TV: Doctor Who Series 10 Finale

This blog contains spoilers...

The ending of the latest series of Doctor Who ends with the 12th Doctor stubbornly refusing to regenerate, something completely in tune with Capaldi's portrayal; and then meeting the first Doctor, possibly the only previous Doctor who can match the 12th Doctor for stubbornness.

Well I did say there were spoilers.

Anyway, that will all be dealt with at Christmas no doubt, Steven Moffat’s last flirtation with timey-wimeyness before he goes. Well his love of timey-wimeyness is less ‘flirtatious’ and more ‘rampant’ but you know what I mean.

This last series has seen the introduction of Bill, who has been one of the best companions in a long time.  Clara was originally created more as a development than a personality - the ‘impossible girl’ - and her departure last year, where she basically became a Doctor-like figure in her own right was a continuation of this, despite an attempt to giver her more character development in Season 8. That’s not to say she was a bad companion, but it’s refreshing to have a character that was more emotionally realistic and bult from the ground up.  In fact Bill’s character is probably my favourite companion from Steven Moffat’s tenure. Moffat sometimes can’t seem to help himself from going all timey-wimey on his characters, which isn’t always a bad thing in this kind of show - might not work as well in Corrie - but it’s nice that Bill became a powerful and realistic dramatic force in the programme to contrast with the weirdness around her.  Until she became a Cyberman and the Doctor couldn’t save her of course (you know by now there’s spoilers - if you’re annoyed about this spoiler you only have yourself to blame).

The build up of the evolution of the Cybermen finally gives them a origin genesis story in New Who - their introduction way back in Season 2 was basically the same as Genesis of the Daleks, but with Trigger from Only Fools and Horses instead of Davros.  Seeing the slow evolution of the Cybermen as something that a civilization willingly does in order to survive is believab

le (as far as Doctor Who goes) and creepy than the idea they started out as kidnapped homeless people by bad men and turned into robots.  The city (which has a strong 1920s ‘Metropolis’ feel), dominated by a hospital with its Inpatient, Conversion Theatre and Outpatient wards feels suitably decrepit and desperate. The patients, covered head to toe in bandages before being fully converted, are eerily sympathetic, and give a greater understanding of the point of the Cybermen - they started out as willing converts, and then went around the universe spreading the good news.  They’re technological evangelists.  According to the Doctor, all the vague and conflicting stories about where the Cybermen come from can be explained by the fact that this is where evolution takes everyone eventually, when mother nature can’t keep up with the demand for survival, humans give her a hand with their own augmentations.  These early Cybermen, based on the original Cybermen from the 60s, are suitably slap-dash and the best that could be done with limited resources (which in real life is exactly why the Cybermen costumes looked like they did in ‘The Tenth Planet’ making this episode partly a retcon 60s costume design).  It doesn’t take them long before they develop ‘war units’, who are the traditional armour plated Cybermen we are used to.

Oh yes, and that seemingly friendly man who looks after Bill for years in order to trick her into undergoing conversion?  Yes, that’s John Simm in disguise for the majority of the first half of the story, doing an excellent job of the Master being in disguise for an actual reason.  In the first multi-Master story the series has done, he is there in order to remind us how much Missy has become better at not being a completely villainous bitch and is starting to go over to the Doctor's side.  Simm’s Master is the traditional Master, the trickster who just likes being evil for evil’s sake.  He’s largely there as a counterpoint to Missy but steals a great many of his scenes.  When both versions of the Master murder each other (timey-wimey breakdown alert) there’s a brilliant scene of them giggling and laughing their heads off like naughty schoolchildren.

This series got the balance of dark and light just right.  The Doctor is still aloof but not as unkind or unsympathetic as he was in Season 8.  Most importantly, the plots have been entirely relatable and could be a great place to introduce someone to the series (perhaps - as long as someone could explain the Master to them).  If you’re ever trying to watch the show with a non-fan, Moffat is at his most frustrating when he over-eggs the clever plotting and it’s much more reined in here.  I’m looking forward to seeing how Capaldi’s Doctor finally ends, and of course finding out who his replacement is going to be...

