Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 11, 1994 TAG: 9404110176
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TOM MOON KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Cobain - whose body was discovered in his Seattle home Friday, a shotgun across his body and a handwritten suicide note nearby - didn't set out to be spokesman for a confederation of teenagers coping with turbulent family life, dim job prospects and generally lowered expectations.
His songs, which wrapped declarations of despair in abrasive guitar blasts, forced him into the role. Nirvana's 1991 hit ``Smells Like Teen Spirit,'' with its demand ``here we are now, entertain us,'' became a worldwide rallying cry for young people whose lives have been ruled by media manipulation.
In blunt, fragmentary and often dissonant compositions, Cobain wrestled with his demons, and channeled his loner perspective into acute, painfully detailed imagery. He poured fatalistic humor and vague disquiet into songs about the plight of downwardly mobile youth, and ennobled the feeling of worthlessness he shared with many in his audience.
A heroin user who was prone to depression and random fits of rage, he was unafraid to examine his self-destructive impulses. One such impulse ended his life, but many others were used constructively - in songs concerned with guilt, mental illness and violence against women.
Cobain never adjusted to stardom: Last year's ``In Utero,'' the most recent Nirvana release, finds the singer reacting to the responsibility of his unasked-for role as a spokesman. The album's closing song, the elegiac ``All Apologies,'' contains the lines: ``What else could I write?/I don't have the right.''
He was often visibly uneasy in performance and - despite the fact that ``Nevermind'' has sold nine million copies worldwide - he avoided rock-star trappings.
Cobain never cared about money. With contemptuous pleasure, he and his bandmates were among the first to throw sand in the overly groomed face of '80s corporate rock. And, in an irony that often pained Cobain - who equated success with selling out - Nirvana achieved superstar status in the process.
Cobain didn't just sing and play mean guitar, he mocked the excesses of rock. His roar was as primal as any in the animal kingdom, and the revolution he jump-started changed the direction of rock-and-roll.
The slight, soft-spoken Cobain will be remembered as the architect of grunge, the punk-derived offshoot responsible for the most creative rock music of the last decade. At its start, the music spoke mainly to a younger, less affluent, classic-rock-abhoring audience. But by 1991's ``Teen Spirit,'' and the subsequent success of like-minded Seattle groups Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, grunge had become a pop fixture.
Nirvana codified grunge, gave it character. Other bands emulated the molasses-thick guitar distortion, but few could replicate this trio's intensity: When Cobain wondered ``What is wrong with me?'' on ``Radio Friendly Unit Shifter,'' his voice teetered on the edge of panic.
An upheaval expert, Cobain was able to scream convincingly, using his voice as pulverizing counterpoint to the guitar. He didn't communicate in complete sentences or elaborate arguments: His lyrics were stream-of-consciousness insights suited to the short attention spans of his audience.
Cobain didn't consider himself a lyricist in the traditional sense.
``None of my poems are coherent at all,'' he told the New York Times last year. ``They have no themes whatever. They're not based on anything. It's just a bunch of gibberish.''
It was easy to miss what Cobain was singing anyway. Though he considered the choruses of ``Teen Spirit,'' ``Heart Shaped Box'' and other songs important, they were buried beneath the band's punishing instrumental attack.
Nirvana's hard, loud playing overshadowed an underlying precision: For every bludgeoning power chord, there was a moment of tense, pointillistic development. Where most bands operated at a steady roar, Nirvana explored wide loud-soft contrasts and moments of tension and release.
Density was another frequently used compositional device: Cobain didn't want the songs merely to be appreciated on an intellectual level. He wanted them to be ``felt.''
Of all the musicians involved with grunge, Cobain was the least likely leader. His parents' divorce, when Cobain was 8, devastated him. Living with his mother in the remote logging town of Aberdeen, Wash., the blond, ice-blue-eyed boy felt like an outcast. His alienation grew more severe in high school, when he began pursuing music and art rather than sports. He met Krist Novoselic, later Nirvana's bassist, while in high school, and the two, devoted followers of punk, formed an instant bond.
Though an avid reader - a fact he hid from classmates - Cobain dropped out of school, a move that led his mother to kick him out of the house. He lived with friends - and, for a time, underneath a bridge - before moving to Seattle, where he formed Nirvana in 1987. The group's first album, ``Bleach,'' for emerging Seattle independent label SubPop, cost less than $700 to produce.
Dave Grohl, a professional drummer out of Washington, D.C., joined the band in 1990, just before the recording of ``Nevermind.'' A bidding war ended with Nirvana signing with Geffen Records and the phenomenal success of ``Nevermind.'' There were instrument-smashing performances on ``Saturday Night Live'' and massive crowds for shows. And pretty soon, the anti-star Cobain discovered he was a star.
As he told the Los Angeles Times last year: ``We had grown up admiring punk bands and thinking all those groups on the pop charts were embarrassing ... and suddenly we were one of those bands. So, we thought we'd better screw this up and we tried for a while.''
No one tried harder than Cobain, who had a history of stomach trouble he ``self-medicated'' with heroin and other drugs. He married singer Courtney Love, leader of the band Hole and also a heroin user. The couple went through a series of media trials - and at one point lost custody of their infant daughter, Frances Bean - before settling down to a more conventional family life.
Cobain went on the road during the fall, and in city after city, Nirvana's shows were hailed as masterful. In interviews, Cobain presented himself as a happy man - saying that being with his daughter was the ``best drug'' he'd ever had.
Then in early March, he took a few days off from a grueling European tour to be with Love in Rome. After mixing champagne and tranquilizers, he lapsed into a coma and spent several days in the hospital. He returned to the United States and his record label said he was recuperating.
In reality, it's now known, he checked himself into a California treatment facility, presumably for drug addiction. His mother, Wendy O'Connell, filed a missing-person report last week when Cobain fled from the facility and purchased a shotgun. He seemed suicidal, O'Connell told police, and neither she nor Love knew where he was. When Cobain's body was discovered on Friday, he had been missing for six days.
Kurt Cobain died like a stereotypical tortured artist - TV turned on, alone in the house. But he wasn't typical in any respect. He didn't want to carry the banner for a generation. He was self-conscious about success. And away from music, he could appear lost.
He was confused, but he did what few artists in popular culture do anymore - he used personal turmoil as fuel for great music. It didn't always make sense or lead to orderly pop songs. But it was ``real.''
by CNB