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Cobain by Editors of Rolling Stone
Paperback from Little Brown & Company
Come
As You Are: The Story of Nirvana by Michael Azerrad
My favorite book about Nirvana. For one thing, it doesn't sensationalize,
but it doesn't gloss anything over. Having been active in the Seattle music
scene throughout Nirvana's obscurity, fame, and demise, I can vouch for
the accuracy of its description of the music community in the late '80s
and early '90s and Nirvana's role. And being in a band that's currently
climbing the ladder, I appreciated the many lessons this book has to offer
about the workings of the recording industry.
Best of all, because this book was written before Cobain's death, it
is not tinged with the "isn't this tragic" attitude that permeates many
books about Nirvana and Cobain. Instead, the book is vibrant with the energy,
excitement, and passion that swept local musicians the day "Nevermind"
was released, local audiences in the months after, the U.S, and--lest we
forget--the world, during Nirvana's more-than-15-minutes of fame.
Amazon.com Paperback: 336 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.92 x
9.08 x 6.16
Publisher: Main Street Books; (September 1, 1993)
ISBN: 0385471998
Heavier
Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross
The art of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was all about his private life, but
written in a code as obscure as T.S. Eliot's. Now Charles Cross has cracked
the code in the definitive biography Heavier Than Heaven, an all-access
pass to Cobain's heart and mind. It reveals many secrets, thanks to 400-plus
interviews, and even quotes Cobain's diaries and suicide notes and reveals
an unreleased Nirvana masterpiece. At last we know how he created, how
lies helped him die, how his family and love life entwined his art--plus,
what the heck "Smells Like Teen Spirit" really means. (It was graffiti
by Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna after a double date with Dave Grohl, Cobain,
and the "over-bored and self-assured" Tobi Vail, who wore Teen Spirit perfume;
Hanna wrote it to taunt the emotionally clingy Cobain for wearing Vail's
scent after sex--a violation of the no-strings-attached dating ethos of
the Olympia, Washington, "outcast teen" underground. Cobain's stomach-churning
passion for Vail erupted in six or so hit tunes like "Aneurysm" and "Drain
You.")
Cross uncovers plenty of news, mostly grim and gripping. As a teen,
Cobain said he had "suicide genes," and his clan was peculiarly defiant:
one of his suicidal relatives stabbed his own belly in front of his family,
then ripped apart the wound in the hospital. Cobain was contradictory:
a sweet, popular teen athlete and sinister berserker, a kid who rescued
injured pigeons and laughingly killed a cat, a talented yet astoundingly
morbid visual artist. He grew up to be a millionaire who slept in cars
(and stole one), a fiercely loyal man who ruthlessly screwed his oldest,
best friends. In fact, his essence was contradictions barely contained.
Cross, the coauthor of Nevermind: Nirvana, the definitive book about the
making of the classic album, puts numerous Cobain-generated myths to rest.
(Cobain never lived under a bridge--that Aberdeen bridge immortalized in
the 12th song on Nevermind was a tidal slough, so nobody could sleep under
it.) He gives the fullest account yet of what it was like to be, or love,
Kurt Cobain. Heavier Than Heaven outshines the also indispensable Come
As You Are. It's the deepest book about pop's darkest falling star. --Tim
Appelo - Amazon.com Hardcover: 400 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.22 x
9.56 x 6.46
Hyperion; ISBN: 0786865059;
Godspeed:
The Kurt Cobain Graphic by Barnaby Legg, Jim McCarthy, Flameboy, Peter Goddett, James McCarthy
Paperback from Omnibus Press
Kurt
Cobain by Christopher Sandford
Too many rock books--particularly those about the recently, luridly
dead--are hastily assembled from clippings and feature only the most superficial
assessment of the artist and music in question. It's a pleasure to report,
then, that veteran music journalist Christopher Sandford has produced a
solidly researched and coherently argued portrait of Nirvana's front man.
The author doesn't flinch from the ugly aspects of Kurt Cobain's personality
and lifestyle, nor is he wholly admiring of the music. This critical perspective
ultimately makes Cobain more human and his 1994 suicide more tragic. Amazon.com
Paperback: ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.12 x 8.31 x 5.51
Publisher: Carroll & Graf; ISBN: 0786703946; (October
)
