On Machina: The Machines of God, the last proper release of The Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan pondered the question "If I were dead, would my records sell?" After a recent challenge to my own mortality, and due to the fact that I fancy myself a musician, I have found myself pondering the same thing. Would the Pumpkins be thought of as innovators of the nineties music scene if Billy and Kurt Cobain traded places. If Kevin Shields had died right after My Bloody Valentine finished recording Loveless would anyone ever even heard of The Smashing Pumpkins. The publicity that comes with an untimely death does create a swell in interest in that person's life work, and for a musician their catalog becomes heavily scrutinized. Especially in the case of a suicide, the lyrics become insight into the causes and take on meaning probably not intended. This was certainly in the case for Cobain and the same could be said of Ian Curtis of Joy Division. These deaths always leave us wondering "what would they have done or accomplished had they lived."
But most bands and musicians really only have two or three good albums in them before the scene they are a part of falls out of favor, or the quality of their work begins to suffer, or they break up. We want to think that Kurt Cobain would have continued to put up records of the same quality and style for years, but that probably would not have been the case. The Unplugged show gave the public a glimpse that their was a folk side to Nirvana. Would Nirvana fans accept a full acoustic record outside of the MTV unplugged gimmick, or would they feel that the band betrayed their punk rock roots. Kurt's death means we will never know, we are just left with CD's that we love.
While Kurt Cobain's death is a watermark of my generation, rock and roll and death have always gone hand in hand. Rock established itself in the fifties and also lost its innocence with the deaths of Buddy Holly, Jimmy Valens and the Big Bopper. Since then the two have been linked. Musicians OD, crash their cars, or their planes, take their own lives, get murdered and drink themselves to death. Then they sing about death, and all the addictions that can cause it. And we consume these records, listen to them, over analyze them and make them a part of our lives. In this way we can deal with death by turning on an ipod.
The untimely death can often be the breakthrough for some artists. For a struggling artist it can get their name out like no other publicity. Before I ever heard a note of Jeff Buckley's music, I knew that he had drown. For many of my friends who are also fans of Buckley's, they also knew of his death before they knew of his music. While his 1994 album Grace was well recieved by critics, it did not find a wide audience until some years later with kids who were too young to find it when it came out. For an artist who is successful it can be a way to rise above their scene. Southern Rock was popular in the late seventies, but the only bands that seem to be remembered from it are The Allman Bros. and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Both of which may have fallen the way of Molly Hatchet without deaths to members. (or someone marrying Cher)
Chuch Palaniuk wrote "on a long enough time line, the life expectancy of everyone turns to zero." So every musician will eventually die and will no longer be able create the music that they are known for, except of course for The Rolling Stones. But most will die long after their best work is done. Sick Boy's theory in Trainspotting that we basically "get old and cannot hack it anymore," does tend to be true. But when the time line is severed and we want more from someone they become immortal. We can always pop in a CD, or download a song, and that voice or that guitar is heard again and is just as unmistakable as the first time we heard it. Death has become essential to rock and roll, and intertwined with it, but not its defining characterstic, just something that gives rock its mystique and makes it dangerous. Which is why people love it.