BOOKS: Uncommon People: The Rise and Fall of The Rock Stars by David Hepworth

It’s obvious from David Hepworth’s book that he is a big 70’s guy. His other recently published book, which i haven’t read, is about 1971.  He is definitely the kind of person (I can just picture it) who would say “music isn’t what it was.”  That’s effectively what this book is.

Therefore, this book on the rise and fall of Rock Gods is at its most enthusiastic in its first half.  Rock Gods of the 80s onwards are treated with less interest.  Kurt Cobain’s suicide is dealt with intelligently but briefly, almost dismissively compared with the longest chapter which is on the rise of Bob Dylan who Hepworth considers the ultimate Rock God.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with that although it gives more than a clue to what Hepworth considers the golden age of rock music.

Really, the nature of the book, although interesting, has less depth than the title promises.  The introduction starts promisingly but the book itself is really just a chronologically ordered list of potted biographies of famous musicians based on a year in their lives.  The book very quickly moves away from analysis of what a rock god is or was and becomes more concerned with anecdotes and trivia - interesting trivia, but still.  Example: the chapter about Jim Morrison focuses a lot on the year he got done for getting his cock out onstage but doesn’t really explain why I should care, or how it contributes to the rise or the fall of the Rock God. Likewise the fact that Little Richard's 'Tutti Frutti' was originally about anal sex is funny but essentially pub quiz level information.

The ‘event in the year in the life of’ approach rarely works for me.  Without context such a narrative relies either on the reader already knowing the context or not caring about it.  The death of John Lennon works better than most; but this could well be because The Beatles have several chapters devoted in this book.  Elvis gets two, everyone else just gets one year, usually the year they made it or the year they died.  

Likewise the list approach is always highly subjective.  My main query is the inclusion of Ian Dury, who was great but a relatively minor player looking back. Considering there’s no chapter on Sid Vicious from the same period seems an odd choice, Vicious being the ultimate anti-Rock God.  The conclusion I draw from this is that Hepworth isn’t interested in 70s punk and so chose someone he liked to write about.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that, it is his book after all - but this points once more to this being more like a list of favourite artists than historically influential ones.  Another quirk is the end of chapter lists of important singles and albums from the year in question, which sometimes omit songs from the artist you’ve just been reading about.

The overarching narrative is that the concept of the Rock God relied a lot on their mystique and ability to seem different to their audience in a special way.  According to Hepworth this went out the window with the arrival of us living, in his words, in a hip-hop world, which he seems to class as the opposite of rock somehow.  It’s true that In the 21st century, it’s not hard to find out what people in the charts have for breakfast or where they shop, which makes them less mysterious and more directly boastful. Instead of hiding away in a Gothic ruin pretending to be an occultist like Jimmy Page they will show off their bling on Instagram at will.  Considering there are chapters on Elvis and Michael Jackson, this doesn’t sit right with me.  They’d be straight on Instagram showing off their latest expensive diamond encrusted toilet roll holder or whatever.  The fall of the Rock God is more likely due to the fact that Rock Gods lost their novelty and that Rock as a genre ground to a natural halt.  

The mid-90s is a good place to stop - it was at this point that rock slowly became more derivative, with Oasis and Blur pinching bits of the 60s, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party pinching bits of the Post-Punk era, and the original bands themselves reforming to do on the whole uninspiring Greatest Hits/grab the money and run nostalgia gigs.  The Rolling Stones are for instance are technically still going, but I’m sure people who see them now are either on a nostalgia trip or are curious to hear them play their old stuff live - and they give those people what they want.  Go on, name their last album without googling it - or in fact one of their albums from the last 20 years.

It is, however, premature to write off rock as a genre even if Rock Gods have in fact gone for good.  There’s always exciting indie stuff out there, as well as a lot of dreck admittedly - but that has always been the case, even in Hepworth’s day - for every Beatles there would have been a hundred Gerry and the Pacemakers.  Music is fashion, and fashion goes in cycles.  The 80s were on the whole a dry spell for guitar bands in the mainstream, but things turned around in the 90s through to the early 00s and then turned around again.  What Hepworth really means are that his Rock Gods are dead.  Music stardom still exists, and there’s nothing to say that guitar music won’t become culturally dominant again (although it’s true to say that there’s nothing to say it will either).

