When I spoke to Cross, he was fresh from reviewing the Soundgarden reunion gig at the Showbox at the Market in Seattle for Rolling Stone magazine. When I asked Cross about the show, Soundgarden’s first since their break up in 1997, he said it was “exciting”. “There was a sense of spontaneity”, he added, “that suggested anything could happen”. Cross also commented that although it was a “great show”, it also made him feel “sad” that we will “never see a Nirvana reunion show”. Cobain originally had a happy childhood. Every summer, the whole family would go to a cabin on the beach for vacation, and they would go skiing together in the winter. These were some of Cobain's fondest memories. However, the happy part of Cobain's childhood ended at the age of nine. Pero mientras los conciertos, la fama y el dinero llegaban (apoyados en gran medida de MTV cuando este era un canal de verdad) Kurt sufría no tan en silencio de múltiples circunstancias que le hacían imposible adaptarse a la realidad que el mismo había construido, era hipersensible, lleno de culpa, en una relación matrimonial llena de amor y conflictos, tenía serios problemas con las drogas, no se sentía a gusto con la dirección comercial que el grupo tomaba, no se sentía ético con su público, era azotado de fuertes dolores estomacales, fantaseaba con el suicidio, se alejó de sus amigos más queridos, era padre de una nena a la que temía decepcionar como sus padres hicieron con él y estaba atrapado en un pequeño cuerpo en el que nunca se sintió cómodo y que envejecía cada día alejándolo del ideal juvenil que la sociedad tanto publicita; en resumen Kurt tenía miedo y no sabía qué hacer para salir de aquel atolladero sin dejar muertos en la calzada. Así que hizo lo que pensó mejor para todos, fue el quien dejo su cuerpo para que los demás tuvieran que velarlo.

The parts about the song writing/lyrics were very interesting and made me want to get out those Nirvana Cds and listen to them with the context given by the book. In May 1968, when Kurt was fifteen months old, Wendy's fourteen-year-old sister Mari wrote a paper about her nephew for her home economics class. "His mother takes care of him most of the time," Mari wrote. "[She] shows her affection by holding him, giving him praise when he deserves it, and by taking part in many of his activities. He responds to his father in that when he sees his father, he smiles, and he likes his dad to hold him. He makes his wants known by yelling loudly at first, then crying if the first technique doesn't work." Mari recorded that his favorite game was peekaboo, his first tooth appeared at eight months, and his first dozen words were, "coco, momma, dadda, ball, toast, bye-bye, hi, baby, me, love, hot dog, and kittie." Definitive . . . Cross untangles the soul of a man. A powerful portrait. — USA Today Anthony DeBarrosThat's just one reason why this book about The Voice of Your Generation is valuable: it's proof that no one is born punk or even cool, but that it's an attitude one accrues by hanging around the right crowd. That's why the real heroines here aren't named Courtney but first girlfriend Tracy Marander and Bikini Kill drummer Tobi Vail, from whom KC learned most of his sexual politics. Lccn 2001024187 Ocr tesseract 4.1.1 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_module_version 0.0.5 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA19371 Openlibrary_edition

Published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Nirvana's landmark Nevermind album, this is an engaging, comprehensive biography of the group's resident genius, the much-lamented Kurt Cobain. Utilizing more than 400 interviews and Cobain's unpublished diaries, Heavier than Heaven recounts the meteoric rise and sudden descent of the Seattle-based singer. bn.com Michaels, Sean (July 24, 2014). "Courtney Love considering host of new Brad Pitts' for lead role in Cobain biopic". TheGuardian.com . Retrieved September 19, 2023. I question some parts about Courtney Love. The author made her seem like the more stable of the two. Which seeing what a mess she has been in recent years, I just question the way the author portrayed her in the book. Cobain's dark side also came to light, as he was able to calmly talk to friends about murder, rape, and suicide. At 14 years old, he told a friend, “I’m going to be a superstar musician, kill myself and go out in a flame of glory.” At the same time, he began smoking marijuana to escape his real life.I saw Nirvana in concert 4 months before Cobain took his life. After hundreds of live shows it still stands as one of my all time favorites. In fact it was the first concert I ever crowd-surfed at. I was able to get up close and personal with the band and, in doing so, saw that Kurt rarely looked up at the crowd. His eyes were glued to the floor most of the night. This book helped me to understand why. Given his recurrent heroin addiction, the debilitating stomach pain he'd fought for years, the constant fighting with Courtney, and his unhappiness with fame I can imagine that Kurt felt a pretty heavy burden on his shoulders during those years. That’s exactly what Courtney Love screamed as she waded her hands in the blood of her beloved dead husband and saved a piece of his shotgun shattered skull. His suicide was simply a pattern that he had repeated his whole life since his mother left his father when he was 7 years old. Before that event, he was a little boy that didn’t want to sleep because he didn’t want to leave his family. After that, he was a self-destructing, relationship sabotaging jerk. One of the themes most prevalent throughout the Biography of Kurt Cobain was that you can achieve almost anything if you keep at it. You can achieve almost anything because Kurt’s record tops the charts, he becomes famous worldwide, and he never listened to anyone who said he couldn’t do it. As the band's fame grew, so did the pressure on Cobain. In the face of so much attention on him, he became increasingly uneasy. His stomach problems and drug addiction grew more serious as he got more famous. Courtney's pregnancy temporarily lifted Cobain’s spirits. For the sake of the baby, he found a doctor to help him get clean and later went to the hospital. But Cobain struggled, repeatedly alternating between rehab, relapse, and then rehab again. More often, he had to take drugs to get rid of his painful stomachaches.

