You make it sound like this is a bad thing. What's wrong with artists just putting out good music without a larger than life ego and "rock star" lifestyle?

It may also have more to do with the state of radio and the recording industry than anything Gen X did or didn't do. We're into niches so small now that there isn't a chance for anyone to transcend like the old top 40 days. I think there's a much more DIY ethic in the rock world these days where everyone is putting out their own records and networking via MySpace. There's not a lot of record company money and promotion and hype available.

Maybe also tastes have changed. You've got a lot of big hip-hop stars. And your Justin Timberlakes and so forth out there these days.

Gen X killed the corporate pawn.

The rock star still lives and breathes among us. The internet and the DIY attitude of this decade is cutting off the middle men and shareholders. Sure, this may mean less exposure, less profits, but it does mean the rock star gets more control in the situation.

Mainstream music is dominated by largely manufactured artists. Records companies realized that by creating their own 'artists' and carefully controlling their image was a much safer long-term investment than hoping they were lucky enough to pick and nuture a band that might one day turn into the next U2, sell a gazillion albums and then negotiate a much more favorable deal for themselves than Britney Spears ever could.

Radio is dead, MTV no longer plays music. Anyone serious about music no longer relies on who is the latest big star and does their own legwork on the Internet.

Nonconformity by actually being individualistic?

It was when Johnny Depp did that "Great Wide Open" video for Tom Petty that the rock star died. Sure, someday he'd straighten up, do that album with "P", become a pirate and wipe out the whole 21 Jump Street thing, but at the time, who knew. All we saw was Johnny Depp as a famous singer, big crowds, ruined motorcycles and we were scared. There but for the grace of God went Dom Delouise's kid.

Looking back, maybe we were wrong. Who knows what heights the Hootie or Alanis Morrisette would have climbed had Gen X not buckled. But blame not Cobain anymore than you'd blame Jim Morrison for killing the crazed drugged-out performance artist-star in U.S. culture.

Your examples of greatness are artists that are either crap (Guns and Roses) or overblown marketing machines that put out a couple of truly excellent early albums then became abominations and parodies of themselves.

If that's what rockstars are all about then, please, let's have a funeral!

I was born in 1970, which puts me smack dab in the middle of Gen X or right at the end, depending on who does the counting.

First of all, the whole notion of a "generation" is a ridiculous concept with no inherent meaning. remember: we were the wannabe yuppies/Alex Keatons of the world in the 1980s who had turned our backs on our parents' hippy idealism and then when the economy went south, we became the slacker/Ethan Hawke character in Reality Bites, although two years previously we were lumped together as the Ben Stiller character.

Kurt Cobain wasn't the voice of a generation. he was the voice of a fad that was marketed to nth degree by MTV. Wow, isn't Kurt cool to wear a "corporate rock magazines suck" tshirt on the cover of Rolling Stone! The irony is so deep! We must be so together and smart to get it.

On rock stars, eh, fuck 'em. Who needs them? The last stadium show I went to was in about 1995, and I should have stopped 2 or 3 years previously, I just wasn't smart enough to realize it at the time. Really, is there anything more contrived and soulless than a stadium show, which seem to be a prereq for rock stars? I can't imagine it.

Good riddance. Maybe I'm just old, but i'd prefer to sit around with three friends and our crappy guitar skills, singing off tune and drinking beer than spend a penny to go watch a concert where I can either see that tiny speck on the stage or watch him in technicolor on the jumbotron. no thanks.

As far as I understood, a good chunk of the music of the venerable Gen X bands was constructed as a reaction to the overblown 'Rock Stars' of the 80's. Soundgarden summarized this quite succinctly in 'Jesus Christ Pose'. The Gen X alt-rock consortium that had a great deal of success in the early 90's were very much an outgrowth of the independent music of the 80's, who were in turn very influenced by punk and its ilk, and its DIY/anti-establishment bent. A great case-study in this, especially in contrast to the more sensationalized story of Nirvana, comes from a band like Pavement.

1. So now the music columnist also has the task of trolling the readers with "provocative" comments?

2. edgore's notion that Springsteen and U2 put out a couple of decent albums and then faded is shopworn critical snarkodoxy. Reflexive dismissal of those two is so 1998.

How odd that you mention rap, but not the other big movement that followed Gen X--the indie rock phenomenon. Looking around at the mainstreaming of indie bands--such as Death Cab for Cutie, The Hold Steady, Arcade Fire, and others--it would seem that bands and music alike couldn't be less interested in producing the next rock giant. To the contrary, it's a virtue to be the little guy right now.

That said, The Killers have potential to be Rock Icons, given that 1) they nakedly desire to be, 2) they appeal across generation lines, and 3) they wisely pilfer from Icons past.

...this article should be celebratory. If you were to have told Kurt Cobain before he died that he may be indirectly responsible for the end of "Rock Stars", I think he would have been ecstatic. It's not for nothing that the same scene that he came out of also produced an indie label called "Kill Rock Stars". One of the most important aspects of the DIY aesthetic of which Nirvana was definately a part is that the separation between musicians and the audience is not necessary. Bloated pretentious rock stars are people just like their audience, and the need to put these people on a pedestal, separate from their audiences, is in the past. The wall between musician and listener is not nearly as big as it used to be, and this is a good thing.

Also lacking from this article is recognition of how technology plays into this. The internet allows independent musicians of all styles to reach their audiences in new ways. No longer are they dependent on corporations to get their music out there, and so they are no longer marketed in the same way that the major labels push their artists. Without this corporate whoring, it's possible to make music, make your money, and still maintain some semblance of humanity.