This is not a bad book, and is well written for what it is - if you enjoy music from the period covered (and I definitely do) you will find it very enjoyable.  But don’t expect more than some interesting facts from the past.  The future has no place in Hepworth’s obituary of the Rock God.

MUSIC: OKNOTOK - 20 Years of OK Computer

OK Computer is a landmark album - everyone says so,so it is. It was feted when it first came out 20 years ago and is still consistently on album of the 90’s/20th Century/All Time lists.

So what is it that makes it so iconic?

Yesterday...

To be honest I find it hard to tell listening to it again.  I’ve not listened to it this century until this re-release and it’s been very nostalgic but less good than I remembered. This isn’t a fault of the album (it’s not you, it’s me), it’s Seinfeld not being funny. ‘Seinfeld Is Unfunny’ is a definition (courtesy of TV Tropes) that refers to something that was groundbreaking at the time but since then it's innovations have become so integrated into the mainstream they’re now clichés. It's hard to listen to the album 20 years and hear certain things afresh - ‘No Surprises’ for instance no longer sounds as lovely and warped (read the lyrics) to me as it maybe once did and instead just puts me in mind of Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’.

...and today

As Radiohead themselves seemed to have realised at the time, when they moved on to electronic pastures new on their next album. I remember when Kid A came out it was probably my generation’s equivalent of Dylan going electric - something new and exciting (although to my shame at the time I was the guy in the audience shouting “Judas” - I came round a few years later). The band never really looked back, and the majority of the music they did since has generally had greater musical experimentation and emotional depth. OK Computer is good, but to my mind at least 3 of their later albums (Kid A, In Rainbows and last year’s A Moon Shaped Pool) are better.

Anyway, whether an album is iconic or not is irrelevant really.  I don’t imagine many bands set out to make an iconic album as their primary goal, and those who do probably fail.  The main thing is the songs, which I find still have the ability to entertain and frustrate me in equal measure.  The fact is that any album is a snapshot of a band’s work at a specific time and its iconic status is something we imbue on it after the fact.  

There’s an article on Pitchfork about OK Computer's lyrics predicting the future (either not an entirely serious one or an appallingly written one) and I think this is entirely the wrong way to interpret the album’s lyrics.  The Pitchfork article itself sets up its premise as “a song-by-song breakdown of the album’s most prescient lyrics” then fails to find any and settles for rubbish jokes. OK Computer is in no way prophetic - portentous maybe, but not prophetic. Its lyrics are instead opaque and (with the exception of ‘Electioneering’) uninterested in making a specific point.  

If anything the album is ‘about’ alienation and the sense of being out of joint with the rest of the world, which are pretty universal and timeless themes.  With this album Radiohead were being hailed as the ‘New Pink Floyd’ (NME journalists, bring unto us your lazy pigeonholes).  This was an almost entirely superficial comparison, but there are thematic similarities with Roger Waters’ misanthropy and Thom Yorke’s; Dark Side Of The Moon, which dealt with similar themes of alienation and mental instability, works as a comparison (its famous opening line “I'm mad, I've been mad for fucking years” would fit in as a lyric in just about any Radiohead song).

But musically the styles are different and varied compared to Pink Floyd’s; although there are some Gilmour-esque solos Radiohead’s music is very much their own.  The singles from the album are all great, but there is more filler than I remember (maybe that’s too harsh - possibly not filler but the Seinfeld trope kicking in again). Generally speaking ‘Paranoid Android’, ‘Karma Police’, ‘No Surprises’ are the highlights for me along with a few of the others (‘Climbing Up The Walls’ is creepy as hell and I love the crashalong ‘Electioneering’ if nothing else because it sounds like it’s just popped in to say hello from another album), with the rest of the album tracks feeling like a mixed bag to my jaded 21st century ears.  I hadn’t remembered songs like ‘Subterranean Homesick Alien’ and ‘Lucky’ despite having heard them many times in the past.  I’ve listened to the album 3 times in the last week - including whilst writing this - and can’t remember them now.  And ‘Exit Music (For A Film)’ just feels like a parody of Radiohead’s reputation for being a miserable band (perhaps because of the Father Ted episode?).  

