“No one in higher esteem in rock”: The artist Jack Black considered to be the ‘King of Rock’
There’s a certain hierarchy when it comes to looking at the greatest artists to walk the Earth. Whereas most people like to automatically go to Bach and Beethoven when talking about the peak of musicianship, there are many tunes from musicians like The Beatles that will manage to last as long as the greatest names in classical music. And while Jack Black lives and breathes rock and roll every time he gets up in the morning, he admitted that only a few hold the status of the grand ruler of the genre.
Granted, we have to pay our due respects to Tenacious D when having this conversation. While Black’s rock and roll duo is far from the peak of rock and roll musicianship by any measure, it’s clear that their songs are meant as a genuine love letter to the genre, to the point where ‘Tribute’ feels like a comedic retelling of what it feels like to listen to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ for the first time.
And despite the fading relevance of rock and roll in recent years, Black has always been proud to fly the flag of the music he grew up on. There were many cases when shouting the praises of someone like Ozzy Osbourne could have been considered uncool, but it didn’t take much for Black to start rocking the devil horns and singing along to ‘Flying High Again’ if the time called for it.
Then again, it also helps that Black is a genuinely good singer as well. No one can have that amount of breath control without practising, and studying under some of the best in the business is definitely going to help with sustaining those vocal cords. But whereas someone like Freddie Mercury or David Bowie had their individual techniques when making their greatest hits, there was something a lot more primal in the way that Kurt Cobain delivered Nirvana tunes.
Compared to everyone else in the grunge scene, Cobain seemed to be genuinely in pain when he was singing, always sounding like he was on the verge of ripping his throat out during his performance of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. And while Black’s inclusion in a lighthearted version of the song on The Muppets could have been misconstrued as him mocking the grunge anthem, he knew that it was quite the contrary.
“I personally hold no one in higher esteem in the world of rock. Kurt Cobain for me is at the top of the pyramid. He was the king.”
Jack Black
Black always held Nirvana in very high regard, and he considered Cobain to be one of the true gods of rock, saying, “I personally hold no one in higher esteem in the world of rock. Kurt Cobain for me is at the top of the pyramid. He was the king…When he died, it was sort of the end of rock.” While rock has since prospered, it’s easy to see where Black is coming from when he says that.
Because looking at the aftermath of Nirvana, Cobain seemed like one of the last rock stars who had a major impact on society. There were bound to be more people like Billie Joe Armstrong or Jack White that kept rock and roll sounding new and exciting, but the minute that Cobain was found dead, it felt like even grandmothers who never once listened to rock in their lives felt the impact of his loss.
That was never the kind of attention that Cobain wanted in the first place, but Black knew that any Nirvana song was more than welcome in his record collection next to the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica. The grunge heavyweights may have been rebelling against that kind of music, but any fan had enough sense to recognise when they had a genuine artist on their hands.
