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Kurt Cobain 10 years later: What's in a name?
Like few of his generation, Kurt Cobain produced music that is still with us, 10 years after his suicide on April 5, 1994. Short-lived as the promise of "grunge" was, and disposable as much of the hit music of the '90s was no doubt intended to be, the songs of Nirvana's reluctant titan can still be found roaring out of our music collections and radios alike, with as much potency as they revealed on first listen. His songs point to a future that wasn't to be: At the height of the popularity of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Kurt quietly admitted in interviews to loving The Beatles' "Rubber Soul," and still later, that "Pennyroyal Tea" from "In Utero" was a glimpse of where the budding songsmith was heading. Though his life ended with those paths untaken, his sound came to define a legion of copy-cat bands and wannabes still in evidence today. And while in pictures his youth is forever frozen in time, like the photos of Bruce Lee eternally in his prime, Cobain's songs show no signs of becoming dated. Kurt Cobain's name evokes no mere cult of personality, or thin tragedy of youthful brilliance lost, but the unlikely, towering musical legacy of a career that spanned a handful of CDs. The Essential Kurt Cobain Album: "Nevermind" This is the sound of a band hitting its stride. "Bleach" was a good hard-rock record, but Nirvana's 1991 slab of raging rock was a modern punk masterpiece, a revelation that sounds as vital today as it did 13 years ago. Of the record's dozen songs, there's not a weak track in the bunch. From "Teen Spirit" to "Something in the Way," every song is a classic. Book: "Heavier Than Heaven" Cobain's biography by Seattle music writer Charles Cross was written with unfettered access to Kurt's personal journals, and the result is a meticulously researched and compulsively readable tome. Kurt's life, death and heroin addiction make for a lonely affair, but the book is accurate and fair and remains the definitive Cobain bio. Video: "Kurt and Courtney" Nick Broomfield's 1998 documentary about Kurt's relationship with Courtney Love is weighed down slightly by conspiracy theory and sensationalism, but the outcome ends up a compelling piece of cinema. Made without Love's cooperation (which much of the film details), the film contains not a single Nirvana song, yet still manages to completely suck viewers into the mad, mad world that surrounded the first family of grunge. |
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