it reflected something about your life? Yeah like I said, I was in my early 20s, and I just sort of had dropped out of uni, it was the second or third place I’d lived in out of home, I was the first one out of home, living with this bunch of people, we were just taking drugs all the time and just getting trashed and not really feeling like we fit in anywhere, especially in Canberra, you know, it seems like such a sort of, had this façade of being such a nice place and, you know, everyone having so much opportunity, and it’s not true. So I think having something to sort of … I don’t know … I guess having a, these songs that sort of expressed how alone you weren’t really sort of helped. (Sonia)

As has been discussed in previous chapters, the respondents can be considered a collectivity in the way that they share memories of grunge, and there is more than a suggestion of respondents feeling as though there was a resonance between their social position and those of the producers of grunge. Is this then enough to suggest a ‘generational consciousness’? A minority of respondents use the idea of Generation X as a specific way of relating to and positioning their memories of grunge: … that whole Generation X stuff that was kind of in the media, but which I think had some, some relevance I suppose, that you come from a certain background, and a certain range of influences through that, you know, we’re all waiting for the next Star Wars instalment, we all grew up listening to certain sounds and so on, so that I think that being of the same generation as those people that were producing it has – it appealed to me on a subconscious level, but, I don’t know what that is, but the sound did appeal to me at that point in my life. (Uma) So I don’t think I really recognized it as being a new thing until I started reading about it in the paper or whatever, and suddenly, you know, we’re Generation X and this was grunge music, and probably mostly on Nirvana or Pearl Jam I guess. (Julie) When I watched that video clip, just the lack of enthusiasm was it, you know, it just summarized … I was lying there just going ‘oh my god, that is exactly how I feel’, as, you know, a 14-year-old kid. I don’t know, I guess that’s Generation X or something, but it just didn’t feel right, it just summarized how I felt, that whole video clip, all these people who just don’t care. (Percy)

However, the fact that the connections between grunge and Generation X were made by and originated in the media needs to be kept in mind here, as can be seen in the quotes by Uma and particularly Julie who explicitly states that her


139

awareness of being a part of Generation X only came from media reports. Percy is the only respondent who uses the label in an unproblematic manner. It would appear, then, that despite the strong media connection between grunge and Generation X, the grunge fans in this study for the most part do not identify themselves as members of Generation X or use the narratives that were constructed around this generational label as a way of organizing their memories of this time. Rather than this being a case of forgetting (as was the case with the women involved in grunge), this label is not used because it appears that it was never accepted by the group. A study by Pecora and Mazzarella (1995) conducted in 1994 and 1995 found that at this time, when Generation X was a major media theme, the label was overwhelmingly rejected by college students who were supposedly members of the generation. The respondents to that study reported that they did not relate to the media description of Generation X or feel that it accurately described others of their age group. In particular, they reacted against the idea that all people of a particular age could be described in the same way. They also rejected the idea that Cobain or his music represented them well (the timing of this survey will be relevant to this finding, as this was when grunge had passed its peak). This rejection of the image of Generation X portrayed in the media could have come about through the negativity of the media presentation. People prefer to construct positive images of themselves and their past (Irwin-Zarecka, 1994), and would be unlikely to describe themselves as a ‘slacker’ with no future. This represents a failure of the top-down attempt at labelling through generational characteristics, as described by Kitch (2003), in that the label has not been retained in the collective memory of the group that it was meant to apply to. However, the label served the purpose of defining the youth of the time as a ‘problem’ (as well as supporting the marketing functions which Kitch identifies), thus helping to maintain the subjugation of youth within society. The decline in the use of the Generation X label is unsurprising. From the point of view of those included under the label, because Generation X was used in such a negative way, it is unlikely that they would use this as a way of either framing their memories of the time when the label was most used or as a way of continuing to identify themselves. Given that memories help us to reconstruct and maintain our identities over time, it seems unlikely that many individual or group identities would benefit from remembering their past actions in such an unflattering light. While grunge may have gained its popularity from an appeal to a particular set of shared circumstances or through its resonance with the lives of people such as the respondents to this study, the respondents’ experiences of grunge and their own life stories do not mesh with the narrative that was provided by the media and it thus failed to gain power with the group. Neither have they presented an alternative, more acceptable way of identifying themselves as a collectivity. This may be because, while grunge did unite many people culturally for a short period of time, these people all arrived at grunge from different starting points and moved on to different places afterwards. For example,

140


some respondents such as Kaye arrived at grunge after being fans of hair metal, others such as Dylan through bands such as Metallica, while others arrived via punk (Claud), ‘alternative’ (Ginny) or ‘middle of the road’ commercial radio music (Donald). At the end of grunge, Murray and Martin describe how they moved from listening to grunge to being involved in the dance music scene, Trevor describes listening to heavier music, whereas other respondents such as Donald remained strongly focused on grunge until the time that they were interviewed. Furthermore, respondents such as Ginny and Joyce became less interested in music altogether. The types of involvement that the respondents had with different forms of culture were hugely varied across the group. The one place where they all meet is grunge. Whatever ‘cultural moment’ may have existed around grunge did not exist before and was not extended beyond the time of its popularity. ‘The 90s’ At the same time as Generation X has failed to gain hold as a way of organizing memories of the time of grunge, there has been an increase in commemoration of ‘the 90s’, and grunge has become one of the most prominent cultural markers of this decade. Just as an image of Sid Vicious can evoke ‘the (late) 70s’ to many people regardless of whether they were a punk, or a stereotypical ‘hippy’ image can evoke ‘the 60s’, Kurt Cobain and the fashions of grunge have become ‘the 90s’. For example, in 2008 The Simpsons, a television series widely recognized as an insightful cultural text (Ott, 2003), produced a retrospective episode concentrating on ‘the 90s’ (‘That 90s Show’, season 19, episode 11). In this episode, Homer Simpson formed a grunge band (Sadgasm) whose songs were melodically based on those by Nirvana and Hole and whose lyrics (‘razor blade of apathy, shave me with your irony’) satirized the stereotypical view of Generation X discussed above. Just as labels for generations are used as shorthand by the media for certain qualities, or more often to refer to young people, decades are also labelled by the media, and certain events and social attitudes from the time are stressed more heavily in this retrospective view. Davis (1984) suggests that decades are used to mark off one section of time from another and are constructed in the media (generally as the decade comes to a close) as being fundamentally different to each other in culture and ‘feel’. However, this construction is not entirely based upon the events of the decade in question. It is also built in response to the way that earlier decades have been constructed, in order to create an ongoing narrative. Davis (1984, p. 17) notes that there are a ‘limited number of formal plots or narratives that Western peoples seem predisposed to choose among in fashioning their dramaturgic accounts of the passage from one decade to the next’, for example, ‘Innocence/Transgression/Retribution/Redemption [or] Neglect/ Loss/Reform/Reward’. Because each decade is remembered as part of a narrative containing the decades prior to and following from it, changing the perception of these times becomes difficult.


141

Writing in 1984, Davis attempted to guess how the ‘mood’ of that decade may later be remembered, suggesting it may be ‘some interpretative rendering which melds the “abandoned Utopian ideals of the 60’s” with the more “privatised selffulfilment search of the 70’s”’ (Davis, 1984, p. 21). While this was not, ultimately, a good description of ‘the 80s’, which have been more often associated with rampant consumerism and ‘greed’, it comes closer to describing the way ‘the 90s’ (and grunge in particular) were portrayed as a revisiting of 1960s ideals, but in a disillusioned and cynical way that turned the focus onto the self rather than seeking wider societal change (Weinstein, 1995). In the same way that grunge has been constructed as a rejection of the hedonism and inauthenticity of hair metal, ‘the 90s’ have been constructed as a return to simpler values after the frivolity and excess of ‘the 80s’. The unexpected and swift mainstream success of grunge, and the huge popularity that it obtained, which contributed to its overexposure and demise, has helped to make it a marker of this time period. A cultural form that lasts too long loses its association with a particular point in time. As demonstrated in Chapter 4, respondents overwhelmingly agree that grunge was a phenomenon associated with the 1990s. As Clara notes: But I think there’s a few bands in each generation that actually do that, yeah, like Led Zeppelin and stuff like that in the 70s, and I think for the 90s it will be Nirvana, will always be known, Nirvana will be known as the 90s I think, so I think they’ve definitely made an impact, a lasting impact (…) so I think if anything Nirvana will be one band that will always be known as 90s music, so they’ve definitely made an impact.

Respondents do not, on the whole, try to characterize the 1990s in any particular way. This may be because such characterizations gain strength as we move further from the time in question. Attempting to characterize an entire decade that has only recently passed may not succeed due to the closeness of the events, but as time passes and detail is lost, broad characterizations that fit a period of time into wider narrative schemes may be more successful. Passing time may also increase nostalgia for that which is past. Nostalgia involves identifying elements of the past that are recalled as being better than current circumstances (Davis, 1979), and a feeling of longing for the way things were (Boym, 2001). However, as Grainge (2000) argues, in recent decades, nostalgia has increasingly become a way of marketing to niche audiences rather than something that is necessarily associated with emotional responses to the past. The 2000s have witnessed much nostalgia for 1980s popular culture, with the success and popularity of 1980s ‘Retro’ nights at clubs encouraging patrons to wear 1980s fashions and dance to 1980s pop hits. Such events help to reinforce how the 1980s are remembered through concentrating on certain genres of music and emphasizing certain fashions. It seems likely that such nostalgic returns to the 1990s (such as that presented by The Simpsons) will begin to become more common during the next five to ten years. Indeed, when being played ‘Smells Like


142

Teen Spirit’ during his interview, Seamus notes that hearing it is ‘almost like hearing a “classic” song now, from the 80s’. As this occurs, the ‘spirit’ of the 1990s will be more firmly established in collective memory, and it seems highly likely that grunge will be central to this remembrance. Theories on decade labelling are currently not highly developed and require further research to understand in depth. Decade labelling is also in some ways a ‘top-down’ way of organizing memories, but is more connected to people’s lived experiences of a time than the generation labelling that, as described above, has little meaning for the groups that it attempts to describe. However, as noted above, both of these ways of organizing memories are, to a greater or lesser extent, focused on the position of youth within a society, whether through constructing youth as a problem or celebrating the youth culture of the past. I will now turn to a discussion of youth and the memory of youth in order to understand how the powerlessness of youth is reproduced through memory. The concept of youth is another way available to respondents to organize their memories of this time. The Meaning of Youth The first issue that will be examined here is what ‘youth’ means. It is generally accepted that ‘our modern images of youth and adolescence were essentially the creations of the Victorian middle class’ (Murdock and McCron, 1993, p. 192), before becoming institutionalized in the middle of the twentieth century through the ‘establishment of universal secondary schooling and the emergence of a whole complex of leisure and entertainment facilities aimed specifically at youth’ (see also Laughey, 2006; Maira and Soep, 2004; Nilan, 2007). The creation of the ‘teenager’ was necessary to help explain the behaviour and consumption patterns of a newly emerging group that was unusual in the amount of leisure time and extra money that it had available. However, despite having a relatively large amount of disposable income in comparison to previous cohorts, this group was powerless in other ways. For example, they were still under the authority of parents and teachers (Wicke, 1990). Many new markets opened up that catered to the money and latent rebelliousness of youth, while concurrently concern over youth behaviour saw the rise of ‘moral panics’ in wider society, whereby participants in youth subcultures, from mods to punks to ravers, have been constructed as ‘folk devils’ by media and conservative elements of society (Cohen, 1973). However, some theorists (for example, Gilleard, 2004; Grossberg, 1990; Weinstein, 1995) have proposed that since the end of the 1960s youth has become a floating signifier which has become disassociated from any particular biological age group: The cultural formation of ‘youth’ floated free from the social group of young people. No longer restricted to adolescents, ‘youth,’ smoothed over by advertising and entertainment discourses, and made a safely energetic state of


