 Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton
Heavier than Heaven:
The Biography of Kurt Cobain
By Charles R. Cross, Published by
Hodder & Stoughton
 The 1990s saw Kurt Cobain and his band Nirvana redefine popular tastes in music with a loud and distorted mix of angst, punk and melody. By the end of Nirvana's ascension to the pantheon of rock gods and commercial success extraordinaire lead singer and songwriter Cobain had also redefined the young man's movie star cliché of living fast and leaving behind a good-looking corpse (though his method of suicide ruined some of the latter).
In a world full of troubled people, Kurt Cobain was the unhappiest. He didn't have a specific cause for his terrible unrest (suicide had long played a part in his family history), but serious drug use played a part. Ultimately an existence of roughly equal parts overwhelming sadness and blurred artistic vision (Cobain was also an gifted, if unconventional, artist in paint and textures) served to drive him to bring about his own untimely end.
Charles Cross' new biography of Cobain, Heavier than Heaven, teases out a man (actually a boy is probably a better description) who was obviously far too sensitive for this world - let alone living the frenzied largesse and media-magnified existence that comes with being an international rock star, albeit a reluctant one.
From his formative family years until his sad and pathetic end days, Cobain's life is laid bare in intimate detail (but never exaggerated or sensationalised) through exhaustive research and over 400 interviews with friends, lovers, enemies and family including several with partner, and mother of his child, Courtney Love.
Surprisingly, it's not a badly written book is the general scheme of things biographical - alongside its brethren of el cheapo 'biographies' on rock and roll legends, it's a genuine breath of fresh air one that does not fall into the obvious trap of over-praising sycophancy.
Let's face it, despite his talent and all the rest, Cobain was just another rock and roll casualty. And the more there are of those, the less important they seem to become.
I'll leave it to history to decide if this particular case was just another one in a musical fad that played itself out from the late 1950s until sometime in the early 21st century, or whether Cobain was a Van Gogh of our age.
One for the fans (of which there are a considerable amount) or for those born a bit earlier who are mystified by the whole Nirvana/Cobain appeal. Be warned though, it's not a pretty story. And there is definitely no happy ending.
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