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Kurt Cobain 10 years later: What's in a
name?
Like few of his generation, Kurt Cobain's music 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.
Read Kurt Cobain bio
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