143

being and feeling with an aura of rebellion, became available to all. The youth culture got co-opted into the general leisure culture, and lost its moorings in a particular group. It became a designation or identification that could be taken up by anyone as the emblem of a life-style. (Weinstein, 1995, p. 69)

These theorists argue that the qualities once associated more or less exclusively with people of a certain age group (teenagers, or those under 25) have become more and more things that people of any age group can take on or retain as they grow older. In particular, older age groups can lay a claim to the positive qualities associated with youth, such as lack of responsibility, relative freedom, a love of certain leisure activities such as listening to rock music or playing computer games, and, importantly, qualities such as idealism and a desire to change the world. Weinstein (1999) has argued that since the aging of the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation, youth has become more of an idea and a way of behaving rather than an age or period in life. Lifestyles and leisure activities once strictly associated with youth have become more widely acceptable, and there has been an increase in the numbers of people who pursue the passions of their teenage years well into their middle age, particularly activities such as record collecting, gig attendance and playing and creating music (Bennett, 2006; Kotarba, 2005). On some level, this is hardly surprising, as the bands which people grew up with in many cases are also still pursuing the same roles. The Rolling Stones and many of their peers are examples of this, as their continued touring and recording has challenged the notion that rock and roll is young people’s music. Weinstein and Grossberg also argue that a generational issue is central to this disassociation of youth from biological age. They argue that as a particular rebellious and politically motivated form of youth was established by the Baby Boomers during the 1960s counter-culture, the cultural hegemony of this group since this time has enshrined this particular form of youth as the best, and as this generation has grown up they have not wanted to disassociate themselves from these ideals, leading to the disconnection between youth and age. In this way, Baby Boomers have retained power even over the ability to define and gain the benefits of youth, despite no longer being biologically young (for a discussion of the effects of this in Australia, see Davis, 1999). Putting these arguments aside for a moment, the teenage years have been more often socially constructed in Western society as a period of rebellion and selfdiscovery, a time when ‘young people will eventually move into adulthood, but not before a period of erratic behaviour driven by raging hormones and a strong peer orientation’ (Maira and Soep, 2004, p. 253). Empirical evidence shows certain life stages such as leaving home, marriage and parenthood being delayed, leading to a redefinition of youth less in line with the idea of youth as a ‘transitional’ period (Buchmann, 1989; Wyn and Woodman, 2006). However, if youth as transition to adulthood remains the prevailing understanding of youth (regardless of whether the reality has shifted), then it is likely that events that occur during this period will be remembered to a greater or lesser extent through a filter that will shape these events

144


into an expected mould. If there is still a certain life-path that people expect or are expected to follow, the way that we remember can, as Halbwachs argued, help to retrospectively ensure that we adhere to the norm, or lead us to cast events in a particular light. Given that my respondents are mostly discussing their teenage years, patterns emerging from their responses suggest how they remember this period of their lives, and these patterns demonstrate how the powerlessness of youth can be maintained through youthful experiences being remembered in a light that reduces their importance to current action by constructing youth as an ‘inauthentic’ period. This has come across in the accounts of respondents, through their attempts to explain their actions or responses to grunge by referring to their age or status as a ‘teenager’, and in the way that they use their age to excuse certain behaviours or emotions that they now feel were embarrassing or inappropriate (or would be if they were done or felt now): I’m not as obsessed as I was when I was about 17, you know, 17-year-old boys get obsessed with everything from (inaudible) to cars. (…) I mean, back in the, back at that sort of point where you’re sort of 17 to 24 or so, music and band tribalism was sort of part of your badging, part of your colour … (Max) So at that stage when you’re sort of trying to discover who you are and what you’re about and trying to fit in and, sort of discovering the opposite sex and things like that, it’s just a messy time, there’s a bit of confusion and things like that. So being the sort of person that I am it was just sort of – looking back on it now it’s like (inaudible) but it’s nothing compared to real life in the real world, but at the time when you’re at school, and it’s just a very closed circle, it’s your whole life and so it means a lot. (Trevor)

This quote from Trevor reflects the idea of the inexperience of youth and positions youth in a place other than ‘the real world’. Youthful experiences are, according to him, less than real despite their perceived importance at the time. Trevor’s quote touches on a theme that occurs in many interviews. This is the idea that youth is a period of ‘finding out who you are’. In much the same way as youth does not occur in the real world, it is also something experienced by ‘incomplete’ people. In this way, youth is portrayed as an inauthentic experience, and it is therefore unsurprising to find respondents distancing themselves from this period and compartmentalizing their youthful experiences as something apart from who and what they are today. The notion of the teenager is often thrown into comments on respondents’ reactions to the music in a way that suggests that this concept holds a certain explanatory power in its own right: Can you tell me a bit more about your personal experiences with grunge? Well, being the teenager I was and I suppose so naïve to what was really going on in the music industry. (Adrian)


145

You just get that whole, boys on stage with their long scruffy hair, and I just love that look, and, I don’t know. It makes me feel peaceful, even though the music’s sort of rocky and loud, it just makes me feel peaceful, and sort of at home, I don’t know. And being a teenager sort of, in that time, and then he committed suicide and all that, it just had a big effect on me. (Bertha) Do you think the importance of music to you has changed over time? I don’t know, I think for everyone it gets more important when you’re growing up, like teenagers and stuff, but it’s been pretty important to me my whole life, because I grew up in a fairly musical family. (Lily)

The way in which the teenager is referred to suggests that the respondents are assuming certain taken-for-granted meanings for the word which seem to go beyond simply referring to a biological age group. For example, Adrian links being a teen with naivety, while Bertha indicates that being a teenager is implicated in the ‘big effect’ that Cobain’s death had on her. Other respondents go further in defining what is involved in being a teenager, and a number of different ideas need to be disentangled from their recollections. First, being a teenager is linked with negative and anti-social traits and behaviour, such as alienation, rebellion and angst: Yeah, I mean, each grunge band … yeah, it’s all about escapism and I mean, a band like Nirvana’s pure teenage angst, it’s just about the anger of being a confused teenager and just not knowing what to do with your life and being expected to make all these decisions, whereas a band like Mudhoney has that same teenage angst, the difference is they put a sense of humour in it and it’s a different twist (Dudley) Is that lifestyle what you think your lifestyle at the time was like? Yeah, I tried to, being as young as I was, tried to live it, I guess, in every essence, so yeah. Did you think you were living the lifestyle presented to you by grunge or grunge reflected the lifestyle you were living? No, it was what I wanted I guess, rebellious teenage years, it was what was happening, it was the alternative at that time for kids to get into I guess. (Arthur) Can you say why grunge appealed to you? Because I liked heavier things than was on, what would have been on the pop charts a lot, and, as I said, being a teenager, that sort of angry sort of slightly depressing and it had that whole aura of being somehow rebellious or something, or anti-establishment or something, which is something that really appeals to you when you’re 13, oh my god, someone says it’s alright to not do what your parents want you to do and stuff like that, so it’s that whole … and I think that was something built up around grunge as well, you know, that it wasn’t clean and nice, it was rebellious, and

146

Grunge: Music and Memory that was something that I think appealed to me, that’s why I started smoking and stuff, I guess. (Kaye)

The negative connotations that being a teenager has for the respondents comes across very strongly in these quotes, particularly in regard to feeling negative emotions. The idea of rebellion is not necessarily discussed as a bad thing for people to have experienced, but is dismissed as embarrassing. Kaye in particular uses inflections when discussing her rebelliousness that imply that she is scornful of her younger self. This may demonstrate how a period of youthful rebellion can be used to ensure more obedient behaviour through later life – if ‘not doing what you’re told’ results in embarrassment then it is perhaps less likely to happen again. The other negative emotions reported also frame the period of being a teenager as an experience that one would not want to return to, revisit or extend unnecessarily. Second, being a teenager is portrayed as a universal experience that is the same for all who go through it: You said to me before we started the interview that ‘Nirvana changed your life’. Can you tell me about that, why, what you mean when you say that? God, um, changed my life … well, I can’t really say whether it changed my life I can, but then again I was in puberty, for Christ’s sake, your whole life’s changing, and I think maybe it reminds me a lot of that, a lot about growing up or blah, that sort of, you know, it’s stereotypical for everyone really. (Drew) OK, so when I say grunge to you, what immediately comes into your head? Pretty much my middle teen years, I’d say, from when I was about 13 to when I was about 17. That’s, in everyone’s life, that’s some of your most important years when you’re growing up, it shapes who you are and for me I was right into that whole kind of sound at the time. (Jeremy) Can you say why it appealed to you? I think that if you turn it up real loud and jump up and down to it, it’s definitely a release of teenage angst, just that hormonal thing that I think most young people have at that age. (Sam) I suppose ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ always, it always goes from a … I don’t know, I suppose when you’re a teenager you go through a lot of moods and ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ seems to produce that, where you feel calm and all of a sudden something triggers some sort of rage or anger. (Roger)

These respondents describe their experience of adolescence as something that is stereotypical for everyone. This suggests that respondents have an expectation that there is a typical narrative that can be applied to most experiences of youth and that they may be adhering to when giving their accounts. The notion of what youth (or being a teenager) is provides a way for respondents to organize their memories of their own experiences of this stage of their lives. If, as previously noted, these feelings


147

or experiences are now seen as inappropriate or embarrassing, constructing them as being experiences common to everyone absolves any one individual of responsibility for them, and labelling this period as youth or teenagerhood compartmentalizes it and quarantines it from who the person believes they are now. Third, there is a language shift that occurs in many of the interviews when these supposedly typical teenage experiences are discussed. Respondents change from a first-person to a second-person perspective when discussing adolescence and start talking about ‘you’ rather than ‘I’: Can you say why grunge appealed to you? Like I said before, I think it was just the … it appealed to my teenage sensibilities at the time. You’re sort of angry at the world because nothing seems to make sense because you’re going through all these emotions and that kind of thing, and I think a lot of the writing that they’ve done they’ve done during their late teens themselves (…) A lot of it’s nostalgia now, I look back and I smile at myself as a teenager, kind of thing. (Isaac) I bought Nevermind quite late, I bought it in about … it came out in 91, I bought it in about 96, because, 96, I was only about 14, so … I was about mid-teens anyway. I think around about that time, that was the time, you know when you’re early to mid teenager, you have that really messy time when you just sort of (inaudible), and I just sort of relate it to that, and that’s what it’s all about I guess, with that whole album, I used to study to it a lot, I think, so yeah, it just takes me back to that early to mid-90s period of my life, that’s the relation I have with it. (Trevor)

This shift could be serving a number of functions. It could be an invitation to the interviewer to share in the experiences being described as the interviewee is no longer talking about only their own experiences. It could also be an attempt by the interviewee to distance themselves from what they are talking about, to make it less personal. It is as though their personal experiences are being reframed as a group experience that is not unique to them. This appears to be a further way of taking the feelings of angst, alienation and rebellion that were experienced during this period and ‘quarantining’ them through collective memory. This way of describing being a teenager serves the purpose of clearly marking this time off as being finished, complete and unarguably in the past. This is made more explicit by Ginny: Is there anything you would like to add or comment on? No. It’s a bit kind of odd to be thinking about it, it seems like rather a long time ago now, and it’s odd to think about, like the questions make you think about ‘who were you then?’, it’s like ‘oh god that’s that person I’m trying to forget!’ (Laughs) You know, that teenage person, or early 20s, because that’s often a time which is a bit hard. (Ginny)

148


The four oldest respondents, those who were over 40 at the time of the interview, have somewhat different responses to grunge that help to clarify the position that youth holds in respondents’ memories. They describe their experiences with grunge as something that helps to reconnect them to their own youth, but in a way that reinforcesd the fact that their youth is something that is in the past and is finished with. This is articulated most clearly by Max. Throughout his interview, Max places grunge in a position where he is remembering it through the lens of his experiences with punk during his teenage years: How old would you have been? I would have been 30. Do you think that you would have related differently to the music than you would have if you were 17 or 18? Well, yes, absolutely, the one similarity is that when you’re listening to that sort of music at 30, you’re really trying to, you know, get that essence of what you enjoyed about listening to the Pistols or somebody like that for the first time, that’s what makes you feel good about it. So it’s derivative, you want to feel like you felt when you were young, but you know you can’t, you’ve lost that and it’s never going to happen again. But there’s an echo, and that’s one of the great things about it, one of the good things about music. So yes, it’s a very different experience, you know, because you’re not going to – oh, occasionally you do, but you’re not going to drive around in your car with this sort of sounds, making your ears bleed, or wear it as a badge of pride, hey, I listen to Nirvana, you’re just not going to do that, but amongst your friends that you know and have the same mind about that sort of thing, you might drive around in the car (inaudible). But it doesn’t have the same feeling.

