Oh yeah. '94/'95 was a seminal period in my life, when I pretty much blew it all up in May of '94 and spent the next year in either jail or recovery facility. And the soundtrack of the period, etched indellibly in my mind, is essentially Soundgarden and Counting Crows. I remember sitting on the county sheriff bus in shackles while the radio played Spoonman. I remember the struggle to get into a recovery house, that whole process is contained in Black Hold Sun. Later, Blow Up the Outside World and Pretty Noose were ubiquitous - and still in regular rotation on my GMusic playlists. That voice and those songs were something very special, truly a moment in time, and I'm sorry that he is gone. It was Kurt, Eddie and Chris, and now it's just Eddie, and the world has so much less hope and beauty than it did just 20 years ago...
There's something about that grunge sound that married rock music and tragedy in a way that lifted it to a different kind of art. I don't know. It made something more poetic and touching than throw-away pop or hair-metal. It reminds me of Romantic poetry in a way (the Lit major, me). Byron, Shelley, Keats, like stars that snuffed it too early. (Wonder if my opinion in the nursing home will be that Vedder is Wordsworth.) It bothers me that I'm at the "today's music ain't got the same soul" age. I really thought I'd be in my sixties before I'd be telling boy bands to get off my lawn.
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Oh yeah. '94/'95 was a seminal period in my life, when I pretty much blew it all up in May of '94 and spent the next year in either jail or recovery facility. And the soundtrack of the period, etched indellibly in my mind, is essentially Soundgarden and Counting Crows. I remember sitting on the county sheriff bus in shackles while the radio played Spoonman. I remember the struggle to get into a recovery house, that whole process is contained in Black Hold Sun. Later, Blow Up the Outside World and Pretty Noose were ubiquitous - and still in regular rotation on my GMusic playlists. That voice and those songs were something very special, truly a moment in time, and I'm sorry that he is gone. It was Kurt, Eddie and Chris, and now it's just Eddie, and the world has so much less hope and beauty than it did just 20 years ago...
There's something about that grunge sound that married rock music and tragedy in a way that lifted it to a different kind of art. I don't know. It made something more poetic and touching than throw-away pop or hair-metal. It reminds me of Romantic poetry in a way (the Lit major, me). Byron, Shelley, Keats, like stars that snuffed it too early. (Wonder if my opinion in the nursing home will be that Vedder is Wordsworth.) It bothers me that I'm at the "today's music ain't got the same soul" age. I really thought I'd be in my sixties before I'd be telling boy bands to get off my lawn.
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