The revelation for me was ‘Lift’, one of 3 unreleased tracks included on this set.  It’s about someone trapped in a lift.  Forever.  And it sounds great, a gentle start building up to a Britpop-but-not-Britpop guitar crescendo. ‘I Promise’ isn’t as special and ‘Man Of War’ is interestingly more like a Bond theme than their rejected one for Spectre.  The B-sides are generally strong and top quality.  They’ve also been released on previous re-releases and have been possible to stream and torrent for those interested for years.

The best thing about listening to OK Computer again was frankly the nostalgia factor.  The 90s were great, weren’t they?  I suspect people who have not heard this album before and listened to it on the basis of its reputation might enjoy it but also feel let down.  But then, those people aren’t going to be the target audience of a 20 year anniversary box set re-release, are they?

MUSIC: Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Nobel Prize Again

Bob Dylan? Nobel Prize? Literature? Dylan? Wuh?

This was the reaction of some to Dylan getting the Nobel Prize for Literature last week. There were also many people whose reaction went “about time too” (as if they'd been expecting this for years), stuffy “Dylan is a singer not a writer of novels or books and therefore incapable of writing literature”, and in the most self-parodic Guardian article I think I've read, “Bob Dylan is a white male and any white male winning an award is a step backwards for society” (no, seriously).

Although anyone who acts like they were expecting this is clearly full of shit, it is obviously an excellent choice. Bob Dylan is one of the most influential writers of the last century. Although mainly when people talk about his greatness they're referring to his Imperial Phase from the early 60's to (at a push) the late 70's, that's still an impressive body of work. The Guardian's suggestion that Margaret Atwood or Toni Morrison would have been better choices aren't really in the same league in terms of influence, popularity and ability to textually analyse in an English Literature degree kind of way. Also, Toni Morrison already has the Nobel Prize in 1993.

The textual analysis of Dylan happened early,mainly but not exclusively by music journalists. Music journalism developed its analytical side perhaps because of Dylan - his popular contemporaries didn't have anything to analyse (The Beatles, for all their talent, were still singing about diamond rings and holding hands until George Harrison buying Freewheelin’ on an American tour shocked them into trying harder. And by giving them drugs). Greil Marcus wrote one of the best music reviews ever on Dylan’s Self-Portrait (with my favorite opening line of any piece of critical analysis ever - “What is this shit?”). He was the most intelligent 60's icon, but transcended being reduced to only having iconic status - the Beatles can be reduced, if you want, to a lot of media clips with ‘She Loves You’ playing in the background - to 'get' Dylan you have to listen to the words.

And this is crucial to the understanding of why Dylan deserves a prize for literature - it is the words with Dylan, always the words - the music is great, but not as important. You just need to listen to covers of his songs to understand that. Jimi Hendrix covered All Along The Watchtower and effectively (in both senses of the word) jettisoned the music - he wanted that song for the words. Most covers of Dylan improve on the music but leave the words well alone - the lyrics are respected in the same way poetry is, an innate understanding that there is serious authorial intent behind every line, that this is not just something that goes well with some music. This is true of most Dylan songs at his peak - the music is great but it's the lyrics that are driving the car. Pitchfork, the ultimate hipster music website argues that to divorce the lyrics from the music lessens them; but this is comparable to saying divorcing an playwright's words from actors declaiming them renders them somehow un-literary - a line of argument that is weirdly pedantic in the name of being contrary. It is an unsurprisingly hipster argument, and has a perverse logic that would invalidate previous winners right to the prize, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Which would frankly be mad.

The idea of literature being something that can only be presented in static form in black and white is outmoded and redundant - is in fact very old-fashioned, and maybe the argument comes from the same hipster predilection for vinyl being superior to digital. When you're debating the medium rather than the message you are effectively judging a book by its cover. The vitality of literature lies in its communication of a message, of a feeling, of conveying a world - not in its form. Words are the lifeblood of literature, whether they are spoken, sung or read.

Bob Dylan's lyrics at their best are surreal, funny, angry - often simultaneously impenetrable and universal. Like Shakespeare his work is populist without sacrificing artistic merit - without being easy. Sure, not every line was shot through with genius, but enough were for him to be thoroughly deserving of a prize for literature. There's a line by Aaron Copeland - if you want to understand the 60’s play the music of the Beatles. Which I agree with. But equally I would say if you want to understand the the 60’s and more, listen to the words of Bob Dylan.