For Max, youth is complete, but he relates to it as a positive experience that he enjoys catching ‘echoes’ of through new musical experiences. However, he still alludes to the negative aspects of youth, specifically anger, and sees adulthood as being something that tempers such emotions: The feelings in grunge of anger and things like that, was it something you felt at the time or was it just something you could relate to? I think in terms of that, when you’re recognizing the emotion in others when you’re 30, whereas when you’re 17 you’re identifying with it as a unity – this is your anger, this is how you feel, rather than when you’re 30, you’re sort of going ‘I remember how I felt when I was 17’. I don’t identify with that sort of rage and anger anymore, you’re smarter, you know more, you know that rage and anger are basically rage and anger against yourself because you’re part of the establishment.

The above accounts offer a way of understanding adolescence as a universal stage in life, one which is difficult, possibly embarrassing and, most importantly, is bounded and finished once ‘adulthood’ is attained. One aspect of this that cannot be commented on in this study is the extent to which these respondents, or grunge fans more generally, might have a different relationship with their youth than people who


149

were more involved with other forms of culture. Grunge may have been more likely to appeal to people who were experiencing difficulties in their lives during their adolescence, or who experienced adolescence itself as difficult, and who are therefore now more likely to frame this period negatively. Young people who were fans of the Spice Girls or attending raves at this point in time may have found that these forms of culture reflected something about their experiences that was very different to what others found in grunge, and this may lead them to remember their youth differently, and possibly more positively. A comparative study would be required to determine this. However, what can be seen here is that the dominant discourse that speaks of adolescence as a liminal space in which our identity changes from one thing (child) to another (adult) provides a narrative form through which memories of this time are shaped. The evidence here suggests that respondents still see their lives as being structured by certain predictable periods which they go through at predictable times, and appears to contradict the idea that youth has become unfixed from biology. The life course in Western society may indeed be changing and offering less concrete paths for people to follow, but the effects of such a change may be less significant if people still remember their lives according to certain narratives. The idea that it may be more than just grunge fans who are trying to disassociate themselves from their youth is supported in the way that failure to move past the concerns of youth is also often portrayed critically in media and cultural forms such as literature and film, creating further pressure to move past this stage. A pertinent example is found in the movie Juno (Reitman, 2007). One of the main characters is a man in his mid-30s who connects with the teenage protagonist by sharing with her his love of (mostly grunge) music and regaling her with tales of his ‘moment of glory’ playing support to The Melvins in the early 1990s. He is portrayed as someone who is not acting in an age-appropriate manner, and at one stage is lambasted for his outdated grunge fashions (a Soundgarden t-shirt worn over a long-sleeved shirt). Figures in popular culture such as this, as well as media reports expressing concern over young people’s failure to ‘grow up’, reinforce the bounded nature of youth and the appropriate roles for each life stage. However, youth is not remembered as an entirely negative experience by all respondents. The accounts of Max and the other older respondents indicate that, over time, the desire to disassociate oneself from a recent (embarrassing, inauthentic) youthful self may be replaced with nostalgia. While Max says he does not miss the negative emotions that he remembers experiencing when young, he does express some regret at losing the level of feeling that he experienced at that time. Similarly, another older respondent, Seamus, emphasizes more positive aspects which he recalls from the time of grunge: It probably just takes me back to kind of, a fairly happier time in my life, and also, what’s that, ten, twelve years ago, something like that, um, it reminds me of being a lot more young and active and going out and, um, I guess of a music scene that’s no longer there that was very influential. So yeah, [‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is] both nostalgic and it’s a great song.

150


Some younger respondents made similar statements: How do you feel about grunge now? Nostalgic, I suppose (laughs) (…) I suppose I look on it with fondness, fondness for my youth, you know, it’s like my youth is gone kind of thing, and there it was at the time these albums were coming out, so I can kind of look back on that and think, yeah, for a while there it was really going, everything was really great, you know. And then as you get older you get responsibilities and you have to start behaving like an adult, so it’s not quite as fun. (Dean) I think a lot of the themes [of grunge] and that I still completely agree with, I still feel a lot of anger towards the world about stuff, you know, and obviously it’s all tempered a bit now, it’s not so high up and that kind of stuff, but it still hits me on the same sort of levels, and sometimes I smile and look back and think of how I used to feel when I listened to it, how angry I was when I listened to Rage Against the Machine the first time and that kind of stuff; now I still think they were really important with the whole political stuff but I’m not so angry (laughs), do you know what I mean? It’s just all tempered by adulthood (laughs). (Isaac)

As Davis (1979) notes, nostalgia entails a very specific relationship between the past and present, whereby some aspect of present circumstances is found to be wanting when compared to the remembered past. In these instances, Seamus finds the present less fun, Dean misses the freedom from responsibility and Max displays a certain concern about having become part of ‘the establishment’. Nostalgia can play an important role in the maintenance of identity, in that: The nostalgic evocation of some past state of affairs always occurs in the context of present fears, discontents, anxieties, or uncertainties, even though they may not be in the forefront of awareness, and … it is these emotions and cognitive states that pose the threat of identity discontinuity … that nostalgia seeks, by marshalling our psychological resources for continuity, to abort, or, at the very least, deflect. (Davis, 1979, pp. 34–5)

While reinforcing the differences between the past and present, nostalgia may be a way of presenting possibilities for the future through revisiting the past – if I have had fun/been rebellious/been carefree in the past, then I know that I have the capacity for such actions or emotions and may be able to do these things again. It is important to note that the disassociation with youth noted above cannot be too complete, and there is a certain tension between wanting to remove oneself from the experiences of youth and needing to maintain a sense of identity over time which may be made difficult by a complete rejection of one’s earlier self. The flexibility that memory allows means that rejection of or nostalgic longing towards the past is possible, depending on how the individual or group constructs


151

their present identity. Regardless of the way that youth is remembered, however, it is still constructed as a closed-off period that cannot be returned to. The way that respondents remember youth reinforces power relations in that if, as they move on from their youth, people construct their own youthful selves as inauthentic, unreliable and overly emotional (even though this can be regarded nostalgically), it is likely that they will regard the people who are now young in the same way. This is especially likely given the strength that the notion of the teenager holds among respondents. As some people move into positions of power associated with adulthood, it seems unlikely that they would cede any of this to a group constructed in such negative terms. Conclusion The above discussion has examined how respondents connect grunge and their relationship with it to their memories of youth. Youth and adolescence are associated with negative emotions and behaviour which respondents are happy to have ‘left behind’, and are portrayed as a finished part of life. Youth is the stepping stone to adulthood, which is attained after individuals have ‘found themselves’, a process which many respondents see grunge as being central to. This suggests two things. First, youth has not become a ‘floating signifier’ as some theorists have suggested, and is still seen as being associated with biological age and social institutions such as school. Secondly, the way in which youth is remembered – as embarrassing, overly emotional, unhappy – frames youth in a way that contains the potential threat that it presents. Grunge asked certain questions about the social structure, particularly in regard to capitalism and commercialization (as well as gender issues discussed in Chapter 6), but these questions are defused by the portrayal of youth as a time that should not really be taken seriously. Youth is sometimes discussed in terms of ‘generations’, whereby groups growing up at the same time come to take on shared characteristics and beliefs. This chapter has examined the idea of ‘Generation X’ which was associated with grunge and has concluded that this categorization tells us little that is meaningful about this group, but is useful in thinking about how collective memory is sometimes imposed from the top-down. The idea of Generation X tells us more about the interests of some white, middle-class Westerners than others subsumed under this label.


Conclusion Grunge has made a lasting impact on the people who were fans of it and on popular culture in general. The sounds, images and style from this era have become a major part of rock history, and bands like Nirvana have claimed an uncontested place in the rock canon. This book uses grunge to try to answer questions about the relationship between popular culture, memory and power, and asks whether grunge presented a challenge to the power structures in society, and if so, what the outcome of this challenge has been. The data collected from fans and media sources suggest that the combination of the way in which memories are often confined to specific narrative forms and the media’s tendency to report events in a manner that fits in with past accounts of similar occurrences means that the challenges that grunge did present have mostly been defused. In making this argument, I have used and contributed to the bodies of work on popular music studies and memory studies, and have employed and expanded on the theories of Bourdieu. Bourdieu’s work is important in allowing us to see how questions of culture and taste are ultimately always connected in some way to the struggles over power in a society. This book contributes to the literature on popular music through being an in-depth study of grunge, and offers a new perspective on such music and its field through studying grunge retrospectively and through the lens of memory. It contributes to the memory studies literature by expanding on existing literature that connects memory formation to media, particularly by demonstrating the ways in which collective memory centred on culture can be formed and maintained in dispersed groups. Overall, the data collected from interviews shows the complexities of: remembering; the relationship of fans with cultural items; and the way that fans remember their relationships with cultural items. Using media reports as a way of understanding how stories about grunge were told by those with more power to influence how societies remember, it is demonstrated that there are different possibilities for fans’ engagement with these narratives. Respondents’ understandings of what grunge was are clearly connected to what was said in the media about the movement, as the definitions of grunge are similar in both cases. The forgetting of the women of grunge observed in the media is also echoed in respondents’ accounts. However, media narratives and fans’ memories involving Kurt Cobain differ, and not all respondents have forgotten the gender equality message of grunge. Memory is also shaped by aspects of social identity other than engagement with popular culture, and this can be seen in the way that respondents distance themselves from their younger selves. The combination of these factors leads to a situation where, despite the contested nature of memories and fans’ agency in relation to the creation of meanings around popular music, in most cases

154


the status quo is reasserted over time. Women are still forgotten, and the creativity and rebellion of youth are dismissed. Grunge is not remembered as something that changed the world because it was never framed in a way that would have allowed this idea to take hold. Its association in the media with allegedly slack, apathetic Generation X and with the ultimately tragic figure of Cobain created a negative context for its initial evaluation. It has since in many ways become ‘just another rock movement’, not because it necessarily was just another rock movement, but because of the power that narrative forms have to emphasize points of similarity and downplay difference. This can be seen occurring in respondents when being a teenager is reduced to a limited set of meanings that are then assumed to be universal, and in the media when the rise and fall/co-optation of music scenes and ‘dead rock stars’ are all talked about in the same way. Such narratives are also, of course, important in creating connections and identification in groups, but in the case of grunge they have not created a group that has a strong sense of itself. It seems possible, then, that the stories that are told about the emergence, success and co-optation of new forms of popular culture work to contain the potential for change that might be present in such movements. Although these stories certainly seem to maintain the power that some groups in society have over others, the mechanisms through which this occurs require further exploration to be well understood. Final Words For a long time, scholars working in the field of popular music have needed to stake a strong claim for the importance and relevance of such research due to the ‘highbrow’ leanings of the academy. While early scholars had to fight hard for acceptance, in more recent times studies of various elements of popular culture – television, movies and websites, as well as music – have become more common and the stigma attached to them, while not completely removed, is beginning to fade. However, during the formative years of the field, scholars needed to place special emphasis on the worth of popular music. To this end, a body of work has built up around the most political aspects of popular music, the ways in which it brings about change in society and the ways in which it is beneficial to audiences and society. I believe that popular music studies have become well-enough established at this point in time for a somewhat more critical approach to now be acceptable. That the conclusions of this study point somewhat in this direction was initially of some concern to me, but this issue was resolved in some ways when I considered more closely who it was that I was studying. The voices in my study are those of ordinary music fans who in the 1990s attached themselves to a particular commercially successful rock movement. Most of them are not, and were never, in bands or part of a tight-knit musical ‘scene’. These are the types of fans who make up the majority of listeners of music, but who have been neglected in popular music studies in favour

