Obsessively blogging about pop music, pop videos, pop stars, and pop culture from inside the MTV headquarters in Times Square. We also have a slight Jonas Brothers problem. And a little fixation with Tokio Hotel.
Is it possible that, despite what history and everyday logic would tell you, that Soul Asylum invented the Seattle sound... in Minneapolis? Dave Pirner and co started seasoning Neil Young loner folk with country twang and punk aggression back in 1981, the same year Kurt Cobain was picking out Cars covers on his first guitar at 14.
The sound they came up with was definitely grunge. Whether or not Soul Asylum was the first band to play it doesn't really matter. It's usually impossible to attribute the origins of musical styles to single artists, anyway.
But the fact that Soul Asylum didn't come out of the '90s as notorious as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins did, is a little bit surprising -- I mean come on. Look at Dave Pirner! He was like Meg Ryan with dreadlocks! And that scratchy crybaby voice... Man. Sweetest dude ever. No wonder Winona Ryder was so wild for him. Now you can't even find a decent photo of him on the internet. WEIRD.
In the Unplugged performance below, Soul Asylum go easy on their classic Grave Dancers Union opener, "Somebody To Shove," fleshing it out with an orchestra. Watch the video, and tell me that song's not just as good as "Bullet With Butterfly Wings."
When Kurt Cobain shot himself, it hurt way worse than the botched tonsilectomy I'd had a few weeks before. As it was, I was laid up on the couch with a stack of plastic Blockbuster shells -- Singles, Reality Bites, Jurassic Park -- and endless orange sherbet. So, my throat was already shot and my head gone on painkillers when Kurt Loder broke my heart and everybody else's April 8, 1994, cutting into whatever MTV programming (music videos!) was underway, to announce that our scruffy hero was dead. What were you doing? Do you remember? (Were you born?)
I don't remember if I was a huge Nirvana fan before all that. I do remember reading Jurassic Park along to the tape of Nevermind that my dad picked up at a truck stop on the long drive from Wisconsin to visit my grandparents in New York. I still think of dinosaurs when I hear "In Bloom." I had Nevermind and Bleach. I thought "Pennyroyal Tea" was the coolest song I'd ever heard.
But before that news broke and the nationwide Nirvana marathon began, Nirvana was just songs. Not to get all Wonder Years on you, but on the day Kurt died and in the weeks following, those songs took on this new meaning, like they were proof that our world was different beyond recognition from the one our parents grew up in.
Of course, that's a little dramatic and not exactly true. But if you didn't live it up close, you might not realize what a moment in history it was, when mainstream fame got so ugly that one of its most gifted recipients chose death, just to get away from it.
Kurt Cobain made an indelible mark on pop culture when he made that terrible and sad mistake. He also added whispery new meanings to his grungy poems, turning them all into go-nowhere clues about the unraveling of a brilliant mind. Flip through his life in photos and watch this video on his musical significance, before watching Nirvana's greatest videos, embedded below.
+ Amy Winehouse exposes her husband's ding dong, gives whole new meaning to the term "overshare." (The Sun - UK)
+ Avril Lavigne releases her new clothing line. You'll know it's hers because of its unique punk rebelliousness! And because it has her face plastered all over it. (ONTD)
+ Amy Winehouse warned by court officials to stop flirting with her hubby, Blake Fielder-Civil. Yes, seriously. (Hollywood Rag)
+ Kurt Cobain's ashes, which Courtney Love allegedly kept in a pink teddybear-shaped bag (must... resist... "Heart Shaped Box" joke... so inappropriate but... so... hard...), have gone missing. (Current)
+ Watch promo clips of Pete Wentz's upcoming new show, F N MTV, where the Fall Out Boy talks music, conducts hard-hitting interviews...and, um, chats with Spencer from The Hills. (MTV)
+ Meanwhile, John Mayer gets ticketed for driving without front or rear license plates. Which is typically frowned upon by the LAPD. (TMZ)
+ As anyone who watched the American Idol finale already knows, the episode did not, in any way, feature Michael Jackson. Reportedly, the King of Pop was originally slated to perform but then buckled under the pressure of doing a live, nationally-televised comeback. (Stuff)
Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters frontman, (FYI -- they happen to be this week's Artist Of The Week and happen to effin' rule) is outspoken about a lot of things, but the one topic you don't often hear him talk about is Kurt Cobain's death. But he recently sat down with TheGuardian in a London hotel to discuss the stigma of Nirvana, Kurt's death (albeit just a little) and its effect on the Foo Fighters, those Courtney Love rumors, breaking up and reuniting with Pat Smear and what it's like these days to live a quieter life as father of daughter Violet Maye.
Read the Guardian article, and check out this Foo Fighters performance of their new single, "The Pretender," with Pat Smear on guitar, at the VMAs. And watch the rest of their amazing VMA Fantasy Suite performances with Cee-Lo Green and Serj Tankian of System Of A Down.
He's been gone over a decade, but Kurt Cobain's still very much on the cultural radar. Most recently, GQ magazine named him one of their 50 Most Stylish Men. It's not often you see Kurt and his "mold-colored cardigan and hair he’d dyed the night before with strawberry Kool-Aid" on the same lists as Arnold Palmer, Woody Allen and George Clooney. Anyway, we're glad to see he's still topping "Best" lists, but we'll always remember him and his ratty Mr. Rogers sweater behind a guitar, like in Nirvana's infamous "Unplugged" performance. Watch "The Man Who Sold the World" live:
Is it possible that, despite what history and everyday logic would tell you, that Soul Asylum invented the Seattle sound... in Minneapolis? Dave Pirner and co started seasoning Neil Young loner folk with country twang and punk aggression back in 1981, the same year Kurt Cobain was picking out Cars covers on his first guitar at 14.
When 
