OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Dig around in the context and biography behind a famously ambiguous and opaque song until you can find a vague snippet to support a tenuous reading in the service of half-assed fashionable politics, avoid looking at the content of the work itself closely enough that it might challenge your fantasy, profit (not really).

6.
Nirvana: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991)
As much as anything, it was a breakup song. “Who will be the king and queen of the outcasted teens?” Kurt Cobain asked in a discarded lyric from an early draft of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” One of his biographers is pretty sure he was talking about Tobi Vail, the “over-bored” and “self-assured” riot grrrl vanguardist. The two of them had had a brief romance, which she ended, and Cobain responded in the manner of so many thwarted, sensitive young men, turning rejection into a synecdoche for the oppressions of life writ large. He filled up his journal with violent fantasies and weird drawings. His friends started to worry. And somewhere in this burst of energy, Cobain wrote the perfect pop song.

A denial, a denial, a denial. It hangs over “Teen Spirit” like bad weather. Call it the teenage boy’s blues—a young dude’s awakening to the fact that he is caught in the crosswinds of, like, the whole system, man, that panders to him, that fires his imagination, and then constrains him, tells him to chill. Very often it’s sex being denied. Sometimes it’s a car, which is just sex at one remove. Maybe it’s money or a fix. Whatever their subject, the teenage boy’s blues have been the very stuff of pop music since around the time Chuck Berry went motorvatin’ after that Coupe DeVille. The result has been a great deal of regrettable pop songs, but on occasion there have been transcendent exceptions, like the lead single off of Nirvana’s Nevermind. Above all it rips, even still, from that first Gap Band flam to the last, exhausted denial. It’s got a screamy part and a soft part, and right at the point where you expect the song to fuzz out and go totally to shit, there’s a crisp guitar solo that restates the vocal melody from the verse, almost as if Cobain were satirizing himself and having a damn good time of it.

Well, he probably was, right? Self-doubt is everything in “Teen Spirit.” The song famously stands outside itself, mocking its own postures, hating its own apathy and irresolution, anthemic in its insistence on being unanthemic: “Oh well, whatever, never mind.” I remember the girls in middle school who had Cobain’s photo taped up in their lockers and thinking how funny it was that they were treating this king of the outcasts like something they'd clipped out of Tiger Beat. But of course they were the ones who were actually seeing Cobain clearly—that underneath all the marketing and self-mythology and fraying cardigans there was a true pop idol, beautiful, androgynous, too wounded to be threatening, a troubadour of their uncertainty. He sang as if he were owed something. That’s the teenage boy’s blues. In the next breath he wondered if he was worthy of any of it. That’s a blues for everyone else. –Tommy Craggs

I remember the girls in middle school who had Cobain’s photo taped up in their lockers and thinking how funny it was that they were treating this king of the outcasts like something they'd clipped out of Tiger Beat. But of course they were the ones who were actually seeing Cobain clearly—that underneath all the marketing and self-mythology and fraying cardigans there was a true pop idol, beautiful, androgynous, too wounded to be threatening, a troubadour of their uncertainty.

He was a good-looking rock star, it's not that complicated...

yeah that is awful wtf

Sometimes I see a vague resemblance between Kurt and a 1970ish James Taylor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0FJUVo-BaM

Must be the sweater

kurt was way hotter imo

that's bcz he was beautiful, androgynous, too wounded to be threatening, a troubadour of our uncertainty

not even joking

I swear, something about this song produces the absolute direst music writing

well, a key line is "here we are, entertain us"

‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is a Men’s Rights anthem, and that’s okay

treasure trove of lol terrible writing in here (alongside some not-terrible writing)

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/musicians-on-their-favorite-albums-of-the-90s/

Dawn Richard on Throwing Copper: "This album had a lot of layers for me. It was the lyrical journey that I found myself loving the most."

The 90s revisiting/revival has produced a lot of shocking takes but "I'm into Live for the lyrics" is one that I may never recover from

I'm not in the least surprised she'd like it.

harsh - i thought you liked her!

I do. Many artists like shitty music and write better music based on their affection for the shitty music.

It's hard to imagine Dawn Richard's agon with Ed Kowalczyk, it's true.

Jewel's entry is somehow far more embarrassing. Almost poll-worthy

xp I don't see the revisiting/revival in that quote. the album came out when she was 10.

not the quote itself but the piece that produced it, which is part of pforks current big 90s deep dive feature

lol that jewell blurb is gold

truly a masterclass in making everything about Jewel

Mike Kinsella (American Football)

Back in the ’90s, hamburgers sucked, moms and dads weren’t ironic, and “’90s albums” were just called “albums.” The one album that probably influenced me the most is Loveless by My Bloody Valentine.

