Why were so many of the key grunge musicians such self-destructive fuckups?
Casualties: >Kurt Cobain blows his brains out after a prolonged and very public struggle with drug addiction, depression and his own conflicting impulses >after his ex-fiancee's death, Layne Staley locks himself in his apartment and spends almost a decade doing little other than obliterating himself with drugs, finally dying one of the most grotesque deaths in rock music history >Soundgarden implode onstage and disband at their creative and commercial peak, eventually reuniting for a lukewarm comeback record/tour before Cornell kills himself as well >Kristen Pfaff joins Hole and promptly dies of an overdose just as the band is on the verge of blowing up
Near-casualties: >Mark Lanegan eventually goes clean after years of being a Cobain/Staley-tier drug addict and someone who a lot of people weren't expecting to still be alive by 2000 >Patty Schemel becomes a full-blown homeless junkie after leaving Hole in the late 90's, eventually cleaning up and putting her life back together >Mark Arm eventually goes clean, but not before spending several years almost routinely overdosing
By contrast, all of the biggest Britpop artists are still alive and well despite many of them being just as heavily into drugs as the grunge bands.
grunge was about being authentic. also doing heroin
britpop was about being positive and british, dont look back in anger, live forever, morning glory.
Ian Johnson
>Kurt Cobain blows his brains out >Actually believing this good goy
Jacob Morris
oasis were working class lad m8s that grew up poor and hit it big rehashing the Beatles and they did a bunch of coke and fucked groupies
Nirvana was fronted by kurt cobain a supremely talented man with severe self hatred issues and a heroin addiction
Angel Moore
The British ones avoided heroin for the most part, and even the ones that did experiment with it didn't do so for long. It's basically the one drug you need to avoid to still be a relatively well function person.
Lincoln Ross
The problem is depression, not drugs.
Brody Young
The British musos came from reasonably normal and average backgrounds and pursued drugs due to partying, fashion or had different mental issues that had nothing whatsoever to do with drugs (like Richey James Edwards being anorexic). A lot of them eventually struggled with alcoholism, cocaine or heroin addiction but it wasn't seen as normal
The grunge types came from pretty fucked up backgrounds with dictatorial beatnik/hippie parents (like Courtney Love), wacko Christian cult parents (Layne Staley or River Phoenix) or feuding distant parents in a meth town (like Kurt Cobain). Extremely heavy heroin use was completely accepted in LA and Seattle and was considered creative. Also a lot of that American generation had been put on ritalin or whatever as children, which was unknown in the UK back then
Nathan Miller
Heroin was still majorly present during the Britpop era. They were just safer with it and didn't overdo it I guess. Damon Albarn had a schedule for his heroin use. The Grunge artists were all pretty reckless and sad people and a lot of them became major addicts.
Lincoln Brown
This, and not surprisingly the music reflects that. I doubt Liam Gallagher has ever been depressed in his life.
Gabriel Barnes
>I doubt Liam Gallagher has ever been depressed in his life.
The Gallagher brothers grew up in a dirt-poor household and regularly got the tar beaten out of them by their deadbeat drunkard of a father.
Joshua Hernandez
and he coped with that by being a drunk, high, arrogant loudmouth his entire life. No need for depression.
lanegan looks and sounds like utter shit here he can barely stand
Oliver Taylor
>Return Where to start with Screaming Trees?
Jackson Gonzalez
Dust and Buzz Factory are my favorites. I always preferred Lanegan's other projects to Screaming Trees though. His solo albums, collaborations with Isobel Campbell and The Gutter Twins(Lanegan with Greg Dulli of Afghan Whigs) are all above Screaming Trees for me.
>Why were so many of the key grunge musicians such self-destructive fuckups?
because most of those people were already fucked up to begin with, and fame(even moderate fame, as in the cases of bands like screaming trees or mudhoney or any of the members of hole who weren't courtney love) is bound to fuck you up even more one day you're playing small, dingy punk clubs to a few hundred, sometimes few dozen people and then practically overnight you're in one of the biggest bands on the planet and every music magazine wants you on their covers and the tabloids are picking your life apart for anything they can use and your life and sense of perspective changes in ways you couldn't even imagine it's an insane situation to put a bunch of already damaged people in
i know that a good deal of the big britpop musicians came from working-class backgrounds and i know that noel and liam gallagher had awful childhoods but poor mancunians tend to be much harder cunts than skinny punk kids from the PNW and there's a difference between people who use drugs because they're living it up and people who use drugs to cope with everyday existence the britpop crowd did the former, the grunge crowd did the latter
also, the auteurs were the best thing to come out of britpop
