In Utero

 

In 1994, I wore my In Utero shirt to college. I’d walk down the hall, and people would look at the shirt. I still remember a professor looking at it, not apparently hip to the scene. She asked, “Bret, is there something you’re trying to tell us?”

I had no idea what I was trying to say. Kurt Cobain had just shot his head off with a shotgun. Before that life-changing event, I hadn’t been the biggest fan of Nirvana, but I did recognize the immediate impact “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had on music, or at least on MTV.

Nirvana had seemingly killed and buried Hair Metal, and they had done it single-handedly. What exactly was this “Alternative” sound? It was weird, because soon it felt like everything was “alternative,” and that didn’t make any sense. Once everything is the same, how can it be anything but standard, normal?

Nirvana was okay, but at least at the time I was wearing the merch, I was much more into Offspring and Green Day and Tool. And that’s about as far as I went into the “alternative” scene. I liked alternative for its darker blend of hard rock and punk. I didn’t necessarily like it better than the Hair Metal I had spent the past 6 years absorbing, but I thought I understood that everything changes, and if the Hair Metal period was over, so be it.

It took a few more years, but sometime in 1997, I took all my Hair Metal CDs to work and gave them away. All of them: Winger, Warrant, Britney Fox, Europe, Stryper. I kept the KISS CDs, as I thought they transcended Hair Metal and would somehow be proven to stand the test of time. But my co-workers eagerly snatched up everything else I had to give them. My CDs were gone in seconds.

Was a making a horrible mistake? I still loved Hair Metal bands, but I thought the best way to move on was to put them all behind me. Nirvana had killed Hair Metal, and my act of eliminating the physical media content from my life was my acknowledgement that I wanted to move on. I wasn’t locked into the 80s. I would evolve.

I think the regret was instantaneous. Why couldn’t I like what I liked? Why did I decide to follow the trends. Was that who I was now? A follower? Eventually, I would buy back all of the CDs I had given away. Eventually, I realized that “Hair Metal” wasn’t dead. All the 80s bands that disbanded or who went on hiatus during the post-Nirvana 90s realized that there was still a place for that classic pop-Hard Rock signature sound. Other bands, like Iron Maiden, never fully disbanded, but the effect of Nirvana certainly took a decade to recover from.

Now that it’s 2025, and we can utilize a bit of historical perspective, who won the battle of the bands? I’m sure people still listen to “alternative 90s” artists and bands, but whether they do or don’t, it’s not my concern. I mean, if you still like Nirvana, good for you. I’m happy liking who I like, and while Nirvana hit the music scene like a hurricane, people always find a way to survive and rebuild, and that’s what my favorite 80s bands did, many of whom, in some form or fashion, are still touring today – some even take the time to release new material in an age when touring is what makes them their money, not recording.

Having just finished fellow Mattoonite Will Leitch’s Life of a Loser (2004), I wanted to go back and check out a “lost” Nirvana song that he mentioned – one I don’t recall ever listening to. It’s called “You Know You’re Right” and was released in 2002. My first reaction: Yep, that’s got the classic Nirvana sound, and I still like Nirvana. But it’s not the music that I want to listen to daily.

Kurt Cobain had something special, no doubt. It’s a tragedy he wasn’t able to control the demon inside.

Here’s hoping you find your nirvana.