The graves are filled with Generation X icons, aren’t they? Is anyone keeping a tally out there, or is that too depressing?
Depressing because, as it stands, four of the five main grunge gods are no longer with us: Kurt Cobain was murdered in 1994; Layne Staley of Alice in Chains died of complications from a longtime heroin addiction in 2002; Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots died of a heart attack in 2015; and Chris Cornell died by hanging in a Detroit hotel room in 2017.
As I wrote in “The Muses Choose Broken Vessels”:
The legendary A+R man John Kalodner insists that antidepressants killed rock and roll, since they numbed out a generation who would once channel their pain into art. What he's saying is that there are fewer broken vessels for the Muses to channel themselves through.
They rarely seem to choose anything but. I'd like to think suffering is over-rated, but the backstories of many great artists seems to argue against that.
So now Eddie Vedder is the last remaining “Voice of a Generation.” But Trevor Wilson was also an avatar for the formless rage of Generation X, an anger that would outwear its welcome as the grim early Nineties gave way to the go-go Clinton Years. But for a time he, Vedder and “Jeremy” were everywhere.
I mean, everywhere.
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