MCA is dead. So is my adolescence.

Quick thoughts on MCA’s death.

Just got off the phone with one my best buddies, who I called immediately after I heard. (Incidentally, he answered the phone by saying “MCA is dead.) We had the conversation: where does this rank in terms of “meaningful” musician deaths for Generation X? I’m tempted to say it doesn’t approach Kurt Cobain levels, but it might.

Brandon says it doesn’t because of the shock of Cobain’s death…not so much that we were surprised Kurt was dead, but that it came out of nowhere. Coupled with his “voice of a generation” label (despite his obvious discomfort with that distinction), it’s hard to understate the magnitude of Kurt Donald Cobain’s suicide, even 18 (!) years later.

On the flip side, we’ve known MCA had cancer since 2009, even if Hot Sauce gave us hope that he’d beaten it. Not only that, but MCA was part of a trio, and he (arguably) wasn’t the most recognizable Beastie Boy (that would be Ad Rock, wouldn’t you say?)

Me? I’m not so sure. I mean, Kurt just survived an overdose, and there were rumors of a Nirvana split. Grunge rockers were dying off at a pretty fast clip, so you can’t tell me there was any surprise that Kurt, who’d publicly battled drug addiction, had died. And, after all, he was 27 (see Morrison, Jim; Joplin, Janis; Hendrix, Jimi, for context there.)

Then there’s the body-of-work argument. Nirvana had four studio albums. All were, of course, fantastic and, at least in the case of Nevermind, genre-defining. But can’t you make that case for the Beastie Boys as well? Was Check Your Head and Paul’s Boutique as ground-breaking? I’m not saying they were, but you could make the argument.

So what do you think? MCA is probably No. 2, isn’t he (after Kurt)?