TECH: Twitter Takes The 'Social' Out Of Social Media

Twitter seems to be repositioning itself as a rolling news operation.  That’s not a surprise exactly, but it’s a shame.

Its new ‘Moments’ feature, so far only available in the US, seems to be a digest of the most tweeted about stories of the day.  A bit like a Twitter version of Flipboard or Google’s Play Newsstand. (Being UK-based I’m sorry if that’s not a fair description of a feature I’ve not used.  But that’s definitely what it sounds like.)

 

Twitter's 'Moments' feature

As a new direction it seems like an admission of defeat from the company – they’re giving up on trying to persuade more people to interact with each other and want to be yet another online news source.

It’s not a surprise though.  Despite the large amount of accounts out there, there’s a significant proportion of people who have never really used it at all.  And daily use is on the wane with a lot of people who to check it every minute, let alone daily.  Meanwhile, Facebook continues to thrive.  As an experiment, post exactly the same thing on Twitter and Facebook – a random bit of silliness, a link to a news article, whatever you like.  I am willing to bet that in most cases the level of interaction and debate with other people will be much larger (and faster) on Facebook than on Twitter. 

For most casual users of Twitter, if just one person replies to your tweet these days, I’d say you’d be doing very well indeed.

That’s a shame.  It’s a company that used to thrive on millions of strangers interacting with each other, discussing common interests with people from all around the world.  It felt like a threat to Facebook at one point.  It was certainly cooler and trendier than Facebook, which was yesterday’s news.  (I’m aware that using words like cool and trendy makes me look like last week’s news.  I’m in my mid-30s with a baby on the way.  Sue me.) 

The Twitter experience has changed a lot since I joined.  It seems a lot less irreverent and amusing, for instance.  The balance between humour and silliness/current affairs and politics is a lot less balanced, on my timeline at any rate.  It’s news, famous people, journalists, more news, interspersed by the odd lonely and ignored tweet from a ‘normal’ user, sitting there forlornly unretweeted and unfavourited.  I suppose I could change my experience by unfollowing some people and finding some new followers.  But the novelty’s worn off now and that feels like it would be a chore I haven’t got the time for.

Twitter nowadays feels more corporate, more adult.  That’s because it is.  A lot of teenagers have moved on to things like Snapchat and other things that parents and politicians don’t use.  The journalist Grace Dent said that when your boss follows you on Twitter, Twitter is over for you.  Well if you’re a teenager and your parents sign up I expect this is even more accurate.

But leaving that to one side, the democratic feel of Twitter vanished when a Twitterstocracy emerged.  There was at some point a distinct drift to the dominance of power users (a mix of already famous journos, celebs, comedians and politicians with a handful of early adopters who gained prominence through heavy use and controversial/witty tweeting).  People stopped following new people as much and settled for the groups they already had.  (If you are a casual user, ie not using Twitter to promote your business, when was the last time you gained a load of followers who weren’t real life friends or spam?)

New users joining after this point would realise quickly they weren’t going to get followers very quickly without putting in a lot of effort. Their voices just weren’t going to be heard unless they turned into attention seeking controversy machines or were a company that could employ dedicated social media experts to create an online presence.

Even people who have been on Twitter for quite some time find that their tweets will be read by a relatively small amount of people if by anyone at all. More and more people have become passive users, reading but not interacting, not creating, sometimes only promoting.  And even at promotion, without a lot of followers it’s not actually that great.  For instance, I have always posted links to this blog on Twitter and I can tell from my stats that I don’t get any traffic from Twitter anymore.  I used to, but not anymore, nothing.  I get more from Google + for God’s sake!  Whether that’s because I don’t tweet enough on Twitter to have a presence on it I don’t know, but it’s not really encouraging me to continue to use it as a promotional tool.

It feels like the glory days of Twitter being a fun place to natter and chatter have gone, except perhaps when there’s a live television event.  As a company it is being steered  towards having a serious purpose, which isn’t as fun.

