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DARÍO PRIETO
Updated Friday, April 5, 2024-10:07
Oh,
Kurt
- blonde locks covering his face, screaming with his mouth glued to the microphone - so beautiful and so damaged. Continuously scribbling in your notebooks comics or lists of favorite albums, but also decalogues or vital principles, like the one that said: "Rule number 1: Don't learn to play an instrument. Rule number 2: Don't hurt the girls when dancing (or at any other time)". Kurt, you weren't ready to change music forever. Oh,
Kurt, you shot yourself 30 years ago
and you will remain forever and ever wandering here, among the lives of the living, always young and beautiful.
"I became obsessed and even cut and dyed my hair like him. I know too much about
Kurt Cobain
. I had posters with his face in my room, I have seen his interviews, his performances over and over again..."
Selena Gomez
was a year and a half (the same age as Frances Bean, the daughter Cobain had with
Courtney Love
) when the author of
Lithium
committed suicide in the greenhouse of his Seattle home on April 5, 1994, but in the When Jimmy Kimmel asked her who her biggest idol had been, the singer immediately pointed to the
leader of Nirvana
. She's not the only pop star of her generation who thinks this way.
Miley Cyrus has on several occasions worn t-shirts with
Kurt
's image
- or her iconic red and black striped Freddy Krueger sweater - and even dared to perform a version of
Smells like teen spirit
, the song that catapulted her as an emblem of
grunge
.
Billie Eilish
, who was not even born when Cobain pulled the trigger (she came into the world seven years later), also
cites him as a crucial influence in the writing of 'What was I made for', her song for the film's soundtrack. 'Barbie', with which he just won the Grammy for Best Song and the Oscar for Best Original Song. More specifically, she talks about the suicide note she left, which ended with a verse from 'Hey hey, my my (Into the black)', by Neil Young: "It's better to burn than to go out slowly." A "horrifying" farewell, according to Eilish. "The most tragic shit I've ever heard of. He was a pure person and talent. And I feel deep, deep sorrow for him and for how his life was. In the letter he says: '
I have everything, but I I hate it with all my might
.' He was ashamed that he wasn't able to enjoy it. And I think I know why he felt that way; things are just never the way you think they're going to be."
Cobain
, it is undeniable, remains an icon for youth.
Nirvana
is in position 150 among the most listened to names on Spotify and has reached the top 60. A striking fact, given that there are hardly any guitar groups from the 20th century (Queen, Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, AC/DC and, if we push too hard, Coldplay) on the streaming charts. There are those who look for connections between the existential unease of the zoomers and the 'I hate myself and I want to die' ('I hate myself and I want to die') that he sang with Nirvana in 1993. Likewise, his name is brought up - and
its relationship with opiates - in some analyzes of nihilism in current music.
"I don't see him as a nihilistic figure," proclaims
Goa, one of the figures of punk-trap in Spain.
"I don't think he thought about nihilism either. He pushed forward, did what he wanted, but assuming the consequences," explains the singer, who was also a child that April 1994.
The documentary 'Kurt Cobain. Montage of heck' (Brett Morgen, 2015) reproduces a large amount of material that
Cobain
's family
treasures, from drawings to interview tapes and Super 8 films. At one point in the footage, an annotation appears:"Let women rule the world". And then, a vignette with explicit content and profusion of blood: "Vasectomy to homophobia." Goa reaffirms himself:
"A nihilist is bothered by faggots and women eat his balls.
But that mattered to
Kurt Cobain . A nihilist doesn't do that.
A sensible anarchist
does that
."
Ghouljaboy
was born in 1996, but
Nirvana
has always been in his music through the passion with which his father, a teenager during the 90s, lived that revolution. "When we approach his figure from a distance and without investigating,
we always stay with the typical thing: the crazy man who committed suicide and who made music with a lot of anger
. But I believe that
Kurt Cobain
was an artist who always had a very special sensitivity , both in his way of being and in the way of seeing certain movements that have not begun to emerge until some time has passed, as well as the defense of minorities or certain groups," points out the composer from Cádiz, who on the 16th publishes 'Search in every cat', his new single.
Goa, who today releases the song 'Gas Chamber' with Dafresito and who will perform in June (28th and 29th) at the Infierno Festival organized by Yung Beef in Granada, makes a comparison between that time and now. "In those years music was not as fast as it is now," he reflects. "I discovered him when I was a teenager. And what I identified with most about
Kurt Cobain
was that he was more similar to the social environment that I was living in. Apart from the fact that what I like most about him is his music, his figure represents for me
freedom, shitting on the rules of the system and being yourself.
I feel that we get along romantically on a lot of things and I have wanted to know more about him, to know what the person was really like." Hence, when choosing a song, I did not opt for the usual ones, but for 'Endless, nameless', the hidden cut at the end of 'Nevermind' (1991), the album that marked the end of the 20th century. In it, Kurt sings (screams, more like): "Death! And violence! [...] Death is what I am. Go to hell!" Goa falls on his knees: "It's visceral, pure art, nothing forced."
Similarly, Ghouljaboy applauds "the sensitivity when expressing and creating songs that had a very crude packaging, but that carried within them a very strong symbolic load and personal introspection." And although he has all of Nirvana's albums on vinyl (except the first
Bleach
, from 1989), he insists on the need to go deeper. "People stick with
Smells like teen spirit
and
Rape me
, which are controversial because of the title or what they say in the first instance. But in the end you realize that it had that ability to transcend 'grunge' and the vibe of the 90s, and make songs that connect with a very diverse audience. Because Nirvana had that point in which he was able to be commercial and authentic at the same time, without losing focus.
The balance of making songs how he felt them and at the same time knows how to connect with people
."
The uneasiness of that boy in a lumberjack shirt is closer to us than to rock stars
, as is evident in another of his notes: "I tried heroin for the first time in 1987 in Aberdeen and I shot about 10 more times than in 1987 to 1990. For five years I had constant stomach pains every day that brought me to the point of wanting to commit suicide. The pain became more acute due to not having a healthy and regulated diet." This is also discovered in this eight-point declaration:
Punk rock is freedom.
I am very aware of the sincerity of my voice.
I like to fuck with others.
I love my parents, but I disagree with what they identify with.
I understand and appreciate the value of religion to others.
Music shapes my emotions.
I use parts of others' personalities to shape my own.
It scares me to make a fool of myself.
Cobain's word. Glory to you, Lord, oh Kurt.