Conclusion

155

of the more spectacular subcultural participants, the people at the fringes, and those more likely to be able to be read as giving music a political or even revolutionary edge. The retrospective approach that I have taken also challenges the tendency for music to be found to be central to people’s lives, as most studies are done when a movement is at its height and ideals are yet to be tempered by time. This book does not argue that popular music is irrelevant or meaningless. But it does argue that sometimes, for some people, the ultimate effects that it has are negligible, and it can serve to reproduce rather than challenge societal structures, while also showing how this reproduction is never complete. However, this should not be read as a critique of grunge in particular, or as a vindication of the scholars who dismissed this musical form as lacking the same impact as punk. This study demonstrates that grunge had strong political elements, as did punk, and also, like punk, areas that were less concerned with such cerebral matters. The critique of grunge that compares it unfavourably to punk (or other musical movements) rests on an overstatement of the political meanings of punk, and an understatement of those of grunge. A similar study done with ex-punk fans would probably reveal memory working in similar ways to reinforce – or bring about a return to – the status quo. In this way, memory becomes a more important factor than the music in question. Furthermore, although the emphasis throughout most of this book is on the way in which memory has removed the threat that grunge may have posed to existing power relations, it demonstrates places where this challenge has been sustained. The most obvious example of this is in regard to gender roles. However, respondents have not entirely forgotten the questions which grunge asked about commercialization and the way that it made explicit, even for a short period of time, the struggle in society over what it means to be ‘successful’. Despite the focus of this study on societal reproduction, the significance of these continuing areas of what might be called ‘resistance’ should not be overlooked. Most grunge fans ultimately did not have their world-view radically altered by their experiences with this music. However, the large scale of the grunge phenomenon means that even if only a tiny proportion of this audience continue to ask these types of questions, this probably represents a much larger number of people overall than are engaged in more openly radical, but much smaller, musical subcultures. The smaller-scale changes that grunge wrought on people at the level of the everyday and the habitus, while harder to observe and very difficult to understand fully using interviews, may ultimately have been the most important.


Appendix Outline of Questions for Interviews

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

What type of music do you listen to? Who are your favourite bands? Where do you hear about new music? How often do you buy CDs? Do you go to see bands? If so, how often and where do you go? Would you say that music is an important thing to you? Why? Do you think that this has changed over time? When and how do you listen to music? When I say ‘grunge’, what do you immediately think of? Are there any particular memories or images that come into your mind?

Play song (‘Smells like Teen Spirit’) – please tell me what comes into your head when you hear this. 10. How would you define ‘grunge’? (Do you think that there is more to grunge than the music? Which bands do you associate with grunge?) 11. Can you tell me about your experiences with grunge? (How old were you/ where were you/what were you doing/how did you first hear about grunge?) 12. What were you listening to before you started listening to grunge? 13. Why did grunge appeal to you? 14. Did you know a lot of other people who were into grunge? Did your interest in grunge change your relationship with them or anyone else? 15. I remember, when I first got into grunge, feeling a sense of connection with other grunge fans – not necessarily people I knew – because I felt that there were suddenly a lot of people around who were like me, who felt the same sorts of things I did, because I saw myself in the music. Was your experience anything like this? 16. How did you feel about Kurt Cobain’s death? 17. What effect (if any) do you think grunge had on you in any aspect of your life at the time? Did it change the music that you listened to significantly? Was this the only effect? 18. Do you think that the success and popularity of grunge was a good or bad thing? Why? 19. How do you feel about grunge now?

158


20. Do you think, in retrospect, that grunge had any lasting effects, either personally or on a larger scale? If so, what are they? 21. Can you tell me anything about how you went from listening to grunge to what you listen to today/how have your tastes changed since you were into grunge? 22. Is there anything that you would like to add or comment on?

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor, ‘On Popular Music’, in Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds), On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word (London: Routledge, 1990 [1941]). Aizlewood, John, ‘In Bloom’, Mojo Classic, 2005. Alexander, Phil, ‘Early Grunge Classics’, Mojo, January 2005. Ali, Lorraine, ‘The 90s Era: Smells Like Teen Spirit’, Rolling Stone, May 1997. Anderson, Ben, ‘Recorded Music and Practices of Remembering’, Social and Cultural Geography, 5/1 (2004): 3–20. Attali, Jacques, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, 6th edn (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985). Atton, Chris, ‘Writing About Listening: Alternative Discourses in Rock Journalism’, Popular Music, 28/1 (2009): 53–67. Attwood, Feona, ‘Sluts and Riot Grrrls: Female Identity and Sexual Agency’, Journal of Gender Studies, 16/3 (2007): 233–47. Bannister, Matthew, White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). Barker, Hugh and Yuval Taylor, Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2007). Barnes, Jim and Stephen Scanes, Top 40 Research, 6th edn (Wilberforce, NSW: Fitzgerald Graphic Communications Group, 2003). Bayton, Mavis, ‘Feminist Musical Practice: Problems and Contradictions’, in Tony Bennett, Simon Frith and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies and Institutions (New York: Routledge, 1993). —, ‘Women Making Music: Some Material Constraints’, in Andy Bennett, Barry Shank and Jason Toynbee (eds), The Popular Music Studies Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2006). Beaujon, Andrew, ‘A Brief History of Grunge’, Spin, April 2004. Beaujon, Andrew, Jon Dolan, Caryn Ganz and Joe Gross, ‘The 20 Greatest Grunge Albums of All Time’, Spin, April 2004. Becker, Howard S., Art Worlds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). Beebe, Roger, ‘Mourning Becomes ...? Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, and The “Waning of Affect”’, in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook and Ben Saunders (eds), Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002). Bennett, Andy, ‘Subcultures or Neo-Tribes? Rethinking the Relationship between Youth, Style and Musical Taste’, Sociology, 33/3 (1999): 599–617.

160


—, ‘Punk’s Not Dead: The Continuing Significance of Punk Rock for an Older Generation of Fans’, Sociology, 40/2 (2006): 219–35. —, ‘“Things They Do Look Awful Cool”: Ageing Rock Icons and Contemporary Youth Audiences’, Leisure/Loisir, 32/2 (2008a): 259–78. —, ‘Towards a Cultural Sociology of Popular Music’, Journal of Sociology, 44 (2008b). —, ‘“Heritage Rock”: Rock Music, Representation and Heritage Discourse’, Poetics, 37 (2009): 474–89. Bennett, Andy and Jon Stratton (eds), Britpop and the English Music Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010). Bennett, Tony, Michael Emmison and John Frow, Accounting for Tastes: Australian Everyday Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Benson, Rodney, ‘Field Theory in Comparative Context: A New Paradigm for Media Studies’, Theory and Society, 28(1998): 463–98. Best, Steven and Douglas Kellner, ‘Beavis and Butt-Head: No Future for Postmodern Youth’, in Jonathon S Epstein (ed.), Youth Culture; Identity in a Postmodern World (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). Binder, Amy, ‘Constructing Racial Rhetoric: Media Depictions of Harm in Heavy Metal and Rap Music’, American Sociological Review, 58/6 (1993): 753–67. Bluck, Susan, ‘Autobiographical Memory: Exploring Its Functions in Everyday Life’, Memory, 11/2 (2003): 113–23. Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977). —, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice, 11th edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). —, The Field of Cultural Production (London: Columbia University Press, 1993a). —, ‘Music Lovers: Origin and Evolution of the Species’, in Richard Nice (ed.), Sociology in Question (London and Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1993b). —, ‘“Youth” Is Just a Word’, in Richard Nice (ed.), Sociology in Question (London and Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1993c). Boym, Svetlana, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001). Brabazon, Tara, From Revolution to Revelation: Generation X, Popular Memory and Cultural Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005). Bryson, Bethany, ‘“Anything but Heavy Metal”: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes’, American Sociological Review, 61/5 (1996): 884–99. Buchmann, Marlis, The Script of Life in Modern Societies: Entry into Adulthood in a Changing World (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1989). Cameron, Keith, ‘Wench Warfare – Interview with Babes in Toyland’, New Musical Express, 29 June 1991a. —, ‘Nirvana Be in My Gang?’, New Musical Express, 21 September 1991b. —, ‘Smells Like Halloween Spirit – Interview with Smashing Pumpkins’, New Musical Express, 1 February 1992a.

Bibliography

161

—, ‘Young Grunge Go for It’, New Musical Express, 21 March 1992b. —, ‘Mujaheddin About Nothing – Afghan Whigs Interview’, New Musical Express, 2 January 1993. Campbell, Kim, ‘The Grunge Generation Grows Up’, Christian Science Monitor, 21 July 2004. Carrier, Peter, ‘Places, Politics and the Archiving of Contemporary Memory’, in Susannah Radstone (ed.), Memory and Methodology (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000). Clawson, Mary Ann, ‘When Women Play the Bass: Instrument Specialization and Gender Interpretation in Alternative Rock Music’, Gender and Society, 13/2 (1999): 193–210. Coates, Norma, ‘Moms Don’t Rock: The Popular Demonization of Courtney Love’, in Molly Ladd-Taylor and Lauri Umansky (eds), ‘Bad’ Mothers: The Politics of Blame in Twentieth-Century America (New York and London: New York University Press, 1998). Cohen, Sara, Rock Culture in Liverpool (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). —, ‘Scenes’, in Bruce Horner and Thomas Swiss (eds), Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). Cohen, Stanley, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers (St Albans: Paladin, 1973). Collins, Andrew, ‘Lawn to Be Wild’, New Musical Express, 28 April 1990. Columbian, The, ‘Martyr in a Muffler Shop’, at , accessed 9 July 2007. Connell, John and Chris Gibson, Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). Connerton, Paul, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Conway, Martin A., ‘The Inventory of Experience: Memory and Identity’, in James W. Pennebaker, Dario Paez and Bernard Rime (eds), Collective Memory of Political Events – Social Psychological Perspectives (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997). Corrigan, Susan, ‘Nirvana, Godflesh and L7 Live Review’, New Musical Express, 10 November 1990. Coser, Lewis A., ‘Introduction: Maurice Halbwachs 1877–1945’, in Lewis A. Coser (ed.), On Collective Memory (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Couldry, Nick, ‘Media Meta-Capital: Extending the Range of Bourdieu’s Field Theory’, Theory and Society, 32 (2003): 653–77. Coupland, Douglas, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (London: Abacus, 1991). Crawford, Kate, Adult Themes: Rewriting the Rules of Adulthood (Sydney: PanMacmillan, 2006). Cross, Alan, Over the Edge: The Revolution and Evolution of New Rock (Scarborough: Prentice Hall, 1997).