A fascinating read that manages to be respectful . . . and also critical. The short, unhappy life of Kurt Cobain now has its worthy biographer. He was an animal lover who took in strays and loved having a bathtub full of turtles in the middle of his dwelling. His home always smelled like the bottom of a litter tray. His teenage friends - you know, people who actually knew him as opposed to those who felt a 'connection' to him through his music - described him as 'the shape of suicide'; the journals he kept diligently from childhood right up to his death are filled with constant thoughts of suicide; his song lyrics are often frequent paeans to feelings of despair and alienation; he wrote (you may spot a bit of a theme here) several suicide notes during the final months of his life. He bought a gun days before his death. Most of you probably have heard of Nirvana, the most memorable band of the 90's, also because the tragedy that ended up the band, but what really stands out for me is the ethereal and timeless music.It was clear Cross had much interaction with the Nirvana frontman during his rise to fame but I was eager to find out what kind of relationship he had with Cobain. “Even as his biographer and someone who knew Kurt, I wasn’t his best friend. And I was editor of a music magazine. We were always gonna have the kind of relationship where he was gonna be sort of suspicious. He clearly respected what I did. I had the benefit of a biographer of going through Kurt’s personal effects and things. He kept copies of my magazines and articles that I had done among his stuff. That, I guess, is the ultimate compliment that a music star could pay a journalist. So, I was respected in the world he was in”. The author exhausted nearly every possible reference for this book, talking to everyone close to Kurt, as well as scouring through countless interviews and the journals to present a complete picture of an iconic figure. What comes through so strikingly is the story of a child who felt lost after the divorce of his parents and was never really able to reconcile those feelings, which show up in so many of his songs. It shows a person so driven to be accepted and adored, while possessing none of the traits one needs to cope with that adoration once it's given.

He really, really loved his parents and sister, which is why he reacted so strongly to the breaking of his idyllic home life. He cared deeply for his grandparents and other relatives. It was a middle-class house in a middle-class neighborhood, which Kurt would later describe as "white trash posing as middle-class." The first floor contained the living room, dining room, kitchen, and Wendy and Don's bedroom. The upstairs had three rooms: a small playroom and two bedrooms, one of which became Kurt's. The other was planned for Kurt's sibling—that month Wendy had learned she was pregnant again. Acabo de terminar este libro biográfico, escrito por el periodista Charles R. Cross sobre el cantante y autor kurt Cobain; y la verdad debo decir que es uno de los mejores documentos sobre la historia de la música que he podido tener en mis manos, al margen de una edición hermosa y bien cuidada por parte de la editorial Reservoir Books (que me hizo pensar mucho sobre el libro como objeto y su valor intrínseco) está muy bien documentado, es valiente y además muy interesante porque no solo nos cuenta una vida que entrelaza las vidas de toda una generación sino que nos da a conocer realidades alternaras sobre las ideas preconcebidas que muchas veces tenemos de nuestros ídolos.However, the book is shaped by the self-interests of the widow in question, the controversial Courtney Love, who would like to wash her hands of anything that may have played into Cobain's suicide, such as the affair she was allegedly having with Smashing Pumpkins vocalist Billy Corgan. That's understandable, but hardly makes for objective reading. I can't avoid feeling sad reading this tragic tale, but sometimes we have to stand face to face with others' struggles so we can learn to put things in perspective and learn. Here's what I learned: life is our most valuable gift.