I was just walking down the street and saw three high school girls around the age of fifteen (Oh, Being and Distance). One of them was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. Nirvana? Nirvana became popular in 1991 with that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” song before any of these girls were even born. Nirvana, like the Backstreet Boys or other record company designed musical acts, were made popular by the mass media and not by any innate musical abilities. I remember very well back when MTV incessantly played the unintelligble “Teen Spirit” song over and over and over again until finally everyone was buying Nirvana albums.
Of course, Nirvana fans can argue all they want with me, but if you stop and really listen, Nirvana’s music stands for nothing. Even if you could argue that it is nihilistic, its nihilism is also devoid of nihilistic content.
But what is so great about this girl with her t-shirt is that she just reinforces the mass media (especially MTV’s) ability to create mainstream pop stars, in the words of Air Supply, “out of nothing at all”. Add that to an untimely death of the lead singer and you have t-shirts sales to teenie boppers for the next 20 years.
Thanks Weird Al for the parody!!
Grave Error 