ROCK MUSIC Death enhances legend of Nirvana star Cobain

Kurt Cobain's journals were used in a biography about him.
TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE
Had he lived, Kurt Cobain would be 37 years old.
Perhaps he still would be one of the biggest and most brilliant rock stars.
Maybe he would have collaborated with REM's Michael Stipe, a possibility that excited him near the end of his life.
He might have taken his music in bold, new directions, only hinted at by Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged in New York" album.
Or maybe he would have been swept into obscurity by the deluge of depression and drugs that ultimately destroyed him.
Nirvana fans are left pondering the possibilities a decade after Cobain extinguished them. Some time between April 5 and April 8, 1994, the troubled rock star committed suicide by shooting himself with a shotgun in the greenhouse behind his home in Washington state.
And the morbid truth is that, like James Dean, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, death has enhanced his legend.
"Every picture of Kurt Cobain was of a handsome young man," said Charles Cross, the Seattle author of the critically acclaimed Cobain bio "Heavier Than Heaven." "We never got the old Elvis."
Success of albums
And, by most accounts, Cobain never released a mediocre album.
Years later, Cobain's wife, rocker Courtney Love, loaned Cross stacks of Cobain's journals, which he combined with interviews with more than 400 sources to write Cobain's biography. Excerpts from the notebooks have since been published as "Journals."
After reading the notebooks, Cross said, he was amazed that Cobain lived as long as he did.
"When I read some of the things he was writing as a teenager, when he was planning suicide at age 15, helped me put it in a different perspective," he said.
"There were many times where I could see a turning point where Kurt could have gone down one road or another, and he chose, at every instance, the road that lead to death and addiction."
Seattle-based Sub Pop records issued Nirvana's debut album "Bleach" in 1989, still the indie label's best-selling album of all time.
Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman cited working with Cobain as a source of pride.
The record executive recalled Cobain as "a very funny, very quiet, contemplative, sometimes spacey guy. But he never struck me as somebody who had that sort of angst."
Nirvana soared to stardom in 1991 with the release of its second album, the breakthrough "Nevermind." The first single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" became a quick success, thanks to heavy airplay on MTV.
The album, which sold nearly 8 million copies, is touted as the 17th-best album of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. It is the only album released after 1982 in Rolling Stone's top 25.
Releases
The band released "Incesticide," a compilation of previously recorded tracks, in late 1992 and then pounded out "In Utero," released in 1993. After Cobain's death, the band released its "MTV Unplugged in New York," which had been recorded the previous winter.
Since Cobain's death, the band has released several live albums and compilations. No release date has yet been issued for a proposed boxed set, which likely will contain previously unreleased Nirvana material.
Cross said he has heard a few unreleased songs, which he said feature Cobain playing in a stripped-down bluesy mode the author compares to material by singer-songwriter Beck. But he warned fans not to expect a cornucopia of new songs on the box set.
"It's not really fair to tease people by saying there's some great stuff in the Nirvana vault," Cross said. "There is certainly some material that's worth hearing, [but] there's not a huge treasure trove of unreleased Nirvana."
Swan song
With the release of the "lost" Nirvana song "You Know You're Right" in 2002 -- a number Cobain wrote just months before his death and performed only once -- a fresh round of speculation emerged regarding the type of music Cobain might have written.
Hamish Rosser -- drummer for The Vines, a band immediately compared to Nirvana after its hit "Get Free" in 2002 -- said in a bootleg Nirvana recording that included a pair of unreleased songs, "White Lace" and "Strange," he could hear a new sound.
"I think [Nirvana] would have mellowed out," Rosser said. "You heard it on 'Heart Shaped Box' and the Nirvana 'Unplugged' CD. ... But it's hard to say ..."
Cross said Cobain wanted to move away from the loud, grunge style Nirvana popularized.
"Kurt was telling a number of friends that he was tired of screaming and that he wanted to do music that was more melodic, music that was prettier," he said.