On Chris Cornell killing himself, and generation X [View all]

[DonCoquixote]

OK, if you are not a Gen Xer, please hear this out, because even though CC might not have been your generations hero, his death says a lot about our era.
Cornell led Soundgarden, a band that was part of the whole "Seattle Grunge" thing, even though he was always more of a traditonal singer than a punk screamer. He had chops, as is shown in this clip:

Soundgarden was always considered more metal, whereas most of the grunge movements kept on saying "we aint metal, we're punk!" To some extent, that was noble, as they did not want to cash in on another era, but to some extent it showed that people wanted to follow easy labels and simply want to tell their boomer parents to fuck off. Cornell had fans, although they were never like the media anointed darlings/spokesmen of their generation, Nirvana, or their good friends Pearl Jam. You see, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vetter, they knew how to sell the idea of being some tortured soul, so that they could cry all the way to the bank. The Generation X crowd , my group, was so eager to find some way of dealing with real angst, the idea that the last generation really did screw up the world, and left a life where the best chances had faded. Not like they were against all Boomers, indeed, Neil Young joined right in, but that came from the fact that Neil Young really did not care of people loved or hated him, and that is why his career has not died, despite changes in time.

But what happened is that generation X did not know, and indeed, DOES not know, how to deal with it's anger, however justified, in a productive way. That is why so many of the Generation X voices, from Cobain to Layne Stanley to Tupac to now Cornell lived short lives full of "what might have been." Worse, many of them turned conservative, part of that old punk rock "we wanna piss you off" attitude, an attitude that did rear it's ugly head last November when Trump actually used young people and Gen Xers to play Hillary off as the clueless greedy old Baby Boomer.

Now, I offer this to the Millenials and Gen Z. Millennials, you guys are getting a lot of crap, especially from the Boomers and Gen X; ignore it. You beat the Generation Xers are seeing that, unlike them, it is not enough to feel pain and rage, you have to DO something with it, and you are. The Boomers could have been leaders, but too many of them (and yeah Gloria Steinem and Erica Jong, I do include you) choose to demonize you because you would not step in lock, they refused to see that they had to talk TO you, not shout AT you. As far Gen Z, the you tube are already talking about you kids will supposedly be the most conservative geenration ever. All I say is, prove them wrong, because when soem gen Xers bought that from the GOP Boomers, they got screewed, royally, and you do not want to become like the generaion that X'd itself out.

RIP Chris..RIP way too many Gen Xers