Hamburgers sucked(?) What does that mean

it means he thought they were bad not good

maybe he meant "Hamburglar sucked"

I really like what the American Football guy wrote. also thing the Slowdive guy wrote some good stuff about Cranes.

thing = think

How have hamburgers changed

Is it a Mad Cow joke?

(I also don’t get the “moms and dads” thing)

We didn't have fast casual burger joints in the 90s

the moms and dads thing I think is in line with how every commercial and kids show is made by aging hipsters these days

Trying to parse the burgers thing, since I'm procrastinating anyway: maybe he's talking about the rise of places like Five Guys and In & Out Burger and other relatively upscale (ie more expensive) franchises as alternatives to McDonalds and Burger King, but that's just a wild guess, I'm a vegetarian, I dunno

i do not think that sentence is worth this level of analysis

Let's not get into 90s hot dogs

“’90s albums” were just called “CDs” would have been a better joke, IMO

Cobain responded in the manner of so many thwarted, sensitive young men

biting my tongue REAL FUCKING HARD here

iykyk

The Amps’ Pacer (1995)
Excellent noisy pop album, every song’s a hit! The production works really well with the style of songwriting. I also love the 33 minute and 15 second run time.

girl talk otm

ok, i'll say it. if you're a guy and you, in your heart, think of yourself as a "thwarted, sensitive young man" with a "teenage boy's blues", "beautiful, androgynous, too wounded to be threatening", you should consider whether you might possibly benefit from a blue pill made by Teva Pharmaceuticals with a lowercase "b" on the side.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the dude who wore dresses and envied the seahorse would have identified as enby, but kudos to some Mother Jones dork for retconning him as a toxic privileged incel

i'd like give dawn richard credit for picking the only live album that's listenable from front-to-back and also a goofily earnest album that no critic (that i've seen) has attempted to rehabilitate as "cool"

"I can't decide if Kurt Cobain is a sensitive pangender icon of body dysmorphia or an entitled white supremacist school-shooter-in-training. But one thing is for certain: If he were alive his Twitter avatar would be an anime"

you need to seek intensive therapy urgently

"You can't nitpick in here, this is the worst piece of music writing thread"

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the dude who wore dresses and envied the seahorse would have identified as enby, but kudos to some Mother Jones dork for retconning him as a toxic privileged incel

― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten)

OK. I'll say it. This is a _very controversial topic_ in transfem communities. A lot of people will tell you that saying that anybody else - Elagabalus, Lou Alcott, whoever - was trans violates the trans Prime Directive of self-determination. I don't believe that principle applies to people who (a) are dead and (b) never had a genuine _opportunity_ to self-determine. At the risk of bringing a whole dumptruck load of shit down on me: Kurt Cobain was a trans woman. Since this is the "worst music writing" thread, I can't think of a better place to post this piece I spent some time working on in August:

To put it in more straightforward terms, what other trans people see as violating self-determination, I see as challenging a form of queer erasure that is not just ongoing, but has significant historical precedent. Gender affirming treatment is the _only_ treatment shown to be effective for gender dysphoria. Kurt Cobain suffered under the same conditions I suffered under - enforced ignorance. He did not have access to the _knowledge_ we do today. He did not have an accurate understanding of gender dysphoria, its symptoms, and how they might have applied to him. Instead, he had access to a false narrative that explicitly told him that he was _not_ trans. In retrospect, Cobain's behavior is _clearly and unambiguously_ indicative of severe gender dysphoria. People who suffer from untreated gender dysphoria are profoundly miserable. Lacking any real option to alleviate their suffering, they often kill themselves.

Recognizing and acknowledging Kurt Cobain as a trans woman, posthumously, is _extremely_ important to me. Most people still have a lot of misunderstandings about transgender people, about who we are, how many of us there are, what it _looks_ like to transgender. Cobain isn't a _typical_ example of what it looked like to be trans in 1994 by any means. He was fucking brilliant. He was the biggest rock star in the world. He was, however, far from alone in two things. First, despite being intelligent, insightful, and deeply engaged with gender issues, he was unable to conceive of himself as being transgender. Second, his unrelieved gender dysphoria was almost certainly a major factor in his suicide.

I believe that people need to _know_ this. I believe that _everybody_ needs to know this. Read the piece, and if you find my argument convincing, tell people.

And if you're not convinced, well, you wouldn't be the first. I have friends who have stopped talking to me because of my insistence on saying that Kurt Cobain was a trans woman. My cis friends, they don't necessarily know why it should _matter_ that much, but it does. If my saying this means that people will pigeonhole me as one of those crazy people who thinks that _everybody_ was trans, well, so be it.

Kate, thank you. I came to this same conclusion independently a few years ago. It just seems so fucking obvious to me, as a non-binary trans woman, that Kurt was trans. I had no idea others thought the same too.

