Gen X vs. Bill Clinton: Cobain and Clinton, “Seinfeld” and “Simpsons,” and the ’90s fight for America’s soul

www.salon.com|Gil Troy

On April 8, 1994 an electrician named Gary Smith, dispatched to install a security system at a four-bedroom, five-bathroom turn-of-the-century mansion in Seattle, found no one home. Peering through a window, he thought he saw a fallen mannequin. Once he realized it was the corpse of Kurt Cobain, the twenty-seven-year-old lead singer of the grunge band Nirvana, Smith called a local Seattle radio station before calling the police.

Three days earlier, Cobain, fleeing drug treatment, binging on heroin and valium, had shot himself in the head. The troubadour of trauma for the twentysomethings’ recently christened “Generation X,” Cobain felt crushed between the edginess of his art and the machinery marketing his music. Modern popular culture now specialized in domesticating musical outlaws so they could afford luxuries like the $1.5 million home Cobain and his wife, Courtney Love, had purchased that January. “The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I’m having 100% fun,” Cobain wrote in his suicide note.

The other day I was glancing at my friend Eric Erlandson’s Twitter feed–Eric the erstwhile lead guitarist for Hole, who was also Courtney Love’s boyfriend just before Kurt arrived on the scene.  A small battalion of nemeses were chiding him about Kurt’s “murder,” sending creepy links, telling him to accept the “facts,” accusing him of being involved, even calling him a lousy guitarist.  As usual he responded in courtly fashion, erasing the hate with kindnesses:  “thanks for the lovely remark,” “so sweet of you to think of me,” etc.  It got me wondering.  Have murder conspiracy theories ever erupted in the wake of a famous female’s suicide?  Then more broadly: Why is a hero’s suicide so impossible for certain fans to accept?