TV REVIEW : MTV’s ‘Year’ Looks at Cobain, Woodstock

This year in rock, by most media accounts, pretty much consisted of Kurt Cobain going to his grave, Elvis Presley rolling over in his grave, Trent Reznor wishing he were dead and the kicking of a dead horse at Woodstock II.

MTV focuses on Cobain, Reznor and Woodstock (stock having been the operative word there) in the 1994 edition of “The Year in Rock,” eulogizing the late Nirvana leader at greatest length but stopping just short of wistfully proclaiming the day the music died.

Unlike past years, the wrap-up gives only a brief nod to the woolly world of gangstas in trouble, quickly summarizing Tupac Shakur’s legal run-ins, for example, with a map outlining his four-city “national courtroom tour.” Congressional hearings instigated by a black women’s caucus on the ill effects of violent rap are represented mainly by Dr. Dre’s defense, as he tests the waters, perhaps, for a political career of his own: “The only thing they’re trying to do is take away jobs. This is our job.”

Non-music news that overlaps on MTV’s demographics is given a breezy once-over, from A.C. Cowlings boogying with porn stars to school prayer issues to the Bobbitts to co-host Tabitha Soren’s incongruous but tenable apologia for the Clinton Administration. Soren takes the position that a hostile media have brushed over Clinton’s pushing through more substantial legislation than several preceding Presidents combined and she believes in this so much that she respectfully waits till the end credits to reprise her part in the “boxers-or-briefs” scandal.

The hour passes so quickly that individual artists rarely get much due, though the vigilant MTV editors work in at least subliminal glimpses of most of the relevant newcomers. Non-Woodstockians may feel that a bit too much time is devoted to justifying how the network bought rights to Woodstock coverage, though the Kurt ‘n’ Trent segs are duly illuminating.

Interestingly, Soren and Kurt Loder seem to be trying to compensate for any perceived lack of chemistry with a markedly Howard Hawksian kind of rapid-fire banter. You watching, Dan and Connie?

* “The Year in Rock” airs at 7 tonight on MTV, with repeat showings Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.