162


Cross, Charles R., Heavier Than Heaven: The Biography of Kurt Cobain (London: Sceptre, 2001). Dalton, Stephen, ‘A&Rpm’, New Musical Express, 29 September 1990. —, ‘Mudhoney Interview’, New Musical Express, 31 August 1991. Davies, Helen, ‘All Rock and Roll Is Homosocial: The Representation of Women in the British Rock Music Press’, Popular Music, 20/3 (2001): 301–19. Davies, Jude, ‘The Future of No Future: Punk Rock and Postmodern Theory’, Journal of Popular Culture, 29/4 (1996): 3–25. Davis, Fred, Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1979). —, ‘Decade Labeling: The Play of Collective Memory and Narrative Plot’, Symbolic Interaction, 7/1 (1984): 15–24. Davis, Joanna R., ‘Growing up Punk: Negotiating Aging Identity in a Local Music Scene’, Symbolic Interaction, 29/1 (2006): 63–9. Davis, Mark, Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism, 2nd edn (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1999). DeChaine, D. Robert, ‘Mapping Subversion: Queercore Music’s Playful Discourse of Resistance’, Popular Music and Society, 21/4 (1997): 7–38. Delich, Francisco, ‘The Social Construction of Memory and Forgetting’, Diogenes, 51/1 (2004): 65–75. DeNora, Tia, Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). —, After Adorno: Rethinking Music Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). DeRogatis, Jim, Milk It! Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the 90s (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2003). Des Barres, Pamela, Rock Bottom (London: Little, Brown & Company, 1996). Dettmar, Kevin J.H., Is Rock Dead? (New York: Routledge, 2006). Dick, Charlie, ‘Cello? I Must Be Going – Nirvana Live Review’, New Musical Express, 13 November 1993. Double, Steve, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, New Musical Express, 29 August 1992. ‘The Early Years: 1986–90’, Uncut Legends, March 2004. Edmunds, June and Bryan S. Turner, ‘Global Generations: Social Change in the Twentieth Century’, British Journal of Sociology, 56/4 (2005): 559–77. Ellen, Barbara, ‘Soundgarden Live Review’, New Musical Express, 21 July 1990. Epstein, Jonathon S, ‘Introduction: Generation X, Youth Culture and Identity’, in Jonathon S. Epstein (ed.), Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). Eyerman, Ron and Bryan S. Turner, ‘Outline of a Theory of Generations’, European Journal of Social Theory, 1/1 (1998): 91–106. Fadele, Dele, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit Single Review’, New Musical Express, 9 November 1991. —, ‘Mudhoney Live Review’, New Musical Express, 24 October 1992.

Bibliography

163

Fenster, Mark, ‘Consumers’ Guides: The Political Economy of the Music Press and the Democracy of Critical Discourse’, in Steve Jones (ed.), Pop Music and the Press (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002). Fentress, James and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992). ‘The Final Years: 1993–94’, Uncut Legends, March 2004. Finkenauer, Catrin, Lydia Gisle and Olivier Luminet, ‘When Individual Memories Are Socially Shaped: Flashbulb Memories of Sociopolitical Events’, in James W. Pennebaker, Dario Paez and Bernard Rime (eds), Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997). Finnegan, Ruth, The Hidden Musicians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Fish, Duane R., ‘Serving the Servants: An Analysis of the Music of Kurt Cobain’, Popular Music and Society, 19/2 (1995): 87–102. Flick, Uwe, An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 2nd edn (London: Sage, 2002). Foucault, Michel, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1977). Fowler, Bridget, ‘Collective Memory and Forgetting: Components for a Study of Obituaries’, Theory, Culture and Society, 22/6 (2005): 53–72. Frank, Thomas, ‘Harsh Realm, Mr Sulzberger!’, in Thomas Frank and Matt Weiland (eds), Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos from the Baffler (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997). Fricke, David, ‘Kurt Cobain – His Final Words’, Rolling Stone, May 2004. Friesen, Bruce K. and Jonathon S. Epstein, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution: Artistic Conventions and Tensions in the Major Subgenres of Heavy Metal Music’, Popular Music and Society, 18/3 (1994): 1–17. Friesen, Bruce K. and Warren Helfrich, ‘Social Justice and Sexism for Adolescents: A Content Analysis of Lyrical Themes and Gender Presentations in Canadian Heavy Metal Music, 1985–1991’, in Jonathon S. Epstein (ed.), Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). Frith, Simon, ‘Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music’, in Susan McClary and Richard Leppert (eds), Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge Press, 1987). —, Music for Pleasure (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988). Frost, Danny, ‘Pearl Jam ‘Vs’ Review’, New Musical Express, 16 October 1993. Furek, Maxim W., The Death Proclamation of Generation X: A Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Goth, Grunge and Heroin (New York: iUniverse, 2008). Gendron, Bernard, Between Montmartre and the Muddclub: Popular Music and the Avant-Garde (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002). Gibson, Chris and John Connell, Music and Tourism: On the Road Again (Cleavedon: Channel View, 2005).

164


Gilleard, Chris, ‘Cohorts and Generations in the Study of Social Change’, Social Theory and Health, 2004/2 (2004): 106–19. ‘The Glory Years: 1991–92’, Uncut Legends, March 2004. Goertzel, Ben, ‘The Rock Guitar Solo: From Expression to Simulation’, Popular Music and Society, 15/1 (1991): 91–101. Goldthorpe, Jeff, ‘Intoxicated Culture: Punk Symbolism and Punk Protest’, Radical Society, 22/2 (1992): 35–64. Goodwin, Andrew, ‘Sample and Hold: Pop Music in the Digital Age of Reproduction’, in Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds), On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word (London: Routledge, 1990). Goshert, John Charles, ‘“Punk” After the Pistols: American Music, Economics and Politics in the 1980s and 1990s’, Popular Music and Society, 24/1 (2000): 87–109. Gottlieb, Joanne and Gayle Wald, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit: Riot Grrrls, Revolution and Women in Independent Rock’, in Andrew Ross and Tricia Rose (eds), Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture (New York and London: Routledge, 1994). Grainge, Paul, ‘Nostalgia and Style in Retro America: Moods, Modes and Media Recycling’, Journal of American and Comparative Cultures, 23/1 (2000): 27–34. Greene, Jo-Ann, ‘The Shot Heard Around the World’, Select, June 1994. Griffin, Larry J., ‘“Generations and Collective Memory” Revisited: Race, Region, and Memory of Civil Rights’, American Sociological Review, 69/4 (2004): 544–57. Grossberg, Lawrence, ‘Is There Rock after Punk’, in Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds), On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word (London: Routledge, 1990). —, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture (New York and London: Routledge, 1992). —, ‘The Framing of Rock: Rock and the New Conservatism’, in Tony Bennett, Simon Frith and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies and Institutions (New York: Routledge, 1993). —, ‘Reflections of a Disappointed Popular Music Scholar’, in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook and Ben Saunders (eds), Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002). Grossman, Perry, ‘Identity Crisis: The Dialectics of Rock, Punk and Grunge’, Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 41(1996–97): 19–40. Gudmundsson, Gestur, ‘To Find Our Voice in a Foreign Language: Authenticity and Reflexivity in an Anglocentric World of Rock’, at , accessed 15 May 2003. Gudmundsson, Gestur, Ulf Lindberg, Morten Michelsen and Hans Weisethaunet, ‘Brit Crit: Turning Points in British Rock Criticism, 1960–1990’, in Steve Jones (ed.), Pop Music and the Press (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002).

Bibliography

165

Gunderson, Philip A., ‘Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, Mash-Ups, and the Age of Composition’, Postmodern Culture, 15/1 (2004). Gunn, Joshua, ‘Gothic Music and the Inevitability of Genre’, Popular Music and Society, 23/1 (1999). Halbwachs, Maurice, On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992[1924]). Hall, Stuart and Tony Jefferson (eds), Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain (London: Routledge, 1996). Halnon, Karen Bettez, ‘Alienation Incorporated: “Fuck the Mainstream Music” in the Mainstream’, in Lauren Langman and Devorah Kalekin (eds), Trauma, Promise and the Millenium: The Evolution of Alienation (Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004). Harley, Ross, ‘Beat in the System’, in Tony Bennett, Simon Frith and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Rock and Popular Music: Politics, Policies and Institutions (New York: Routledge, 1993). Harrell, Jack, ‘The Poetics of Destruction: Death Metal Rock’, Popular Music and Society, 18/1 (1994): 91–103. Harris, John, ‘Lifestyles of the Bitch and Famous – Interview with 7 Year Bitch’, New Musical Express, 16 January 1993. Harrison, Thomas, ‘“Empire”: Chart Performance of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Groups, 1990–1992’, Popular Music and Society, 30/2 (2007): 197–225. Hebdige, Dick, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London and New York: Routledge, 1979). Heller, Agnes, ‘A Tentative Answer to the Question: Has Civil Society Cultural Memory?’, Social Research, 68/4 (2001): 1031–40. Henderson, Margaret, Marking Feminist Times: Remembering the Longest Revolution in Australia (Bern, Berlin and New York: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, 2006). Hesmondhalgh, David, ‘Bourdieu, the Media and Cultural Production’, Media, Culture and Society, 28/2 (2006): 211–31. Heywood, Leslie and Jennifer Drake, ‘Introduction’, in Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake (eds), Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). Hibbett, Ryan, ‘What Is Indie Rock?’, Popular Music and Society, 28/1 (2005): 55–77. Hirschberg, Lynn, ‘Strange Love’, Vanity Fair, September 1992. Hobbs, Mary Anne, ‘’Vana Be Adored’, New Musical Express, 23 November 1991. Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Holstein, James A. and Jaber F. Gubrium, ‘The Active Interview in Perspective’, in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds), The American Tradition in Qualitative Research, vol. 3 (London: Sage Publications, 2001). Homan, Shane, The Mayor’s a Square: Live Music and Law and Order in Sydney (Marrickville: Southwood Press, 2003).

166


—, ‘The Beatles Live in Moscow, 1982: Tribute Audiences, Music History and Memory’, in Shane Homan (ed.), Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop Culture (Berkshire, England: Open University Press, 2006a). —, ‘“You’ve Got to Carry That Weight”: Tribute Acts in the Entertainment Supermarket’, in Shane Homan (ed.), Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop Culture (Berkshire, England: Open University Press, 2006b). Howard, Rebecca, ‘Those Broken-in, Grunge Clothes Worn by Rockers Head Uptown’, St Louis Post-Dispatch, 21 February 1993. Howe, Neil and Bill Strauss, 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? (New York: Vintage Books, 1993). Hughes, Patrick, ‘Girl You Know It’s Industry: Milli Vanilli and the Industrialization of Popular Music’, Popular Music and Society, 16/3 (1992): 39–52. Huntley, Rebecca, The World According to Y (Maryborough, Victoria: McPherson’s Printing Group, 2006). Huq, Rupa, Beyond Subculture: Pop, Youth and Identity in a Postcolonial World (New York: Routledge, 2006). Huyssen, Andreas, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986). —, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York and London: Routledge, 1995). Iley, Chrissy, ‘Love Is All She Needs’, Weekend Australian, 4–6 November 2006. Irwin, Darrell D., ‘The Straight Edge Subculture: Examining the Youths’ DrugFree Way’, Journal of Drug Issues, 29/2 (1999): 365–81. Irwin, Sarah, ‘Age, Generation and Inequality: A Reply to the Reply’, British Journal of Sociology, 49/2 (1998): 305–10. Irwin-Zarecka, Iwona, Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1994). Järviluoma, Helmi (ed.), Soundscapes: Essays on Vroom and Moo (Tampere, Finland: Department of Folk Tradition, Tampere University, 1994). Järviluoma, Helmi, Pirkko Moisala and Anni Vikko, Gender and Qualitative Methods (London, Thousand Oaks and New Dehli: Sage Publications, 2003). Järviluoma, Helmi and Gregg Wagstaff (eds), Soundscape Studies and Methods (Helsinki: Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology, 2002). Jeannin, Judy, ‘The Season of the Grunge’, The Record, 5 November 1992. Jedlowski, Paolo, ‘Memory and Sociology: Themes and Issues’, Time Society, 10/1 (2001): 29–44. Jenkins, Henry, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York and London: Routledge, 1992). —, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: New York University Press, 2006). Jenkins, Richard, Pierre Bourdieu (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). Jipson, Arthur, ‘Why Athens? Investigations into the Site of an American Music Revolution’, Popular Music and Society, 8/3 (1994): 19–31.

