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I just finished reading Heavier than Heaven, by Cross, A biography of Curt Cobain. True to its title it was by all means Heavy. I must start by stating that the Nirvana Unplugged CD is one of the most inspired recordings I have personally encountered. Here was this band, LOUD, lyrics barely audible over the guitar and the general loudness. I wasn't sure what to make of the Band and more specifically the man behind what was lauded as the Best Band of our generation. Then Unplugged was aired, released and I was in awe, a convert, a believer, for what I heard in the paired down songs was pure genius and I never looked back.

Upon reading this biography, ( I had also read Cross's Bio of Jimi Hendrix and really enjoyed it) I was completely taken aback by Curt Cobain.
I know that the reader here might expect a newly formed respect for Cobain, deeper than the one I felt after Unplugged. Rather, I have to say with all honesty and with no disrespect to the dead, that this was not the case at all.
From the description of Curt as a child through his struggle to develop the band I was astonished to learn what a completely inauthentic person he was. From his early exaggerations of his family plight, to his constant telling of stories that were bold faced lies, he came across as a sulking baby. He was as inconsistent as he was attention starved. He appeared to see himself as a tragic hero, yet his behavior was that of a manipulative self absorbed fake.
Those who have a rudimentary knowledge of the band and the infamous front man have probably heard about his resentment towards fame and his shirking or it. But what I learned from the Biography was that that in itself was a ploy. He needed, wanted and craved fame with a hunger that at times seemed to go against all he said and did. He courted the media, invited the scrutiny and then in the same breath denied the very thing he was doing.
The Curt Cobain I read about exaggerated every part of his early childhood, for what seemed to be to get sympathy for his plight. The Artists Struggle so often witnessed through the self destruction of our most talented figures was a contrived, deliberate endeavor by Cobain. He wrote in his journals (the source of much of the biography) that he DECIDED to become a junkie. Perhaps at first it was a way to alleviate the obvious physical pain he had involving his Stomach and IBS. He self medicated, then escaped into a drug fog that would stay with him for years. Did he admit his rabid use of "Heroine"

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