On May 17th, 2017, Chris Cornell died.
I understand analytics. I am aware that a good chunk of the audience for Odyssey is comprised of very young millennials. And you've probably all seen the news about this guy's passing on Facebook's trending section and scrolled past it when the name didn't ring a bell. But believe me, whether or not you realize it, you know him. You have heard his (utterly unmistakable, four-octave) voice.
But I'm not here to try to convince a bunch of youngins why the music of my day, which is approximately ten years before your day, was so much better. I'm not there yet mentally. Soon, I'm sure. I feel the bitterness of aging slowly consuming me.
I would like to throw out for just a moment how much Cornell's existence impacted my own. And, as is usually the case with the loss of anyone in our lives, I realized it too late.
My formative years spanned the 1990s. I was heavily influenced by the musical tastes of my brother, who is eleven years my senior, and a sister who is four years older than me. Their musical interests at the time revolved around metal, alternative, punk rock, and, of course, grunge. So these were my favorite genres from a very young age. I'm sure if cell phones and social media existed back then, my brother would have streamed a Facebook live video showing a four-year-old me headbanging to Metallica in the back seat of the family van.
I was eight years old, almost nine in 1994 in the days when MTV actually played music videos. What a concept, right? Cell phones didn't exist and we didn't own any gaming systems so I spent most of my free time rotting my brain via TV intake. Mostly MTV. And it was in 1994 that the music video for "Black Hole Sun" came out. See below:
And today, at just past 30 years old, I look back on my childhood and what elements helped me to become the person I am, and I would be absolutely remiss to not attribute a major staple of my personality directly to this song and this video (though I'll also give a fair amount of credit to the horror movies I definitely shouldn't have been watching as well as early Tim Burton).
I am nothing if not overtly macabre with one of the most morbid senses of humor you'll ever witness. And no, that's not a bad thing. I LIKE that about myself. People like that about me. It's one of my defining characteristics.
Anyway, I went on to continue enjoying the music of Soundgarden and, later, Cornell's venture with the remaining members of Rage Against the Machine sans Zach De La Rocha--what turned into Audioslave. I bought their CDs. I downloaded their MP3s. I loved it all.
But somewhere along the line, it became cool to make fun of that type of radio rock music. And my die-hard metal head friends didn't see Soundgarden or Audioslave as being up to snuff for our broody taste. And my love for this music fell by the wayside as a result of the power of suggestion.
The point I'm trying to make is this: Too many of us jump on board with poking fun at celebrities for the littlest things we don't like. I'm certainly guilty of it. Especially when it comes to the Kardashian family. But we tend to forget that despite their celebrity, despite their popularity, these people...well, they are people. They have struggles, too. They have feelings, too. They aren't blind to the crap that gets dished on them in so many internet forums. And it doesn't matter if 99% of the world loves you, your focus is placed on the 1% who don't.
I think of how we treat people who reach a certain point in their fame when just a few people call them out for their flaws. Think about Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia, and even the legendary Robin Williams. These people got too famous for some troll(s) who couldn't handle that other people loved them and had to find a way to tear them down. Even if the level of dislike was valid, these folks went the extra mile to make sure as many people as possible grew to be as hateful as they were.
And it reminds me of my love for Cornell and feeling like I didn't fit in if I still enjoyed his music. Like my friends wouldn't think I was as cool, as metal, as dark as they were because I liked a radio rock band. They had to pull me into their dislike rather than trying to understand what it was that I enjoyed about the music. I was a sucker. Most of us are.
And even yesterday morning as the news of Cornell's death broke, I first poked fun. I informed my partner that Cornell had died, and I sang a wordless garbled tune that mirrored "Like a Stone," mocking his raspy, mournful voice. The very voice that made him unique and unmistakable. And I feel guilt for that.
I spent the remainder of the day listening to, singing along with, and unabashedly enjoying everything he's ever written and played with sadness and regret in my heart.
This is likely a fairly specific and personal account. Not everyone hated Chris Cornell's music. The reaction to his death is mostly one of shock and sadness rather than a jaded celebration. But there was, for a time, a level of dislike for his music that would almost met the level of today's Nickelback bandwagon hate.
It’s a tragedy when our heroes die, period, but tenfold when it’s suicide which, when I started writing this article, was the suspected cause of death, and has since been confirmed.
I realize my jumping on the wagon and disliking a musician for no good reason isn't the reason he took his life. I'm saying that we've really got to think about who we're benefiting when we drag everyone else into our pointless hate.
Isn’t it just easier to move on when we don’t like someone or something? Ignore what we hear and don’t try to pull anyone else over to our point of view? Can't we just let people like what they like?
The only exception I can get behind is calling out garbage people for being garbage. You know, people whose life work and very existence has involved harming others on a habitual basis. Or even once, for that matter.
Save for instances of people who hurt others, live and let live.
I just know how I feel, even on this platform, when a hundred people love my writing, but one person in the crowd calls out something they don't agree with--even once writing a whole article just to criticize mine. I know how it eats at me. I can't even imagine what it would feel like to experience that scaled up by several million people.
Think about how you’d feel. As cheesy as it is, think about the golden rule. Let’s try to love more. Of course we can continue to have preferences. Of course we can still dislike things. But we don’t have to focus our energies on needless vitriol. It helps no one.