Bibliography

167

Johnson, Richard, Gregor McLennan, Bill Schwarz and David Sutton (eds), Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982). Jones, Steve, ‘Covering Cobain: Narrative Patterns in Journalism and Rock Criticism’, Popular Music and Society, 19/2 (1995): 103–18. —, (ed.), Pop Music and the Press (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002). Kassabian, Anahid, ‘Ubiquitous Listening and Networked Subjectivities’, in David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus (eds), Popular Music Studies (Oxford: Hodder Arnold, 2002). Kearney, Mary Celeste, ‘“Don’t Need You”: Rethinking Identity Politics and Separatism from a Grrrl Perspective’, in Jonathon S. Epstein (ed.), Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). Kennedy, David, ‘Frankenchrist Versus the State: The New Right, Rock Music and the Case of Jello Biafra’, Journal of Popular Culture, 24/1 (1990): 131–48. Kertzer, David I., ‘Generation as a Sociological Problem’, Annual Review of Sociology, 9 (1983): 125–49. Kirschner, Tony, ‘The Lalapalooziation of American Youth’, Popular Music and Society, 18/1 (1994): 69–89. Kitch, Carolyn, ‘“A News of Feeling as Well as Fact”: Mourning and Memorial in American Newsmagazines’, Journalism, 1/2 (2000): 171–95. —, ‘Anniversary Journalism, Collective Memory, and the Cultural Authority to Tell the Story of the American Past’, Journal of Popular Culture, 36/1 (2002): 44–67. —, ‘Generational Identity and Memory in American Newsmagazines’, Journalism, 4/2 (2003): 185–202. Klein, Melissa, ‘Duality and Redefinition: Young Feminism and the Alternative Music Community’, in Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake (eds), Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). Kleinberg, S. Jay, ‘Introduction’, in S. Jay Kleinberg (ed.), Retrieving Women’s History: Changing Perceptions of the Role of Women in Politics and Society (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 1988). Kobel, Peter, ‘Smells Like Big Bucks’, Entertainment Weekly, 2 March 1993. Kohl, Paul R., ‘Reading Between the Lines: Music and Noise in Hegemony and Resistance’, Popular Music and Society, 21/3 (1997): 3–18. Kotarba, Joseph A., ‘The Postmodernization of Rock and Roll Music: The Case of Metallica’, in Jonathon S. Epstein (ed.), Adolescents and Their Music: If It’s Too Loud, You’re Too Old (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1994). —, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Music as a Timepiece’, Symbolic Interaction, 25/3 (2002): 397–404. —, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Experiences in Middle Age’, American Behaviorial Scientist, 48/11 (2005): 1524–37.

168


Kruse, Holly, Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2003). Kuhn, Annette, ‘A Journey through Memory’, in Susannah Radstone (ed.), Memory and Methodology (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000). Lamacq, Steve, ‘Nirvanarama’, New Musical Express, 26 January 1991. —, ‘Foreword’, Uncut Legends, March 2004. Landau, Jon, It’s Too Late to Stop Now: A Rock and Roll Journal (San Francisco: Straight Arrow, 1972). Lang, Gladys Engel and Kurt Lang, Etched in Memory: The Building and Survival of Artistic Reputation (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). Larsen, Alan Edward, ‘Selling (out) the Local Scene: Grunge and Globalization’ (Masters, State University of New York, 2008). Laughey, Dan, Music and Youth Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006). Leonard, Marion, Gender in the Music Industry: Rock, Discourse and Girl Power (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Lewins, Frank, Social Science Methodology (Melboune: Macmillan, 1992). Lewis, Angela, ‘Pearl Jam 10’, New Musical Express, 29 February 1992. —, ‘Review of Sub Pop Reissues’, New Musical Express, 9 January 1993a. —, ‘Babes In Toyland Live Review’, New Musical Express, 9 October 1993b. —, ‘Soundgarden Live Review’, New Musical Express, 23 April 1994. ‘The Life and Times of Kurt Cobain’, Rolling Stone, April 2004. Lipsitz, George, Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1990). ‘Love Is in the Bear’, New Musical Express, 27 March 1993. Lovell, Terry, Consuming Fiction (London: Verso, 1987). Luff, Donna, ‘Dialogue across the Divides: “Moments of Rapport” and Power in Feminist Research with Anti-Feminist Women’, Sociology, 33/4 (1999): 687–703. Maconie, Stuart, ‘Sheilas Take a Bow’, New Musical Express, 15 August 1992. Maira, Sunaina and Elisabeth Soep, ‘United States of Adolescence? Reconsidering US Youth Culture Studies’, Young, 12/3 (2004): 245–69. Mannheim, Karl, ‘The Problem of Generations’, in Philip G. Altbach and Robert S. Laufer (eds), The New Pilgrims: Youth Protest in Transition (New York: David McKay Company, 1972). Marcus, Greil, ‘Comment on Mark Mazullo, “The Man Whom the World Sold”’, Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000): 750–53. Marsh, Greg, ‘Letters to the Editor’, New Musical Express, 17 April 2004. Martin, Bradford, ‘“... And You Voted for That Guy”: 1980s Post-Punk and Oppositional Politics’, Journal of Popular Music Studies, 16/2 (2004): 142–74. Martin, Graham and Lisa Koo, ‘Celebrity Suicide: Did the Death of Kurt Cobain Influence Young Suicides in Australia?’, Archives of Suicide Research, 3(1997): 187–98.

Bibliography

169

Maxwell, Ian, ‘The Curse of Fandom: Insiders, Outsiders and Ethnography’, in David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus (eds), Popular Music Studies (London: Arnold, 2002). Mazullo, Mark, ‘The Man Whom the World Sold: Kurt Cobain, Rock’s Progressive Aesthetic, and the Challenges of Authenticity’, Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000): 713–49. Mazzarella, Sharon R., ‘“The Voice of a Generation”? Media Coverage of the Suicide of Kurt Cobain’, Popular Music and Society, 19/2 (1995): 49–68. McClary, Susan and Robert Walser, ‘Start Making Sense! Musicology Wrestles with Rock’, in Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin (eds), On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word (London: Routledge, 1990). McDonald, Chris, ‘Exploring Modal Subversions in Alternative Music’, Popular Music, 19/3 (2000): 355–63. McDonald, Lynn, The Women Founders of the Social Sciences (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1994). McRobbie, Angela and Jenny Garber, ‘Girls and Subcultures’, in Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton (eds), The Subcultures Reader (London: Routledge, 1997). Meltzer, Marisa, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music (New York: Faber and Faber, 2010). Middleton, Jason, ‘D.C. Punk and the Production of Authenticity’, in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook and Ben Saunders (eds), Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002). Misztal, Barbara A., Theories of Social Remembering (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2003). Mohan, Amy B. and Jean Malone, ‘Popular Music as a “Social Cement”: A Content Analysis of Social Criticism and Alienation in Alternative-Music Song Titles’, in Jonathon S Epstein (ed.), Adolescents and Their Music: If It’s Too Loud, You’re Too Old (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1994). Moody, Paul, ‘Pirates of Pen’s Angst – Interview with Stone Temple Pilots’, New Musical Express, 18 June 1994. Moore, Allan, ‘Authenticity as Authentication’, Popular Music, 21/2 (2002): 209– 23. Morrell, Brad, Nirvana and the Sound of Seattle (London: Omnibus Press, 1996). Morris, Gina, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fins’, New Musical Express, 21 November 1992. Morton, Roger, ‘Midwife Crisis’, New Musical Express, 22 August 1992. Moynihan, Michael and Dedrik Sonderlind, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground (Los Angeles: Feral House, 1998). Muggleton, David, Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2000). Mulvey, John, ‘Band of Fallopian Glory – In Utero Review’, New Musical Express, 4 September 1993. —, ‘Peerless in Seattle’, New Musical Express, 23 April 1994.

170


Mundy, Chris, ‘Racket of Three’, New Musical Express, 18 January 1992. Murdock, Graham and Robin McCron, ‘Consciousness of Class and Consciousness of Generation’, in Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson (eds), Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain (London: Routledge, 1993). Muto, Jan, ‘He Was the Woman of His Dreams: Identity, Gender and Kurt Cobain’, Popular Music and Society, 19/2 (1995): 69–85. Narvaez, Rafael F., ‘Embodiment, Collective Memory and Time’, Body and Society, 12/3 (2006): 51–73. Negus, Keith, Popular Music in Theory (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1996). Nelson, Katherine, ‘Self and Social Functions: Individual Autobiographical Memory and Collective Narrative’, Memory, 11/2 (2003): 125–36. Nicholas, Lucy, ‘What Fucked Version of Hello Kitty Are You?’, MC Journal, 6/3 (2003). Nilan, Pam, ‘Youth Culture’, in John Germov and Marilyn Poole (eds), Public Sociology: An Introduction to Australian Society (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2007). Nora, Pierre, ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux Se Memoire’, Representations, 26/Spring (1989): 7–24. Norris, Chris, ‘The Ghost of Saint Kurt’, Spin, April 2004. Novoselic, Krist, Of Grunge and Government: Let’s Fix This Broken Democracy (New York: RDV Books, 2004). O’Connell, Sharon, ‘Love Buzz’, Uncut Legends, March 2004. Olick, Jeffrey K. and Joyce Robbins, ‘Social Memory Studies: From “Collective Memory” to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices’, Annual Review of Sociology, 24 (1998): 105–40. Ortner, Sherry B., ‘Generation X: Anthropology in a Media-Saturated World’, Cultural Anthropology, 13/3 (1998): 414–40. Ott, Brian L., ‘“I’m Bart Simpson, Who the Hell Are You?” A Study in Postmodern Identity (Re)Construction’, Journal of Popular Culture, 37/1 (2003): 56–82. ‘Our Artists Reflect’, Rolling Stone, April 2004. Page, Betty, ‘The Witch Report’, New Musical Express, 9 May 1992. Pecora, Norma and Sharon R. Mazzarella, ‘Kurt Cobain, Generation X, and the Press: College Students Respond’, Popular Music and Society, 19/2 (1995): 3–22. Peterson, Richard A. and Roger M. Kern, ‘Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore’, American Sociological Review, 61/5 (1996): 900–907. Peterson, Richard A. and Albert Simkus, ‘How Musical Tastes Mark Occupational Status Group’, in Michele Lamont and Marcel Fournier (eds), Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Phillipov, Michelle, ‘Haunted by the Spirit of ’77: Punk Studies and the Persistence of Politics’, Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 20/3 (2006): 383–93. ‘Plaid to the Bone: The 25 Greatest Grunge Albums’, Guitar One, May 2004.