The only person I've ever talked to about this is my partner. I guess I've been afraid of transgressing the acceptable ways of talking about transness. On the one hand, I think it's somewhat disingenuous to retrospectively apply modern labels to people who lived in very different worlds and wouldn't identify that way (for example, labelling Radclyffe Hall a lesbian or trans man, when she would have understood herself as the now outmoded term of 'invert'). Then there's the danger of applying homogenising Western gender labels across the board (e.g. subsuming indigenous identities into inappropriate notions of 'queerness'). But on the other hand... Kurt was fucking trans. No argument.

Sometimes when I'm feeling dysphoric I listen to 'Dumb' and am grateful I have access to information, support, and gender-affirming healthcare. Not every trans woman makes it, as Kurt so sadly demonstrated. I'm so fucking grateful I did.

Yeah, no one can say for sure, but it really does seem incredibly probable. The whole of Cobain would have played out quite differently if we had a better understanding of the language around gender and mental health in the ‘90s

Kate, thank you for the link.

Kate, thank you. I came to this same conclusion independently a few years ago. It just seems so fucking obvious to me, as a non-binary trans woman, that Kurt was trans. I had no idea others thought the same too.

This, right here, is why I finally wound up speaking up, sharing the thing I wrote. I mean, isn't that just the absolute soul of the trans experience, right there? "I thought it was just me". Whatever else happens from here, your post has made me sure that what I said it was worth saying.

I resonate so, so much with the rest of what you wrote. I've had so many feelings like the ones you shared - I've tried to express them, in my own way, in the piece.

Just for the record, I've also definitely had thoughts about myself like the things unperson said about me. (Is saying Kurt Cobain was trans a grotesque offense like the Mormons baptizing Anne Frank was? Personally, I think it's closer to saying that Anne Frank was a lesbian. There's textual evidence for it, evidence that was omitted from the original publication of her diary. I honestly personally think it was a rightful omission, perhaps even a _necessary_ omission, but it's one more example of the special form of _erasure_ queer people suffer.)

I wish it didn't have to be that way. I wish I didn't _have_ to think these things, to anticipate all of the things people I basically respect would say about me, to have to decide something is important enough to lose friends over. But this, too, is what it's like to be trans, isn't it? It belongs to the trans tradition of Porpentine, of Isabel Fall, of so many other people I could name.

I do encourage people to read (and share!) the piece I wrote and linked to. It's a complicated subject and I've tried to do it justice.

Hold on I'm gonna need a new link for that post, gimme a bit

Thanks for sharing that link Kate - it very much absolutely does not belong in a 'worst piece of music writing ever' thread (ie, to over-explain, it's a very fucking good piece of writing about music).

Thanks for sharing that link Kate - it very much absolutely does not belong in a 'worst piece of music writing ever' thread (ie, to over-explain, it's a very fucking good piece of writing about music).

― Shard-borne Beatles with their drowsy hums (Chinaski)

Apologies for the self-deprecation. It's a bad habit of mine I'm trying to wean myself from.

Kate, thank you for the link.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

Thank you for listening, Alfred.

Yeah, no one can say for sure, but it really does seem incredibly probable. The whole of Cobain would have played out quite differently if we had a better understanding of the language around gender and mental health in the ‘90s

― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten)

Right. It's the hypocrisy of it, seeing Tommy Craggs write the sort of horseshit he wrote about Cobain in Pitchfork, writing about him as a "sensitive young man" who had "violent fantasies". Did I _know_ Kurt Cobain? No. Do I understand his _soul_? Not particularly. Is there a certain _context_ to his life, work, and death that most people are _not fucking considering_? Absolutely, and I _will_ speak to that context.

Yes, excellent piece, Kate. fwiw, I'm convinced. I'm a cis man and predictably the thought had never occurred to me, but all the details you mentioned were things that were super striking at the time. Back then I mostly mentally filed them under "androgynous" or "feminist" but in retrospect, being trans basically just makes more sense.

One minor question: I've never seen agnotology defined that way—is that derived from a specific source? I've only encountered it as the study of deliberate attempts to keep people uninformed (e.g., the tobacco industry & cancer; oil companies & climate change), mostly in social studies of science contexts. AFAICT, it's not technically a "real" word anyway—i.e., not in the dictionary—so I'm curious about your usage (I like the word a lot).

One minor question: I've never seen agnotology defined that way—is that derived from a specific source? I've only encountered it as the study of deliberate attempts to keep people uninformed (e.g., the tobacco industry & cancer; oil companies & climate change), mostly in social studies of science contexts. AFAICT, it's not technically a "real" word anyway—i.e., not in the dictionary—so I'm curious about your usage (I like the word a lot).

― rob

Nah I just picked it up somewhere and in the best tradition of language defined it to mean what I wanted it to mean haha