Loads of my freemium apps have started getting adverts telling me to use Twitter for all the latest news. This morning I had a Twitter alert about some “latest news” being retweeted.  I opened the link which went to a 2007 Guardian article about Martin Amis’ comments on Islam.  Hmm.  Might not be using Twitter for all the latest news just yet…

MUSIC: Joanna Newsom Attacks Spotify

I like Joanna Newsom a lot.  Joanna Newsom is cool.

Joanna Newsom is also the latest artist to complain about streaming eating into her bank account – she specifically mentions Spotify, but her music isn’t available on any streaming service.

 

The lovely Joanna Newsom

After some typically eccentric comparisons to bananas she said:

“Spotify is like a villainous cabal of major labels. The business is built from the ground up as a way to circumvent the idea of paying their artists. The major labels were not particularly happy with the fact that as the royalty money dwindled more and more, their portion of the percentage split agreed upon in their licensing agreement got smaller and smaller.”

Now she does have a point – but unfortunately, fairly or not, these complaints from artists are beginning to annoy music fans.

Essentially the problem for artists is that Spotify pay all the royalties, the labels take a massive cut, and the artist gets a fraction.  Spotify responded to Newsom’s complaint by tweeting that they pay 70% of their revenue in royalties to labels, $3 billion to date.  They make the point – and I believe it’s a fair one – that the problem lies with the artists’ contracts.

Who would’ve thought it, the music industry screwing over artists?

And that’s the point – it’s the industry screwing them over.  It’s not us.  I read a rant like that and my gut reaction is “well, what do you expect me to do about it?”  Or more succinctly, “boo hoo”.

Artists need to start getting their managers to renegotiate contracts with the labels instead of washing their dirty linen in public because it’s not a good look for them.  It’s like when bankers complain about not getting big enough bonuses – it pisses off the larger part of society that are struggling on minimum wages and hiking rent prices (soon to be exacerbated in the UK with the loss of tax credits but that’s another story altogether…)

Home Streaming Is Killing Music?

The fact is people who pay for music are going to go for the most cost-effective option.  If you have to live on a tight budget, music is going to come under the ‘luxury item’ category.  I used to spend a fortune on music, even though I was shopping in discount places like Fopp.  But I couldn’t really afford to do that, to the point where my love of music was getting me into financial trouble.  Spotify seemed like a good compromise – paying for music without pirating, and at the same time actually staying in the black (well, sometimes).

So when people I respect and admire – Thom Yorke is another – come out in force against streaming, it doesn’t make me think “right on, tell it like it is”.  It makes me think they don’t understand my situation, or that of a lot of their fans.  It especially seems like a U-turn from Yorke, who was willing to let people pay whatever they felt was fair for ‘In Rainbows’ in 2009.  Well Thom, a lot of people have decided that £9.99 a month is fair given their circumstances, and your response is to have a little moan and take all your music away from them.

As far as I’m concerned it’s not a good look.  People who are streaming are paying for music legally – it’s not realistic to tell customers they should pay more.  Because frankly, there’s a significant amount of those customers who will call your bluff and go back to torrents.  Look at this comic from The Oatmeal – it’s about television rather than music, but the principle’s the same.

This is all reminiscent of the ‘home taping is killing music’ scare of the 80s.  But this time it’s not the big bosses (‘The Man’), it’s the artists who we like to think of as being on our side.  Like I say, I’m not saying artists don’t have a point about being ripped off, but they need to take this up with their labels and managers instead of slagging off the streaming companies because when they do that the implication is that people shouldn’t be streaming.  Which means that they are blaming their own fans, that somehow it’s our fault.  It paints the user as the bad guy, forgetting how much we actually have to pay even for downloads, let alone CDs (and ticket prices, and all that shiny pricey merchandise…)

Not engaging with streaming is starting to make artists look out of touch.  Streaming as a medium is staying.  If Spotify closed down tomorrow (and they don’t make a profit, so who knows?) that wouldn’t change.  Apple Music has further legitimised it as the future, as downloads from iTunes slowly and softly vanish away.  Artists need to deal with it in a more positive way, at least in public, or risk alienating their audience.

PS Joanna Newsom's album, Divers, is out on Friday.  I've pre-ordered it because I like her.  But there are going to be an awful lot of people out there who will be torrenting it and perhaps her entire back catalogue.  I don't condone that in the slightest.  But it is a fact that that is what will happen.  Attack those people Joanna.