Bibliography

171

Pleh, Csaba, ‘Remembering the Collective Memory of Maurice Halbwachs’, Semiotica, 128/3–4 (2000): 435–43. Popular Memory Group, ‘Popular Memory: Theory, Politics, Method’, in Richard Johnson, Gregor McLennan, Bill Schwarz and David Sutton (eds), Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982). Punch, Maurice, ‘Politics and Ethics in Qualitative Research’, in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds), The Landscape of Qualitative Research (London: Sage Publications, 1998). Radstone, Susannah, ‘Working with Memory: An Introduction’, in Susannah Radstone (ed.), Memory and Methodology (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000). ‘Rage Against the Man Machine’, New Musical Express, 6 March 1993. Raphael, Amy, Grrrls: Viva Rock Divas (New York: St Martin’s Griffin, 1996). Reddington, Helen, The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Redhead, Steve, Subcultures to Clubcultures: An Introduction to Popular Cultural Studies (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997). Regev, Motti, ‘Producing Artistic Value: The Case of Rock Music’, Sociological Quarterly, 35/1 (1994): 85–102. Ridges, Derek, ‘Strip Sleaze Artists – Interview with L7’, New Musical Express, 30 May 1992a. —, ‘Do the Ripe Thing’, New Musical Express, 12 September 1992b. Rose, Tricia, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 1994). Rosenberg, Jessica and Gitana Garofalo, ‘Riot Grrrl: Revolutions from Within’, Signs, 23/3 (1998): 809–41. Sanjek, David, ‘Institutions’, in Bruce Horner and Thomas Swiss (eds), Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). Santiago-Lucerna, Javier, ‘“Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle”: Pan-Capitalism and Alternative Rock’, in Jonathon S. Epstein (ed.), Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). Saunders, Laura E. and Karen W. Bauer, ‘Undergraduate Students Today: Who Are They?’, New Directions for Institutional Research, 98 (1998): 7–16. Sawer, Marian, Making Women Count: A History of the Women’s Electoral Lobby in Australia (Sydney: UNSW Publishing, 2008). Schilt, Kirsten, ‘“A Little Too Ironic”: The Appropriation and Packaging of Riot Grrrl Politics by Mainstream Female Musicians’, Popular Music and Society, 26/1 (2003): 5–16. Schippers, Mimi, Rockin’ Out of the Box: Gender Maneuvering in Alternative Hard Rock (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press, 2002). Schudson, Michael, ‘Ronald Reagan Misremembered’, in David Middleton and Derek Edwards (eds), Collective Remembering (London: Sage Publications, 1990).

172


Schuman, Howard and Jacqueline Scott, ‘Generations and Collective Memories’, American Sociological Review, 54/3 (1989): 359–81. Schwartz, Barry, ‘Collective Memory and History: How Abraham Lincoln Became a Symbol of Racial Equality’, Sociological Quarterly, 38/3 (1997): 469–96. Scodari, Christine, ‘Yoko in Cyberspace with Beatles Fans: Gender and the ReCreation of Popular Mythology’, in Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington (eds), Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (New York: New York University Press, 2007). Seidman, Steven, Contested Knowledge: Social Theory in the Postmodern Era, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). Shepherd, John, Music as Social Text (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991). Shevory, Thomas C., ‘Bleached Resistance: The Politics of Grunge’, Popular Music and Society, 19/2 (1995): 23–48. Shoemaker, Leigh, ‘Part Animal, Part Machine: Self-Definition, Rollins Style’, in Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake (eds), Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). Shome, Raka, ‘White Femininity and the Discourse of the Nation: Re/Membering Princess Diana’, Feminist Media Studies, 1/3 (2001): 323–42. Shuker, Roy, Understanding Popular Music, 2nd edn (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). —, Popular Music: The Key Concepts, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2005). Skowronski, John J. and W. Richard Walker, ‘How Describing Autobiographical Events Can Affect Autobiographical Memories’, Social Cognition, 22/5 (2004): 555–91. Sloat, Lisa J., ‘Incubus: Male Songwriters’ Portrayal of Women’s Sexuality in Pop Metal Music’, in Jonathon S Epstein (ed.), Youth Culture: Identity in a Postmodern World (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998). Stout, Gene, ‘Grunge Gives Way to Glam at Many Local Nightspots’, Seattle Post, 10 April 1998. Strong, Catherine, ‘The Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time and the Dominance of the Rock Canon’, Meanjin, 62/2 (2010): 122–7. Stubbs, David, ‘Lost Boys and Fallen Angels’, Uncut, August 2000. —, ‘About a Boy’, Uncut Legends, March 2004. Sutherland, Steve, ‘Love Resurrection’, New Musical Express, 17 April 1993a. —, ‘24-Hour Pity People’, New Musical Express, 2 October 1993b. —, ‘Angst – Letters to the Editor’, New Musical Express, 23 April 1994. Talarico, Jennifer M. and David C. Rubin, ‘Confidence, Not Consistency, Characterizes Flashbulb Memories’, Psychological Science, 14/5 (2003): 455–61. Tepedelen, Adem, ‘Flyin’ the Flannel; Ten Essential Grunge Albums’, Revolver, April 2004.

Bibliography

173

Thornton, Sarah, ‘Strategies for Reconstructing the Popular Past’, Popular Music, 9/1 (1990): 87–95. —, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). Tonge, David, ‘The Toxic Chain-Sore Massacre’, Select, February 1993. Toynbee, Jason, ‘Policing Bohemia, Pinning up Grunge: The Music Press and Generic Change in British Pop and Rock’, Popular Music, 12/3 (1993): 289– 300. True, Everett, Live Through This: American Rock Music in the Nineties (London: Virgin Publishing, 2001). —, Nirvana: The Biography (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2007). Turner, Bryan S., ‘Ageing and Generational Conflicts: A Reply to Sarah Irwin’, British Journal of Sociology, 49/2 (1998): 299–304. Van Dijck, Jose, ‘Mediated Memories: Personal Cultural Memory as Object of Cultural Analysis’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 18/2 (2004): 261–77. —, ‘Record and Hold: Popular Music between Personal and Collective Memory’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 23/5 (2006): 357–74. ‘Verse Chorus Verse’, Uncut Legends, March 2004. Von Appen, Ralf and Andre Doehring, ‘Nevermind the Beatles, Here’s Exile 61 and Nico: “The Top 100 Records of All Time” – A Canon of Pop and Rock Albums from a Sociological and an Aesthetic Perspective’, Popular Music, 25/1 (2006): 21–39. Wald, Gayle, ‘Just a Girl? Rock Music, Feminism, and the Cultural Construction of Female Youth’, in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook and Ben Saunders (eds), Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002). Wall, Mick, ‘Alive’, Mojo Classics, 2005. Wallach Scott, Joan, ‘The Problem of Invisibility’, in S. Jay Kleinberg (ed.), Retrieving Women’s History: Changing Perceptions of the Role of Women in Politics and Society (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 1988). Walser, Robert, Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993). Walsh, Peter, ‘Hard Day at the Orifice, Dear?’, New Musical Express, 14 December 1991. Warde, Alan, David Wright and Modesto Gayo-Cal, ‘Understanding Cultural Omnivorousness: Or, the Myth of the Cultural Omnivore’, Cultural Sociology, 1/2 (2007): 143–64. Webb, Jen, Tony Schirato and Geoff Danaher, Understanding Bourdieu (Crow’s Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2002). Weinstein, Deena, ‘Rock: Youth and its Music’, in Jonathon S. Epstein (ed.), Adolescents and Their Music: If It’s Too Loud, You’re Too Old (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1994).

174


—, ‘Alternative Youth: The Ironies of Recapturing Youth Culture’, Young, 3/1 (1995): 61–71. —, ‘Youth’, in Bruce Horner and Thomas Swiss (eds), Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). —, Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture, revised edn (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2000). Weisethaunet, Hans and Ulf Lindberg, ‘Authenticity Revisited: The Rock Critic and the Changing Real’, Popular Music and Society, 33/4 (2010): 465–85. Wells, Steven, ‘Review of “Hands All Over”’, New Musical Express, 28 April 1990a. —, ‘Interview with Mudhoney’, New Musical Express, 7 July 1990b. —, ‘Mudhoney and Tad Live’, New Musical Express, 7 July 1990c. —, ‘Espresso Way to Your Skull’, New Musical Express, 18 July 1992. Wells, Steven and Keith Cameron, ‘Grunge Hell’, New Musical Express, 4 January 1992. Whiteley, Sheila, Women and Popular Music: Sexuality, Identity and Subjectivity (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). Wicke, Peter, Rock Music: Culture, Aesthetics and Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Williams, Simon, ‘Nirvana Live Review’, New Musical Express, 16 November 1991. —, ‘Vg Tips – Interview with Velocity Girl’, New Musical Express, 23 January 1993a. —, ‘Treats of San Francisco’, New Musical Express, 27 February 1993b. Wooldridge, Simon, ‘Remembering Kurt’, Rolling Stone, May 2004. Wyn, Johanna and Dan Woodman, ‘Generation, Youth and Social Change in Australia’, Journal of Youth Studies, 9/5 (2006): 495–514. Zerubavel, Eviatar, Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Films About a Son, directed by A.J. Schnack (Panda Filmes, 2006). ‘Classic Albums: Nirvana – Nevermind’, directed by Bob Smeaton (Isis Productions, 2005). Hype!: The Northwest Music Explosion, directed by Doug Pray (Republic Pictures, 1996). Juno, directed by Jason Reitman (Mandate Pictures, 2007). Kurt and Courtney, directed by Nick Broomfield (Fox, 1998). Last Days, directed by Gus Van Sant (HBO Films, 2005). Reality Bites, directed by Ben Stiller (Jersey Films, 1994). Singles, directed by Cameron Crowe (Atkinson/Knickerbocker Productions, 1992). The Brady Bunch, directed by Betty Thomas (Paramount Pictures, 1995).

Index

7 Year Bitch 54 Aberdeen 85, 98, 101–103 active interview 11 Adorno, Theodor 26, 91 Afghan Whigs 53 agency 22, 30, 36, 41, 66, 153 Albini, Steve 44 Alice In Chains 2, 53, 73–4, 99, 115 ‘alternative’ 2, 9, 16–20, 26–8, 45, 73, 81–2, 99, 108, 126, 140 Amos, Tori 121 Anthrax 17 Arm, Mark 16 authenticity 5, 15, 21–6, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 45–6, 49, 51, 53–6, 77, 80, 83, 92, 107, 124 Cobain and 22, 24, 94–5 inauthenticity 23, 54, 141 Babes In Toyland 50, 52, 54, 109–116, 127–128 Baby Boomers, see generations Beat Happening 110 Beatles, The 73, 101 Beck 136 Becker, Howard 99 ‘Been A Son’ 108 Bikini Kill 110, 112 Birmingham School 7 Black Flag 18 Bleach 16 Blind Melon 20 Bon Jovi 17 Bourdieu, Pierre 4–5, 31, 33, 37, 39–46, 48, 52, 65, 71, 74, 79–82, 131, 133, 137, 153 see also capital, field theory, habitus Breeders, The 109 Buckley, Jeff 103

Calamity Jane 111 capital 41 cultural 41, 44, 82, 90, 101, 115 economic 46 symbolic 43–4, 46, 51, 83 capitalism 15, 23–4, 28–30, 64, 83, 134, 151 class 24–6, 29, 34, 36, 40–2, 51–3, 63, 65, 79, 92, 118, 131–2, 136–7, 142, 151 Cobain, Frances Bean 109, 116, 118, 124 Cobain, Kurt 6–7, 29, 36, 44, 54, 56, 74–5, 105, 109–10, 116, 125, 139–40, 145, 154 and authenticity 22, 24–6, 29–31 collective memory 24, 32, 34–6, 64, 70, 72, 82–3, 85–7, 96, 132–3, 139, 142, 147, 151, 153 death of 3, 20, 22, 48, 55, 61–3, 66, 122, 137 Kurt Cobain Memorial Project 101–103 lyrics of 9, 19 memory and 85–104, 153 relationship with Courtney Love see Love, Courtney as religious figure 90–93, 95 and sexual equality 108, 127 Come as You Are 102 commemoration 36, 85, 140 in media 88–90, 103 official 86–7 of Kurt Cobain 36, 101–103 commercialization 5, 8, 23, 26, 30–1, 40, 43, 45–6, 72, 80–1, 126, 151, 155 see also fashion Converse 3, 126 Corgan, Billy 54, 114 counter–memory 35 Coupland, Douglas 135, 137

