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Kurt Cobain, dead at 27. The news came as a shock to millions of rock fans, and MTV pre-empted its usual programming for hours of J.F.K.-like mourning, with a somber Kurt Loder playing the Walter Cronkite role. Given Cobain's talent and influence, however, the reaction was understandable. Nirvana came from the music-industry equivalent of nowhere, with a rough-edged first album recorded for a chiselly $606. The next, Nevermind, released 2 1/2 years ago, contained a series of crunching, screaming songs that also had catchy melodies, part punk, part Beatles. Selling almost 10 million copies...
Cobain's suicide was the first death of a major rock star in the age of MTV. Indeed, Cobain's music snaked into the homes of millions of cable-viewers before it ever took to the radio airwaves. We knew his face as soon as we saw the music on MTV...
Watching the network Friday afternoon reminded me of the coverage of the attempt on President Reagan's life in 1981. Kurt Loder, MTV's newscaster, sat at the station's New York headquarters with a stern look on his face, repeating that Cobain had killed himself and telling the audience "if you never saw this band, you never will have another opportunity." I had figured that out myself...
Fifteen years ago this would have been impossible. Cobain's photo would have been flashed briefly on the network news programs and one of the three major talking heads would have mispronounced his name. With the advent of MTV, those who were intimately familiar with his life were allowed to speculate unconvincingly on the causes of his death. Progress, I suppose...
...answer to the latter question is yes. Already a hit in Australia, France and Britain, Deep Forest has entered the dance and modern-rock charts in the U.S., where it was released last year. Sales are surging, thanks to a lyrical MTV clip by video auteur Tarsem and a Grammy nomination for Best World Music Album...