Lake of Fire

Nirvana, a grunge rock band formed in Washington, entered the mainstream in the early 1990s. The band wore long untidy hair, checkered shirts, and feature in degenerated look; and the lead singer, Kurt Cobain, was referred by the media as the “spokesman of a generation.” The ideology that was promoted by the music industry behind the filthy style of the popular rock band was the dispirited attitude of 1990s teenagers. The booming of information technology created an uncertainty and quickly fickle age for 1990s teenagers. The youth culture thus formed an ideology that questions the meaning of life and the point of existence.
At that point of time, grunge rock became popular due to its nihilistic and dissatisfied lyrics. The music industry is not necessary the means of controlling institution because music industry itself also depends on the ideology of the public. It is true that the symbolic image the industry sells preaches subconsciously unilateral value to the public; but the selling also depends on market demand. The attitude and life style of a rocker only pleases certain group of customers, the ideology of self-indulgent does not become mainstream solely by the promotion of the industry. In other words, the ideology must fit the public taste, and the demand of public enhances the ideology broadcasting by the music industry.
The song, Lithium, which had brought Nirvana to fame, tells the story that a man finds religion as a place to rest after he lost his girlfriend. However, the lyric shows disappointment in human relationship, and indicates a spiritual or a non-exist friend is more trust worthy than actual human beings where “I've found my friends ...They're in my head.” In Nirvana’s live performance video, a white trash like young man who wore untidy long hair, painted face, and with an African style mask on the back of his shirt, were dancing wildly and shaking his head violently along with music. The white faced “clown” acted high; his role unconsciously encourages young people to get away from reality, to avoid the problem, and to get temporary happiness from illusory state of being high. The lead singer, dressed in long cloak, symbolized God himself, but instead gave light and direction to his audience, he delivered the cynical song with an ending of “I love you, I am not goanna crack; I kill you, I am not goanna crack.” The anger of contradictive relationship was not eased, but let off with a hysteria clamor. Such ideology perfectly fits the psychology of young people.
Social order was not violated much in the video despite the song, lyrics, and the culture it presented to the audience. The band, the song itself has far more effect on the social disorder than the video. The people who receives the message from the song might create more disturbances to others, and thus cause problems to social order. However, the video itself does not do so.