The Nineties: A Book

by Chuck Klosterman

The trajectory of twentieth-century rock was a continual progression away from simplicity. It was pioneered in the 1950s as unruly, unserious entertainment for teenagers. It matured and peaked in the 1960s, mirroring both the rise of the counterculture and the social maturation of its audience. During the seventies, rock became a big-money business and spawned the identifiable caricature of the Rock Star; in the eighties, that business model was incorporated and the caricature became perfunctory. Throughout the form’s existence, there were always truculent artists who positioned themselves against whatever was considered most obviously popular (Lou Reed thought the Beatles were “garbage,” the Clash said Led Zeppelin made them want to puke, etc.). Nirvana adopted and internalized that perspective. They believed (or at least expressed the belief) that the hunger for mass fame—and particularly what an artist was required to do in order to satiate that hunger—was moronic and humiliating. Yet circumstance forced them to bemoan this experience at the same time they experienced it.