X is the Y of Z

“X is the Y of Z” is a snowclone–an adaptable, Mad Libs-like idiom like “May I compare thee to an X?”, “X is the new Y,” and “I for one welcome our new X overlords.” This snowclone touches on every subject imaginable, including music. So without further adieu, today’s topic is…

Kurt Cobain

Though experts agree his music was, to use a technical term, “awesome,” the name of Kurt Cobain has marinated in lexical juices that are a little less groovy.

Based on the examples below, it seems that depression and suicide have barnacled to his name just as firmly as his songs and flannel shirts. Sigh.

I think I’ll go put on Nirvana Unplugged and reminisce about the 90’s, when Seinfeld and Bill Clinton frolicked so happily through the forests of innocence and grunge. Sigh.

“Will Jay-Z tone down his ‘reality rap’ now he’s got Obama on speed dial? What would he play Noel G to get him into hip-hop? And, asks Malik Meer, does he really reckon he’s the Kurt Cobain of hip-hop?”

(Sept. 3, 2009, FYI Music News)

“Kate was grunge. She was the Kurt Cobain of mannequins. She rocked, but in a whole new way. And the outrage was palpable. She was ‘the waif.’ And suddenly everyone was concerned about whether she was getting enough to eat. For someone who grew up on Twiggy, I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. To me the shocking thing about Kate was that she was 5 foot 7. But suddenly she was blamed for anorexia and things like ‘heroin chic.’”

(July 20, 2009, The Fashion Spot)

“I hate to be thought of as the Kurt Cobain of the Philippine call center industry, but really, I can’t see a light at the end of this career. I imagine this whole building as a hellish machine. You get in every night and you become part of a torture chamber which sucks the juice from your pain. The whole industry is powered by thousands of little gerbil called contact center agents.”

(May 28, 2009, Livejournal)

“Band number two does things very differently. Temp Sound Solutions (tempsoundsolutions.com) is the musical incarnation of Shawn Phase, an amazing musician who has been creating video game music covers and more for over a decade. He has been called the Kurt Cobain of video game cover bands, and with good reason. Temp Sound Solutions is like a grunge rock melding of classic video game tunes, lo-fi sounds and energetic guitar and drum work. Temp Sound Solutions has covered hundreds of video game tracks, including many obscure games from the NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64 and more through his Now Your Playing With Powar series of albums. You can get a taste of what Temp Sound Solutions is all about with this track of his from Now Your Playing With Powar 7 (the song kicks in at about the 45 second mark).”

(April 6, 2009, iuwii)

“I miss Jason Roeder. He was the Kurt Cobain of Cracked bloggers.”

(June 2, 2008, Cracked)

“Are they saying ‘Praise God’?  I can’t make out the words. Not that I want to. They’re like the Kurt Cobain of choirs.”

(March 13, 2008, Rumproast)

“Into this tangle of darkness and doubt, a fair-haired young man ~or he was a young man~ has appeared, like a beacon. He is not a young man now, but he was, and a wild one at that. He was the Kurt Cobain of my high school, our very own Drug Store Cowboy; the boy most likely to crash and burn, a boy who had experienced more tragedy and loss in the first decade and a half of his life than most people experience in a lifetime. He was a boy who struck fear and sadness in the hearts of the staff, not because they feared him, but they were afraid for him; as he was hell bent and single-minded on his path to self-destruction. There was literally every reason in the book for him to fail, and no reasonable hope of him living to adulthood.”

(March 3, 2007, Wheel Revolution)

“Albert Einstein always appears to be such a kind and gentle character in photographs, with that whispy white hair, puppy eyes and too-big knitwear — the Kurt Cobain of theoretical physics. But psychologists have discovered that students find photos of Einstein subconciously intimidating, and will do significantly worse in exams when Einstein’s seemingly innocent portrait stares down on them in silent mockery.”

(Dec. 21, 2006, Chris Stevens, CNET UK)

“I had heard before that there was a rash of copycat suicides in Europe after the novel appeared in 1774–Goethe (or his fictional Werther) was the Kurt Cobain of the 18th century.”

(Oct. 13, 2006, Amidaworld)

Mark Peters is a language columnist and humorist who writes for Good, Visual Thesaurus and other mags, while maintaining too many blogs, including Wordlustitude, The Rosa Parks of Blogs, and The Pancake Proverbs.

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