twenty-five years that have elapsed since the death of Kurt Cobain did not diminish the relevance and the popularity of his music. The leader of Nirvana is being celebrated today in a book written by his former manager, offering his first testimony about an artist «out of time». «He had a sensitivity which helped people to feel less weird, less alone», explains to the AFP Danny Goldberg, who is in the middle of the music since the 1960s.
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Author or co-author of all the success of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain committed suicide April 5, 1994 in his home in Seattle, a region in the north-west of the United States of which he was a native, while the grunge band had become a worldwide phenomenon since the release of Nevermind in 1991. «His image in the media was a little distorted and the focus is on his death disproportionately, rather than on his life and work», points out the one that is also dealt with another indie rock band, Sonic Youth.
In his book, Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain , published this week in the United States, Danny Goldberg evokes a musician ahead of his time, a man of melancholy in the wit and great humanity. «His voice had a soul amazing and was sweating the vulnerability and intimacy as rarely», he says.
«It could be powerful and fascinating but also sensitive and caring at the same time»
For him, the music of Kurt Cobain continues to speak to a generation born after his death, in the world. «This is one of the few artists whose work is outside of time», says Danny Goldberg, who met with the guitarist and american composer in 1990, a year before the release of the album, Nevermind , which would place Nirvana on orbit.
A musical genius
The group has taken off, the phenomenon of grunge, a musical movement but also a dress and, more broadly, cultural. A meteoric rise, halted by the suicide of the singer, blond, blue-eyed 27-year-old. «I have no idea what triggered the desperation of Kurt during his last few weeks, admits the former manager. It may be that there is a crystallization of the depression which tormented him for a long time.» «I no longer have the passion-so remember, it’s better to burn of a blow than burn in small fire», wrote Kurt Cobain on the word he has left by his side when he committed suicide, citing the title My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) by Neil Young.
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«Kurt Cobain was attached to an ideal feminist and the respect of all, a creed is anti-macho»
Danny Goldberg wrote his book to celebrate an artist, «a musical genius», who deserves more than the evocation of the recurrent of his depression or his drug addiction. He also wants to detach the character of his image of adolescent retarded, this fake nonchalance that «masked spirit is very sophisticated,» says the one that Cobain called his «second father». «I always knew that there was a depth behind this energy and these sensations with which he played,» says Danny Goldberg. This was far more than a great chorus, even if he wrote actually of great choruses.»
Ideal feminist
By showing the fragility, Kurt Cobain broke also with a certain vision of rock, stresses the ex-manager, and has helped to «redefine masculinity» in the music world. «It could be powerful and fascinating but also sensitive and caring at the same time,» says the one who has also worked with Led Zeppelin, at the beginning of his career.
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Danny Goldberg recounts that during a concert in Argentina, Kurt Cobain had refused to sing the tube Smells Like Teen Spirit after the audience booed the group Calamity Jane, made up entirely of women, which ensured the first part of Nirvana. «It was attached to an ideal feminist and respect for all, the creed is anti-macho,» says Danny Goldberg, who recalls that the singer has also advocated publicly for the rights of the LGBT community. «He proposed a version really the alternative of what it meant to be a rock star.»