I finished reading the biography of Kurt Cobain, Heavier Than Heaven written by Charles Cross, just in time for what would have been his 41st birthday. My conclusion?Kurdt (that’s how he liked to spell it) was a jerk!

Cortney Love had the crowd call him worse things when she read his suicide note to them.

I was not an active and avid fan of Nirvana when their singer Kurt Cobain killed glam rock with his nonsensical screams and pop structured punk grunge tunes. I liked their music though, and I remember wondering,

“Why is he singing about girl’s deoderant?”

As I listen to the Nirvana albums today, I realize that I know practically every song. I guess you can’t be a teen in the early nineties and escape the impact Nirvana had on that generation.

I try to imagine what I would have done if the idol of my own teen years, Tori Amos, had committed suicide while I was in the midst of using her music and voice as a resonator for my young soul. I would probably have sobbed in grief silently under my bed covers with her album on repeat, or maybe I would have smashed her cds on the street in effigy at the betrayal. Whatever the physical actions, I know for sure that the piercing and torturous scream in my head would have been:

“WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!….”

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.

To be fair, Kurdt wasn’t all bad.

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.

He was incredibly respectful of women, more feminist than the feminist punker girl love interest that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was written about. His song “Polly” is as poignant a song about rape as Tori Amos’s “Me and A Gun (and a man on my back).”

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.

He really, deeply, truly loved his wife and daughter. Why else would he name his albums In Utero the year after his marriage and daughter’s birth?

Though a drug addict, he called Courtney and cried when drug addicts worshipped him at a concert. He couldn’t stand being an icon for drug use.

Kurdt was charismatic, drawing people into his life with his sincere kindness and empathy as well as the siren song of his art.

But he was a control freak. He would create something real and genuine then quickly destroy it himself before someone else could. It was his way of protecting himself from loss. He broke everything precious to him the way he smashed his guitars. He had attempted suicide multiple times.

As I read the biography, I had thought that I would become so invested in its main character that I would be very sad for him when he died. Unexpectedly, there were three other moments instead that were intensely painful to vicariously witness. First was a short conversation he had with his estranged father where they actually exchanged an awkward and heartfelt “I love you.” Then there was the moment when he held his daughter for the last time and whispered into her ear before he went off to kill himself. Finally, there was Cortney’s reaction to his death. She had covered herself in layers of his clothes that still had the lingering scent of his body. Like all deaths, it’s the ones left behind that suffer.

Cross did a great job allowing readers a glimpse into Cobain’s life and mind. I’m a bigger fan of Nirvana after reading the book. As I read his description of Kurdt in the actual act of suicide, the image of him abandoning family, friends, and millions of adoring fans who had linked their hearts and souls with his caused me to whisper under my breath:

“How could you?”

Granted it wasn’t like all of his family, friends, and fans were perfect people, but it is heartbreaking to see so many hearts break.

What makes for a musical legend? Hard to pinpoint, but dying young helps a lot. I’ll have to bring you all to my generation - I was born in 1980, which means I was a teenager during Nirvana, Tupac, and Biggie. All three died untimely deaths, these last three are the most recent legends I can think of. Coincidence?

Nirvana’s Nevermind album hit the youth hard. At a time when Guns N’ Roses and hair were big, Nirvana felt like a breath of fresh air. It’s as if they were here to say, “Fuck the embellishing, let’s just make the point”. The title itself was the perfect word to sum up my generation - whilst the punk generation said “nevermind the bollocks”, the grunge generation didn’t even care to mind the “bollocks”. This is the culture that brought Kurt Cobain to the forefront - but while we all acted depressed and moped about existentialism, Kurt Cobain actually shot himself dead at the height of his popularity. Imagine if he had gotten over his depression and had not killed himself… what if he wrote albums that got worse with each new release? Nirvana could’ve been that band that wrote “Nevermind” and no more. Instead Kurt died and became an instant legend. He is currently the highest, money-earning, dead celebrity.

I remember hearing NWA in elementary school. Get this - my friend had a shoe box hidden under his bed. In that shoe box underneath newspaper clippings were unmarked mix tapes. It was within those cassettes that I got my first taste of gangsta rap. It was so bad ass, that I was sweating for fear that we would be caught listening to Dre, Easy, and the gang. That’s what hip hop was all about during my teen years; that danger, that energy, and that flow that came from hip hop. Although Snoop was huge (Doggystyle was released in 8th grade for me), Tupac and Biggie summed up the feeling I got when I first listened to NWA. All Eyes on Me and Life After Death… amazing. Two of the best hip hop albums ever; one released before one’s death, the other after. Just like Nirvana, could it be possible that if the two continued to live, they would’ve lost some of that icon status? Not only are their deaths related to a famous feud, but the music caught them at their creative peaks. Thirty years from now will Snoop Dogg be considered a legend? As important as his role in hip hop has been, I’m not quite sure. Will Tupac and Biggie still be legends? You bet.

So the lesson is - if you wanna ensure musical legend status, die at the peak of your career. You listening, Kanye?

From barsukrecords on YouTube:

Based on more than 25 hours of never-before-heard audiotaped interviews conducted by noted journalist Michael Azerrad, the movie KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON is an intimate and moving portrait of the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, told entirely in his own voice — without celebrity soundbites, news clips, sensational or tabloid angles. It’s who he was from the man himself, with cinematic imagery shot on film of the three cities in Washington State that played a major role in his life (Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle) and set to an evocative score by noted Northwest musician and producer Steve Fisk and Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard, as well as the music of more than 20 artists who influenced or touched Cobain during his life. Kurt Cobain About A Son opens in select markets in October.