DEVELOPING Latest updates on the major wildfires burning in Canada
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Thirty years from his death on April 5 1994, the impact of Kurt Cobain and his band, Nirvana, and their values, still resonates in today’s culture and music.
Nirvana were everywhere at the start of the 1990s, much like Taylor Swift’s omnipresence today. But unlike Swift, who has embraced and mastered the business side of her fame, Cobain was very much the anti-superstar of his time.
While Nirvana were certainly at the very top of the industry, headlining sold-out festivals, Cobain clearly felt uncomfortable being in the corporate music business. He expressed this discomfort in many ways, from merchandise emblazoned with the words “corporate rock whores” to his rows with MTV and journalists. No Swift-style media savvy slickness here.
Since 2010, the person responsible for Cobain’s name and image rights has been his daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Nirvana LLC, meanwhile, is managed by a team including original band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic.
These rights are expertly managed and controlled in a way that benefits from hindsight, showing an understanding of what Nirvana stood for which would scarce have been possible when the band was active, or Cobain still alive.
I’ve often said that Nirvana were the last band to reach the very top on their own terms. It didn’t hurt that they embodied the rags-to-riches type stories the press love so much. Cobain had an unhappy childhood and his art was a solace while he worked shifts as a janitor, relying on his girlfriend to fund his band.
Cobain’s relationship with fellow musician Courtney Love also attracted a lot of snide celebrity journalism attention, as did his struggles with his mental health and addiction. Looking back at some of the supposedly supportive headlines of the time, it is clear how the press perpetuated myths and heaped pressure onto an already vulnerable Cobain. I wonder whether headlines today would be quite so leading, or unthinking.
Today it’s not at all uncommon for artists to cancel or postpone shows and tours in order to protect their own mental health. Fans no longer tend to see this admission as weakness – in many ways it strengthens their devotion to the act.
This can be seen in the reactions to artists like Lewis Capaldi and Sam Fender, who have both postponed live shows to protect their mental wellbeing. In this respect, Cobain’s death by suicide paved the way for the press and fans alike to discuss the mental health of musicians in a more serious way.
It is important to note that his final couple of years saw Cobain battle addiction and depression. Working with him would clearly have been a lot of fun, and yet very difficult. For the five to six years that Nirvana shined, they shined very brightly. And it has to be said, they rocked. Their music was simple, no frills, rock and roll.
That the band didn’t tour with Guns N’ Roses in 1992 may be a blessing for purists. Nirvana’s music was an authentic antidote to the hair metal which had dominated rock music in the few years prior. Cobain took time off with illness while they were supposed to be on that tour. In reality, Courtney Love states in the 2015 documentary Cobain: Montage of Heck, he just wanted to “stay and home and shoot up”. Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett claims that Cobain “just didn’t like what Guns N’ Roses stood for”.
The band’s influence on fashion can also still be felt. Particularly in the proliferation of blokes wearing dresses in heavy rock bands like Idles, as Cobain often did on stage.
The iconic “Flower Sniffin’, Kitty Pettin’, Baby Kissin’, Corporate Rock Whores” band T-shirt, now sells for over £2,000. But in recent years, Nirvana LLC have granted rights to print new merchandise to several affordable brands, in keeping with Cobain’s anti-elitist values. In 2019, they filed a lawsuit against high fashion designer Marc Jacobs, when the brand released a t-shirt with a twist on the iconic X-eyed Nirvana smiley face.
Brand Nirvana today is clear on its values. It is hard not to believe that Cobain would have something to say about today’s identity politics (Cobain once declared he was “gay in spirit and … probably could be bisexual” and called himself a feminist). A man for our times, in his times, so to speak.
As an expert in the music industry (particularly the indie side), it is clear to me that Cobain would remain a marketer’s dream in 2024. Thankfully, the custodians of the Cobain brand continue to advance and protect his thoughts and ideas long after his tragic death at just 27.
The Conversation is an Australia-based non-profit that sources articles from the academic and research community
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during at his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. said Thursday it's ready to sign on to the grocery code of conduct, paving the way for an agreement that's been years in the making.
A medical examiner says a Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge died from ingesting a substance 'with a high capsaicin concentration.'
To give Canadians a break on their summer road trips, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to suspend all gas and diesel taxes from Victoria Day to Labour Day.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is imposing sanctions on Israelis she accuses of 'extremist settler violence' in the West Bank, three months after pledging to do so.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.