FILM... & MUSIC: Kurt Cobain - Montage of Heck

Kurt Cobain is the 90s rock idol.  If you want to make people think ‘The 1990’s’, a picture of Kurt Cobain will do nicely.  (The Gallagher brothers?  Are you serious?)

Montage Of Heck is a documentary that attempts to make the last of the great dead rock icons a human being.  As well as concert footage of Kurt Cobain being a live rock icon, we see home footage of him messing about with his wife and baby and hear him doing mundane things like answering the phone. 

It is definitely a documentary about Kurt Cobain, and Nirvana is covered as the most famous and successful way Kurt Cobain chose to express himself.  Equal importance is given to his journals and to a lesser extent his artwork.  Kris Novoselic is interviewed, but significantly as Kurt’s best friend, not the bass player of Nirvana.  Dave Grohl only appears in archive footage, and forget the previous drummers, personnel, etc.  If you want to learn about the history of the band this isn’t that story – a lot of it just happens to overlap.  It is expected of you as a viewer that you’ll know at least the famous hits already, as most of the songs in the film are represented either by demos, live footage or ‘reworkings’ (a nursery-mobile version of ‘All Apologies’ soundtracks baby films of Kurt, and a 'Carmina Burana'-style choir version of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ plays over the original video).  All of this is very obviously in danger of drifting into alienating, Just For The Fans territory, but is also a way of making the point that this is not a rock doc.  In fact, taking away the familiar music serves as a way of taking it back from the audience and making it about Kurt again.

Of course the film fails in demythologising Cobain (the trailer reiterates the icon, let alone the film).  It doesn't really bother trying, because let's face it - the man is a cultural icon and that's a fact, like it or not.  I mean, why would we want to watch home videos of someone who wasn’t famous?  The fact that someone has gone to the trouble of putting animation to a tape of him answering the phone is instead testament to the fact that he is still entirely culturally significant.  More than 20 years after his death, it’s not uncommon to see people wearing Nirvana t-shirts and hoodies… In Utero got the Super Duper The Money Will Roll Right In Deluxe Edition treatment just last year and I’m sure it did very well…  The fame that ruined him has stayed almost as strong, long after the man has died.  It’s unlikely he will fade into obscurity, even if the music does.

What Montage Of Heck does achieve is creating a celebration of the man and explain who Kurt Cobain was when the media wasn’t around.  It's about putting some flesh and soul on the cult cardboard cutout Dead Rock Star (registered trademark, patent applied for).  He was someone who thought being a rock star was ‘the answer’.  He then unexpectedly became the biggest rockstar in the world, and maybe hadn’t realised in advance how much privacy and freedom he would lose in return.  He looks much, much happier in his home videos, dicking around with the wife he obviously loved, than the footage of interviews where his face says ‘not another, another fucking interview’.  Quite often he’s hiding his face so you can’t even tell that much. The quotes from his journals have to be taken with a pinch of salt, because everyone self-dramatizes in their diaries.  But bearing that in mind, they are still bitter about the same themes – fame and its related problems, heroin addiction and the stomach pains he seems to have almost constantly felt.

The fact is, he was a funny, talented, troubled guy who and frankly didn’t need all the shit that fame brought him – his life becoming a story consumed by the media, who sold it to us (and we bought it willingly), the easily gotten heroin and all the rest of it.  The film ends with a caption saying that Kurt took his own life one month later.  At the time, my reaction was that it was abrupt, and disappointment that they weren’t going to analyse his suicide in more depth.  And then, the other day I realised why I was slightly disturbed by my reaction – almost disgusted.  In a film which shows a man’s personal home videos and recordings, including those of him as a child, I still wanted more…  I literally wanted blood.  The whole film is scattered with things never intended to be seen by anyone outside of the the Cobains’ circle of family and friends; Kurt’s journals were a highly personal stream of consciousness which for all we know he would have been embarrassed about anyone else reading.  And I’m there consuming his private life as entertainment, and wanting more even after so much has been given. 

Intentionally or not, this film reminds the audience of the part they played in his death.  He gave as much as he could, and his audience always wanted more.  And he felt he couldn’t give anything anymore.  So he stopped.