KURT COBAIN

THE CHRONICLES OF CULTURE

THE HAIR METAL GRUNGE PARADOX

Text_Gary Warnett Illustration_Goodhood Creative

In Penelope Spheeris’ 1988 big hair, bad behaviour chronicle ‘The Decline of Western Civilisation Part II: The Metal Years’ — a sequel to an earlier documentary scattered with Kurt Cobain approved bands like Fear and Black Flag — we see superstars and aspiring posers alike engaging in absolute excess. Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip becomes the ground zero for misbehaviour. Members of Poison and W.A.S.P. appear, as well as forgotten bands like London (whose changing roster included future members of Mötley Crüe and Guns N’ Roses). It looks appealing, but utterly doomed — not simply because of the rampant alcoholism and drug use, but because we as the viewer are fully aware of a seismic shift at the decade’s close. It simply isn’t sustainable physically or culturally.

At the height of Reagan’s reign, you could go out of step and reject the conspicuous consumption and cash is king mentality, or become a living embodiment of that overkill. Despite apparent differences, whether you were signed to a big label and being a rock cliche or defiantly indie, there was a nihilism at work.

Grunge — loose, scruffy and unpolished — and glam — all shiny flamboyance — surely had to be polar opposites right? Not quite. Chronicles of cultures have a tendency to retrospectively draw lines that neglect the blurs between them — if we’re to look at Cobain’s formative influences and the stylistic provenance of the denizens of the Whisky a Go Go, Gazzari’s and the Troubadour, David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust phase, the New York Dolls, Kiss and Alice Cooper all played their part, whether directly, or as the fathers of a sound and aesthetic later down the line. Just as assuming that punk’s arrival in 1976 eliminated the excesses of prog would be an oversimplification, it’s important to note grunge and hair metal’s parallels as well as their key differences.

Now, with conversations on sexual identity at the forefront, cross dressing rock superstars sound like the stuff of glowing essays on acceptance and gender blending. Somewhat paradoxically, hair metal — with its skintight spandex, thin limbs, backcombed locks, makeup and studs — frequently extolled defiantly heterosexual tendencies to an extreme. Perhaps defensive of allegations of homosexuality, interviews were riddled with tales of brawls and skulls cracked, female groupie abuse was rampant (something of a rock tradition since day one) and homophobia certainly wasn’t uncommon (check the lyrics of Guns N’ Roses’ indefensible ‘One in a Million’ and Sebastian Bach of Skid Row’s notorious “AIDS kills fags dead” t-shirt). Even in a world where we’re assailed with horror stories of abuse and murder across social media during an early morning iPhone glance over a Nescafe, the hedonism depicted in Mötley Crüe’s memoir ‘The Dirt’ still shocks.

In stark contrast, bands like Mission of Burma, Big Black, Pixies and Sonic Youth seemed defiantly anti-poser. Frequently unisex in their lineups and lyrically dealing with the subject of misogyny (though Big Black’s Steve Albini — future ‘In Utero’ producer — was frequently misunderstood), it was a more sensitive worldview delivered with plenty of feedback. Pioneering punk band Millions of Dead Cops — a Cobain favourite — were defiantly far left. Whether that choice of no-frills attire was a statement or simply the wardrobe starving artists who’d created art that wasn’t destined for the Billboard charts is debatable.

It’s crucial not to write off the stylistic legacy of that 1980s glam metal scene as an absolute folly either. Arriving on the scene with less critical plaudits than Nirvana in the early 1990s, the Manic Street Preachers were frequently arch contrarians and their reference points were Guns N’ Roses and Finnish glam band Hanoi Rocks who’d been instrumental in inspiring gutter glam bands on the Sunset Strip scene (Guns N’ Roses made no secret of Hanoi Rocks’ influence either, reissuing their albums on their Uzi Suicide label). Given their carefully made up androgyny, journalists tried to fuel a war between the Manics’ glam-rock against grunge time and time again, but when lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards joined the same 27-club as Cobain after disappearing 10 months after his suicide, ‘In Utero’ was in the tape deck of his discarded Vauxhall Cavalier. Raf Simons would dedicate his A/W ’01-’02 ‘Riot, Riot, Riot’ collection to Edwards, receiving a far better reaction than Marc Jacobs’ tribute to grunge a decade earlier.

