I can now say that I think I now know how Trent Reznor and Kurt Cobain must have felt.
Yeah, you better believe I'm putting myself in the same category of my teen years heroes. The thing is, both of these artists gained some popularity during the 90s, breaking through the underground barrier to expose the mainstream to grunge and industrial music. With both good and bad outcomes. But that's not what this is about. And no, it's not that I am a young, successful musician. Nor have I had some sort of destructive relationship with Courtney Love. Thankfully.
These artists had a song each that, while great songs, are certainly not their best but at the same time is what got them their notoriety. That's right, I'm talking about 'Closer' and 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. I'm sure when Trent and Kurt were writing their respective songs they finished them, recorded them and thought "Not bad. Bit of fun. Might make a good single." Little did they know that these songs would end up being their "cross-over" songs in to the mainstream and end up being played relentlessly on quasi-alternative radio stations and music video shows as well as put on to every mix tape made by scraggly-haired, flanno-wearing teens in the mid 90s. Eventually these songs permeated the pop-culture landscape and ended up defining these bands and the 90s. The downside of this is that Trent and Kurt no doubt grew to hate these songs as they would have been expected to play them over and over at live concerts no matter how much new and better material they had.
How does this relate to me? Well, you'll notice a little widget I have on the side of my blog called "Feedjit". A handy little thing that tells you when people visit your blog, where they came from, where they left to and so on. Ever since my entry on grammar, I have been getting a fair bit of traffic. However, I feel as though my gramamr post is my Closer or Smells Like Teen Spirit. Yes, my most popular blog entry was the one where I went in search of humourous pictures of poor grammar in public and posted them on my blog. Among other things, this may have contributed to my dry spell blog-wise. Or it may not.
So what does this mean? Absolutely nothing, actually. I really don't care how people come across my blog, or whether or not they come across it at all. I have worked in community radio, I know all about the expectations of no-one listening/reading. I just needed an impetus to write a new blog. Sure, I could have written about my big interstate move from NSW to Tasmania. But maybe I'll leave that for another time. Maybe.
