An open letter to VH1/MTV/music conglomerates

(c) Laura Craig Mason 2003

Dear Peddlers of Mediocrity,

Nirvana did not re-invent music, speak for a whole generation, or 'take the world by storm' in a single moment. Nor did they manage to sell an album with out any promotion at all, be the first to meld pop and punk or invent the wheel.

The martyrdom of artists like Kurt Cobain and John Lennon is a direct result of a bland music industry latching itself onto anything breaching different for the sake of 'seeming edgy.' Not that these men did not have their talents. In my teen years I clutched tightly to my 'Nevermind' and 'Imagine' CDs believing them to be the answer to all my angst and confusion. When Kurt Cobain died, I cried, put on my dirty nirvana shirt (bought in the mall with babysitting money) and watched loops of 'unplugged' with my mom.

As a kid bred in the suburbs that cut her teeth on her Mom's Fleetwood Mac tapes, and her brother's Ratt records anything past Billy Joel seemed revolutionary. I grew up in a house with little money and less of a chance to buy music, and more of an opportunity to get used books. I was fairly educated as far as literature went, but music wise I consumed whatever MTV and Rolling Stone told me to. So ya, when Nirvana came out over the airwaves (a year after their 2nd album's release) I thought them new, fresh, and completely revolutionary. After all, besides midnight airings who had heard of 'The Pixies' or 'Dinosaur Jr.' in my suburban working class neighborhood?

And yet, the success of Nirvana did not take the world by storm. I was still teased for liking bands deemed too weird by the kids who listened to the 'alternative rock' station for our town. And when Mr. Cobain did expire, there were more than a couple kind kids who told a couple of gruesome jokes starring Kurt. It has only been MTV's lack of a serious video rotation (what do they show a total of 20 different videos now?) that has kept Nirvana fresh in the minds of that 20-30 year old demographic.

It's sad that a final act of depression and drug addiction is what it takes for the DJ's of the world to hang on to something of merit. It's even sadder that 'music television' and radio stations that receive untold amounts of promos won't take a risk and play more things of merit created by still living artists. Instead they lean back on the payola, and the bland almost inoffensive music (not in lyrics, or guitar stylings, only in their sheer lack of imagination) and continue to fool the masses that music really can be summed up in 10 year spans and easy genres. 'I am a DJ, I am what I play' indeed.