176


Curtis, Ian 92 CZ Records 17 D’Arcy 114 Dead Kennedys 118 Deal, Kim 109 Dean, James 101 decades decade labelling 140–2 1960s 21–2, 28–31, 135, 140–3 1970s 18, 30–1, 54, 72, 89, 111, 135, 140–1 1980s 16–8, 30, 50, 72, 75–6, 80, 89, 99, 110, 117, 135–6, 141–2 1990s 10,16, 20, 57, 108, 126, 136, 149, 154 grunge as marker of 6, 70–2, 85, 131, 140–2, 147 music of 6, 19, 30, 81, 110 Deep Six compilation 17 Des Barres, Pamela 121 Dickless 110 Distillers 73, 127 DIY (do-it-yourself) 18, 75, 110 drugs 51, 69, 78, 117–18, 120, 138 deaths due to 20 heroin 77, 118, 123, 135 marijuana 77 stoners 20, 76, 78 embodiment 33, 57–8, 72, 118, 128–9 Emo 20 emplotment 92 Endino, Jack 50, 90 Erlandson, Eric 110 ethnicity 34, 36, 136 whiteness 25–6, 50, 136, 151 and women 117–18 Experience Music Project 103 Factory Records 136 Faith No More 73–4 fandom 8 fashion 16, 25, 70, 80, 129, 141 grunge style 19, 55–6, 78, 126–8, 140, 149 commercialization of 2, 27, 44

fields/field theory 5,39–52, 54–7, 65, 71–2, 74, 76–83, 133, 137, 153 film clips/video clips 1, 20, 67–8, 76–7, 91, 108, 138 flannelette 2–3, 19, 53, 55–6, 77–8, 116, 127–8 Foo Fighters 100 forgetting see memory Fugazi 18 Geffen/DGC 17, 52–3 gender 4, 11–2, 34–6, 83, 105–29, 132, 136, 151, 155 equality 6, 26–7, 105, 108–109, 114, 125–9, 153 femininity 6, 109, 117–21, 125–9 masculinity 12, 105, 107, 113–14, 119–20, 125–6 media and 107, 111–13 generations 15, 21, 24, 29–30, 44, 52, 65, 92, 113, 131–40, 142–3, 151 Baby Boomers 134–7 cultural dominance of 143 Generation X 6, 9, 24–6, 30, 98, 131–40, 151, 154 Generation Y 134–5 media construction of 134–6 theories of 132–3 genre 16–18, 71 formation 49–55, 74 overlap between genres 111 Gordon, Kim 109, 114 Green River 16–17 Grohl, Dave 100 Guitar One magazine 48, 116 Guns ‘n’ Roses 17, 26, 51, 55, 75, 80 habitus 128–9, 155 and memory 33–4, 58, 72 ‘generational habitus’ 132–3 Halbwachs, Maurice 32–6, 58, 62–5, 78, 144 Hanna, Kathleen 110 Hebdige, Dick 7–8 Hendrix, Jimi 97, 101 Hole 20, 50, 52, 109–19, 124, 127–28, 136, 140 Hutchence, Michael 100 Hype 48

Index identity group 36, 87, 99, 131 individual 3–4, 11, 32, 58, 62, 79, 85, 104, 125, 149–51, 153 national 87, 120 In Utero 43, 54 independent ‘indie’ 40–1, 43–6, 81–2 labels 20–1, 23–4, 54 music 9, 16, 26–7, 40 ‘Invention of tradition’ 35 irony 9, 23, 28–30, 45, 140 Jackson, Michael 17 Jane’s Addiction 2 Jesus Lizard 52 Joplin, Janis 121 Joy Division 2 Juno 149 Kurt and Courtney 48, 120, 122 L7 28, 52, 73, 109–16, 127–8 Led Zeppelin 141 Lennon, John 94, 97 Live Through This 116 Lollapolooza 19 Love, Courtney 3, 51, 112, 116–25, 129 and motherhood 109, 117–18, 121–3 music of 50, 119 relationship with Cobain 88–9, 119–21 response to his death 122 vilification of 6, 54, 94, 105, 107, 115, 117, 121 lyrics, analysis of 9, 140 of grunge bands 19, 28, 75 of hardcore bands 18 of metal bands 17 Madonna 123, 127 mainstream 1, 3, 5, 7–9, 12, 16–7, 20, 25, 27–9, 31, 37, 43, 47, 49–50, 54–6, 78, 80–2, 92, 102, 107–108, 110, 128, 141 Manic Street Preachers 2 Mannheim, Karl 132–3 marginality 8 mass culture 7, 25

177

Melvins 20, 52, 73, 114, 149 memory collective memory 5–7, 19, 24, 31–2, 34–6, 57, 64–7, 69–73, 78, 82–7, 90, 93, 96, 131–3, 139, 142, 147, 151, 153 flashbulb memories 93 forgetting 35, 106, 116, 139, 153 interviewing and 10–1, 15, 58–62 malleability of 35, 58, 61–2 media and 35, 47, 64–9, 74, 78, 82, 85–6, 88–101 and music 59 theories of 32–7, 58, 64–6 metal 16, 19–20, 22, 24–5, 25, 27, 29, 50, 52, 54, 71, 91 genres of 17–8 ‘hair’ metal 41, 49, 51, 72, 75–7, 109, 111, 140–1 thrash metal 17–8, 41 Metallica 13, 51, 76, 140 methodology 9–12 Minor Threat 18 Mojo magazine 48, 116 moral panic 136, 142 Morissette, Alanis 3, 103, 110 Morrison, Jim 100–101 Mother Love Bone 73 Motley Crue 17, 75–6 Mudhoney 2, 16–7, 20, 45, 50, 52, 54, 73, 115–16, 145 myths 41, 61, 88 narratives 7, 10, 21, 30, 39, 100, 106, 125, 128, 139–41, 146, 149 media narratives 48, 89, 92–4, 96–7, 107 memory narratives 5, 11, 32–3, 35-7, 57–64, 67, 76, 153–4 Nevermind 1, 48, 68, 80, 111, 147 commercial success of 17 critical reception 51–3 themes of 19 New Musical Express (NME) 58, 70, 73, 78, 80, 82, 116, 122 construction of grunge in 46–56 position in media 47 reports on Courtney Love 118

178


reports on female musicians 111–12 Nine Inch Nails 121 Nirvana 1, 15–17, 20, 23, 48, 50–5, 60, 67–8, 70, 73, 77–8, 82, 85, 90–1, 93–100, 102–103, 111, 115–16, 118, 124, 127, 146, 148, 153 and class 25–6 and generation X 136, 138, 140–1 and politics 28 and symbolic capital 42–5 nostalgia 141, 147, 149–50 Novoselic, Krist 28, 98, 100, 102 NVivo 11 offical commemoration see commemoration Offspring 136 Ono, Yoko 116–17 Pavement 52 Pavitt, Bruce 16, 46 Pearl Jam 2, 16–17, 19–20, 26, 28, 45, 54, 73, 97, 115–16, 138 denial of grunge label 53, 74 Pfaff, Kirsten 20 Pixies, The 2, 51, 73–4, 99, 109 politics 3, 29, 52, 107, 135 of grunge 19, 26–8, 31, 108, 137 of punk see punk Poneman, Jonathan 16, 46 pop 21–3, 28, 50, 52, 69, 71, 76, 81, 101, 107, 124, 141, 145 Popular Memory Group 35–6 power 4–6. 15, 17, 19, 27, 31–5, 37, 39–44, 51, 56–7, 78–83, 99, 101, 104, 106, 131, 133, 139, 143–4, 151, 153–5 Presley, Elvis 101 Pretty on the Inside 51, 116 Primus 73–4 Princess Diana 94, 117, 120 Punk 13, 16–7, 20, 41, 51, 54, 71–2, 74, 77, 107, 110, 116, 124, 140, 148 academic accounts of 21–2, 26–31, 136–7 hardcore punk 18, 29, 50 politics and 3, 5, 19, 27–9, 155

Q magazine 48 qualitative data 10–11, 48 Radio 1, 26, 44, 47, 56, 63, 66, 68, 79, 114, 127, 140 Triple J 61, 66, 68, 103 Rage Against The Machine 150 Reality Bites 48 Record Collector magazine 48 record stores 1, 68 Red Hot Chili Peppers 73 religion 34, 36, 87, 136 Kurt Cobain see Kurt Cobain as religious figure resistance 3, 12, 27, 35, 37, 85, 132, 155 Revolver magazine 44, 91 Reznor, Trent 121 Riot Grrrl 27, 54, 105, 108–109, 113, 116, 125, 128 connection to grunge 110–12 Rolling Stone magazine 29, 47–8, 88–90 Rolling Stones 143 Rose, Axl 51 ‘Sappy’ 108 Screaming Trees 73, 115 Seattle 7, 16–17, 22, 29, 41, 47, 50–5, 62, 70, 77, 80–1, 96, 103, 110 Select magazine 122 September 11th 134 Sex Pistols 18, 148 sexuality 108, 111, 116–18, 120–21, 126, 136 Silverchair 70, 73 Simpsons, The 140–41 Singles 2, 48, 56 Siouxsie and the Banshees 2 ‘slackers’ 135, 139 Slayer 17 Smashing Pumpkins 17, 20, 55, 73–4, 114, 116 Smells Like Teen Spirit 1, 51, 59–64, 110, 146, 149, 157 Film clip for 67, 76–7, 138 snowballing 11 social reproduction 32, 131 Something in the Way 19, 96, 103 Sonic Youth 73–4, 99, 109, 114

Index Soundgarden 2, 16–7, 20, 43, 45, 50, 55, 73–5, 108, 115–16, 137, 149 Spice Girls 3, 61, 79, 125, 149 Spin magazine 48, 91, 116 Spungen, Nancy 117 status quo 6, 47, 114, 121, 125, 132, 137, 154–5 Stone Temple Pilots 2, 17, 53–4, 73–4, straight-edge 18 Sub Pop 3, 16–17, 23, 25, 29, 42, 48, 50–3, 60, 90, 110, 116 and symbolic capital 45–6 subculture 7 Sunny Day Real Estate 73 Tad 52, 73 taste 10, 26, 30–1, 34, 37, 39–40, 47, 76, 87, 153 Technology 64, 67 Temple of the Dog 73 Ten 19

179

textual analysis 9 Thayil, Kim 108 Therapy? 52 Uncut Magazine 48, 89–91, 119 Vanity Fair magazine 118–20, 123 Vedder, Eddie 28, 54, 97, 108 Vicious, Sid 140 Walkabouts, The 110 Warners 3 White Zombie 109 Whitesnake 17 Wipers, The 73 Woodstock 134 Youth 6, 13, 19, 24–31, 45, 55, 79, 92, 97, 102, 131–5, 139, 148–51, 154 meaning of 142–44 ‘teenager’ 144–7 Yseult, Sean 109

Grunge: Music and Memory

Music and Memory: An Introduction

Medieval Music and the Art of Memory

Medieval music and the art of memory

Medieval Music and the Art of Memory

Debating the Past: Music, Memory, and Identity in the Andes

Debating the Past: Music, Memory, and Identity in the Andes

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

MEMORY

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Grunge: Music and Memory

Music and Memory: An Introduction

Medieval Music and the Art of Memory

Medieval music and the art of memory

Medieval Music and the Art of Memory

Debating the Past: Music, Memory, and Identity in the Andes

Debating the Past: Music, Memory, and Identity in the Andes

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

MEMORY

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Memory

Recommend Documents