What Kurt Cobain Has to Teach Artists with Day Jobs

So, Wikipedia says Kurt Cobain is a “spokesman of Generation X and is considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of alternative rock.” Regardless, though, I was never a fan. I do think he was handsome in an iconic way, with his greasy hair and his flannels — if you look up “rockstar, 1991” in your dictionary, you ought to see a picture of him. But the music holds no special nostalgia for me — a Nirvana song came on the radio while I was preparing some of the art for this post tonight and I didn’t even recognize it, and even though it was pointed out to me, I can’t remember, now, an hour later, which song it was. Maybe that’s the dementia, I don’t know, but if they play Cobain for me in the nursing home, I won’t get up and mosh.

But I do think his career is a dazzling illustration of just how little time and effort you can expend on an artistic practice and still achieve a lasting legacy and impact, which is a lesson we all need these days, when we’re working until we’re ragged, hustling hard for our victuals and our health care and our student loan debts, and so deeply, desperately tired. When the length of the tunnel ahead of you is less than that behind, and you’re hurtling forward at a speed that tells you the passage is straight down into the center of the earth, let the Godfather of Grunge comfort you in his punk rock rage.

If Cobain could do it, anyone could.

Kurt Cobain got a guitar from his uncle for his birthday in 1981, when he was 14 years old. Before that, he’d enjoyed noodling around on the family piano, singing and making up his own songs. He was into Arlo Guthrie and very into the Beatles as a little kid, which is adorable. But 1981 is when he really started to learn to be a musician, by learning to play all the songs that literally every boy you ever dated in the 1980s, if you dated boys in the 1980s, was also learning. (Yes, he taught himself “Stairway to Heaven.” Yes, I’m linking; this song is part of your cultural legacy whether you like it or not.)

High school was not awesome for our grunge hero; he dropped out in his senior year, moved out, and liked to tell stories about having lived literally under a bridge like a troll. (His friends at that time do not corroborate this delightful punk rock fable, which is also marvelous.) In 1985, when he was 18, with no prospects, he formed a “joke band” called Fecal Matter, which I feel like tells you everything you need to know about them.

The recorded one demo (Illiteracy Will Prevail) with 17 tracks, not all of which are actually songs. It’s still unreleased, which probably tells you everything you needed to know about Fecal Matter if the name didn’t convince you. They played about two gigs and had disbanded by 1986.

And then, in 1987 or 1988, he formed Nirvana. Nirvana released three albums between 1988 and 1993. Versions vary, but the albums have no more than 13 tracks each. Thirty-nine songs in 5-7 years is essentially Kurt Cobain’s entire oeuvre, but that was all it took to have Rolling Stone, MTV, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame classify him as one of the greatest rock musicians of all time.

I’m cynical enough to believe that those kinds of accolades are almost never truly deserved. I’ve seen enough of the world to know that for every brilliant musician who achieves fame and iconic status, there had to be a hundred more burning just as brightly who never got the chance, probably mostly people who were marginalized in a way that a spectacularly handsome, young, white, straight, cis man would never be. I don’t pretend to understand what it was about this particular inexperienced and not-especially-talented young troubled kid from Seattle that made him an international icon for my entire generation. Like I said, I was never a fan.

But I can still take the note: For an artist with a day job, with struggles, Cobain provides a useful template:

1. Spend four years learning your craft. I’ve blogged here before about putting yourself into Metaphorical Arts High School. There’s a magic to the number 4. Four years is enough to learn an artistic practice, to take in its conventions, to give yourself a foundation as a student and a beginner.

2. Spend one or two years making terrible art. Have a vision, but don’t care about it too much or get too precious about it. Learn to collaborate. Put out an album or a gallery show or a book. Suck as hard as you possibly can. Make work so bad that when you are an angelic, heroic, dead, international rock icon no label still even tries to cash in on it. Crashing out is how you get your wings.

3. Then, make 6 songs (paintings, chapters, poems, stories, scenes) a year for 6 years. One every other month. Slow and steady, but make them what you truly want them to be. Put your heart into them. Promote them, spend a little money on them, nourish them, let them have the very best of you. If they’re successful — in whatever way you define that — well, fantastic! If not:

4. Rest easy, knowing if you never do it again, you’ve still already left a wonderful legacy. Three albums is enough to be a legacy. Don’t make productivity your God. Enjoy the art at least as much as you expel the art. Leave something cool for your great-grandchildren.

5. P.S., don’t try heroin. That stuff will fuck you up. Living fast and dying young isn’t as cool as it used to be. Dying of fame is counterproductive. One of the best things Gen Z has done for us is replace sex, drugs, and rock and roll with boba tea and therapy. Embrace that generational change.

What do you think? Does Kurt Cobain have anything to teach you? Does your generation have an icon with a message you’re taking in? Tell us in the comments, and as always, if you like the post, share it and let errybody know.