A collection of diaries from Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain has been released

The AST publishing house published a collection of diary entries and drawings by Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain entitled “Personal Diaries of the Nirvana Leader.” I got acquainted with the first Russian-language edition of the book, known in the original as “Journals” Igor Gavrilov.

Kurt Cobain’s material in The Personal Diaries of Nirvana’s Leader is undated, but arranged chronologically, from Nirvana’s early demos to their final album, In Utero (1993), to the notes of a schoolboy coming to grips with his sexuality and his place in the adult world for the first time. to philosophical essays by the most popular rock musician on the planet, who is experiencing problems with drugs and a public lifestyle. A more or less coherent story about the Cobain family appears somewhere in the middle of the book. His recordings rarely present a coherent narrative and are interspersed with his own comic strips, lists of favorite songs, press releases, letters and draft song lyrics.

Despite the fact that “The Diaries” deals with the events of the late 1980s – the first half of the 1990s, when there was no Internet yet, and the book was published for the first time in 2002, any Nirvana fan feels an internal connection with the author right now. He feels it even without books. Nirvana songs are still heard in teenagers’ bedrooms, in subways and at school parties. And the book explains in detail why Nirvana’s songs remain relevant for a very young generation.

Aspiring rock musicians recognize in the early experiences of the young Cobain their own formation. From 2024, Nirvana’s career appears to be a spark, especially if you focus on their second album, Nevermind (1991), and what happened after it. However, before “Nevermind” there was a search for his place on the stage: a difficult relationship with the Seattle label Sub Pop, an endless change of drummers, concerts in small clubs, the need to earn a living at a “normal” job (Cobain describes in detail his work in a cleaning company). Touring a little-known band only looks romantic in biopics, but here is a list of necessary tasks, recorded in Cobain’s diary: “At each stop, it is necessary to wash the van and check the oil, bearing lubrication, water, headlights, air pressure, steering wheel nuts, gear, water level in battery, radiator cap, brake fluid, windshield.”

Kurt Cobain describes in detail the hardships of the group in letters to his favorite musicians from the groups Screaming Trees, Melvins and Bikini Kill – also very young people. These letters are an invaluable source of information about how Cobain’s own creative personality was formed. Perhaps the main conclusion from his “Diaries” as a whole: a musician will not be any good if he himself is not an ardent music fan with a clear number of idols, if he does not listen to music constantly and does not think about it from morning to evening. Perhaps this is even more important than tormenting an instrument from morning to evening.

In one of his diary entries, Cobain talks about how he and Nirvana bass guitarist Krist Novoselic destroyed records from Krist’s collection: The Eagles, The Carpenters, Yes, Joni Mitchell. “For songwriters, there are obviously only two options,” writes the young Cobain, “a dark, tragic visionary a la Morrissey, Michael Stipe or Robert Smith, or a crazy white clown a la Van Halen, like, ‘hey, let’s have fun and forget about everything””. The Nirvana leader’s favorites are Screaming Trees, Butthole Surfers, Daniel Johnston, The Vaselines and The Melvins, plus many more groups that owe much of their subsequent fame to the fact that Kurt Cobain loved them. The lists of the musician’s favorites and favorite songs were constantly updated, and in general, Cobain reintroduces himself several times throughout the book, for example: “Hey, Nirvana is a trio that arose in the depths of the rural town of Aberdeen, Washington.”

“The Personal Diaries of the Leader of Nirvana” contains space not only for music, but also for reflections on television (“this is the greatest evil that exists on our planet”), the press (“journalists continue to subject my lyrics to pathetic Freudian analysis, although in 90% of cases can’t even make them out”), social hierarchy (“at the top of the food chain is still the white corporate male”) and music commerce (“all the kids will eat it up if it’s packaged properly”). Perhaps the most valuable social observation here is this: “90% of US adults had no desire to see or hear anything about Woodstock. 90% of the “Woodstock generation” is not made up of old hippies… Hippies are… a small herd of cattle who were never able to teach their older brothers and sisters love, peace and rejection of prejudice.” This is still a good answer to the question of why rock and roll did not save the world.