In 2017, if you’ve got more money than cultural credentials, you can wander to stores just walking distance of the West Hollywood stomplng ground of the Crüe and their peers back in their salad days. There, you can put down a grand to buy a vintage Nirvana t-shirt — the very same one that was 12.99 in a Virgin Megastore 25 years ago. The 1988 poser in the lipgloss and skintight trousers was arguably a more credible character than the modern day spendthrift faking the thrift look. If you’re a label owner purporting to be channeling Kurt Cobain in your apparel, he’d probably hate you more than he ever hated Axl Rose.

A fan of vintage thrifty stores he would often scour them for anything cheap, weird and interesting to his eye. Necessity dictated the layers of clothes whether it be about protection from the cold Washington state climate or whether his own inhibitions about his body were over compensated for. In truth his style was random, eclectic and seemingly spontaneous. But just like Kurt’s road to success and stardom it was often carefully orchestrated, and what looks unplanned and accidental was certainly assisted by his keen eye for aesthetics. As someone that struggled with perceptions of self he was more than aware of the image he could create.

On acquiring his first guitar he notoriously carried it around even after it was broken expressing his image as a musician. Music and fashion have oftenbeen uncomfortable bed fellows, with the latter often feeding off musicians style with little credibility, Kurt and Courtney famously burned the Marc Jacobs Perry Ellis collection that Jacobs personally sent them. Musicians issues with the social construct of fashion feeds their fashion choices in the first place.

Kurt’s own creative output was unhindered by boundaries often turning his hand to painting, graphics or film making. Unable to afford blank canvases Kurt would find board games and use the backs to paint or customise religious busts with blood tears and it was perhaps these first forays with mixed media that opened the gates to Kurt creating his own personal style. His challenging anti-establishment viewpoints would cross over into his t-shirts which he would often produce himself with the aid of a black marker. The punk DIY fanzine aesthetic mixed with his often outlandish sense of humour created some of the most memorable images of him for instance the Rolling Stones magazine cover shoot wearing the ‘Corporate Magazines Still Suck,’ t-shirt.

He experimented with pseudonyms and alter ego’s naming himself Kurdt, or Kobain subverting the social construct of his identity. Anti mainstream rhetoric and a sharp sense of humour lead to his outfits often carrying subversive messages. If it was his Nixon Now sticker famously on his guitar or ‘Kill the Grateful Dead’ on his t-shirt .. he was as happy letting people guess as to what his motivations were rather than having a definitive reason.

His influences he wore on his sleeve literally. A small K Records tattoo on his arm and his favourite bands t-shirts did everything the underground music scene needed to propel their bands into the spotlights. This was certainly how the emerging music scene soon to be dubbed ‘grunge’ dressed, yet his untimely death has created a vault of gold that is referenced time and time again. Perhaps it was solely his ability to recognise the moment and seemingly disregard it’s relevance that captured the style industries imagination. After all this the kind of cool that marketers dream of, yet paradoxically the kind that can’t be manufactured and maybe Kurt just knew exactly that. He never worked with stylists and struggled with his creative vision being compromised as this is when you fit into the industries narrative of who you are. ‘Keep ‘em guessing’ has worked for rocks stars for decades and as cliched as it sounds Kurt did his particular homework when learning how to be Rock star 101.

Below we explore the key pieces of Kurt's infamous wardrobe:

Pyjama Top

Perhaps influenced by his admiration of The Beatles, particularly John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s famous bed ins, the wearing of pyjamas was a protest, a rejection against societal norms of what you should and shouldn’t wear and where you could and couldn’t wear them. Kurt most famously wore pyjamas to his wedding with Courtney Love on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii in 1992.