In 1994, when Cobain died, I was 13. This is right around the point that music becomes really important to a kid. And yet, I just didn’t care about Nirvana. Sure, I liked the opening for Smells Like Teen Spirit. There were usually some little things that I liked, part of a riff, or some part of the melody. But Nirvana never resonated with me the way it did with some other people. If anything, I thought they were a fairly sloppy band, and his writing was oblique and poorly done.
I never identified with his suicide, either, which is a little odd. It was a little surprising, but nothing more.
I don’t know what I expected to find from this documentary. I didn’t leave this thinking more highly of his work. He reminds me a lot of Lennon, attempting to make artistic statements by noodling all over whatever canvas he feels like working on. When he gets down to it, he can do some good work, but there is a lot of work that doesn’t have much merit.
His background is explored more thoroughly than I expected. He isn’t a very sympathetic person. He mostly behaved poorly, bothered his parents, and got passed around a lot. His ex-girlfriend Tracy actually seems to come off the best. Their relationship fell apart, but she seemed to be remarkably supportive.
No one comes across as especially bad, except Kurt. I find myself a little more receptive to his unhappiness, and the things that pushed his mind around, but he made himself helpless against his demons. It’s hard to feel that much sympathy for that.
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