One of my favorite lines in one of actor Jared Leto’s movies goes like this: “Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”
Kurt Cobain committed suicide 17 years ago yesterday. We didn’t make a big deal out of it for a few reasons. First, no disrespect to the reluctant harbinger of all things grunge, but news hasn’t been that slow around here. Also, it made us feel really, really old. Memories of fucking to Nirvana songs now, as someone pointed out, comes with the realization that we could have 17 year old children.
Believe you me, we are loathe to be put over that fence by something so disgusting as what I’m about to share with you. When we first saw it early this morning, we were too grossed out to pay it any mind at all. We ignored it as one would step over a wino passed out on the sidewalk with their pants full of their own human shit.
Hours later, the still-lingering disgust had corroded our patience. You know how that goes. You suddenly have to ruin everyone’s good time, and say, “You know what? No. Fuck this.”
A musician will pay respects to a fallen hero with a great cover song, or a righteous epitaph, if they even feel that entitled. It takes a real dip to play dress-up and audition for the lead in the fucking biopic like some kind of conceited emo vulture. That may be more than metaphor here, as Leto probably filmed this while trying to score the headline in the horrible, one-sided Gus Van Zandt movie that had to be reconfigured as only “loosely based” on Kurt Cobain when not even Courtney Love would sign off on the retarded, wildly inaccurate script. I digress.
This is the case against actors becoming musicians, and this is one more page in the file we’ve been building for about ten years, labeled “Why Jared Leto Is A Douche.” From dressing up like John fucking Lennon in white from head to toe and driving around Lollapalooza ’03 collecting random underage girls like a creep, to going whole tours without even saying hello to the opening band, this guy has his botoxed head so far up his own ass, he probably thinks this video is a tasteful homage, rather than what it really is: Mockery. He’s not performing these songs, as a musician would. He is imitating Kurt Cobain, as an actor would. A cliché caricature hunched over an acoustic guitar in a gray cardigan.
And you know what? Fuck this. Every time this guy picks up a guitar, he is imitating some rock star or another, real or imagined. He is, by definition, a fucking poser. And it’s a real shame this video doesn’t end with Jared Leto eating a shotgun.
Anyway, let us make up for that video by sharing this mixtape of genuinely interesting and inspired Nirvana covers that we found, featuring real musicians such as Tricky, Cibo Matto, Ben Gibbard, Manic Street Preachers, and Patti Smith. Hell, even Glasvegas got it right.
