Product Description

Alongside the death of Elvis Presley and the assassination of John Lennon, Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994 ranks as one of the generational milestones of American life - an epochal event in both rock ‘n’ roll and youth culture.

This book is the story of Kurt Cobain’s life, from abject poverty to unbelievable wealth, power and fame. It traces the journey from his humble origins in Aberdeen to becoming lead singer of Nirvana, the most popular rock band in the world from 1991 to 1994, and the most influential band of this decade. The beautifully written text is complimented by 16 pages of photographs.

Based on over one hundred interviews, Charley Cross allows us to understand Kurt Cobain’s personality. This is an incredible tale of a strange, tortured and very talented man.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13315 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The art of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was all about his private life, but written in a code as obscure as TS Eliot's. In Heavier than Heaven Charles Cross has cracked the code, and this definitive biography is an all-access pass to Cobain's heart and mind. It reveals many secrets, thanks to 400-plus interviews, and even quotes Cobain's diaries and suicide notes revealing an unreleased Nirvana masterpiece. At last we know how he created, how lies helped him die, how his family and love life entwined with his art--plus, what the heck "Smells Like Teen Spirit" really means. (It was graffiti by Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna after a double date with Dave Grohl, Cobain, and the "over-bored and self-assured" Tobi Vail, who wore Teen Spirit perfume; Hanna wrote it to taunt the emotionally clingy Cobain for wearing Vail's scent after sex--a violation of the no-strings-attached dating ethos of the Olympia, Washington, "outcast teen" underground. Cobain 's stomach-churning passion for Vail erupted in six or so hit tunes like "Aneurysm" and "Drain You".) Cross uncovers plenty of news, mostly grim and gripping. As a teenager, Cobain said he had "suicide genes" and his clan was peculiarly defiant: one of his suicidal relatives stabbed his own belly in front of his family, then ripped apart the wound in the hospital. Cobain was contradictory: a sweet, popular teenage athlete and sinister berserker, a kid who rescued injured pigeons and laughingly killed a cat, a talented yet astoundingly morbid visual artist. He grew up to be a millionaire who slept in cars (and stole one), a fiercely loyal man who ruthlessly screwed his oldest, best friends. Cross, the co-author of Nervmind: Nirvana, the definitive book about the making of the classic album, puts numerous Cobain-generated myths to rest. (Cobain never lived under a bridge--that Aberdeen bridge immortalised in the 12th song on Nevermind was a tidal slough, so nobody could sleep under it). He gives the fullest account yet of what it was like to be, or love, Kurt Cobain. Heavier than Heaven outshines the also indispensable Come As You Are. It's the deepest book about pop's darkest falling star. --Tim Appelo

Daily Telegraph
`Cross's research is impeccable...Heavier Than Heaven is, or
should be, the last word on Kurt Cobain.'

Review
‘This superbly researched and harrowing book...The squalor is ghastly but the sheer sadness of Cobain's brief life is beautifully conveyed here. Cross has painstakingly accumulated a wealth of telling detail...’ (Robert Sandall in THE SUNDAY TIMES )

‘Cross’s research is impeccable... he writes with a fine mixture of sympathy and sense, weeding the myth of all its lies and exaggerations, but never minimising the complexity of his subject. HEAVIER THAN HEAVEN is, or should be, the last word on Kurt Cobain.’ (Lynn Barber in the DAILY TELEGRAPH )

‘I was very glad to read this biography, the result of four years' research and 400 interviews, not to mention the sainted Kurt's police and medical records AND his unpublished journals. I was in hog heaven all the way through - in a caring, wistful way, of course.’ (Julie Birchill in THE GUARDIAN )

‘A biography worth reading. The book is especially good once we get past Cobain's squalid early years to the moment when he suddenly wakes up to find himself the most famous pop star in the world.’ (James Delingpole in THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

'Cross's portrayal of a shy but prodigiously gifted child, in artistic as well as musical terms, is a joy to read' (THE OBSERVER )

‘The secret here is that Cross was allowed unprecedented access to Cobain's world; his diaries, artworks and most significantly the people who surrounded him. Cross may vividly depict the seemingly inevitable demise of a rock star but he also successfully conveys just what all the fuss was about in the first place.’ (THE LIST )

Customer Reviews

Fascinating, emotional, thought-provoking
This book was very informative, and I learnt a lot of things about Kurt Cobain that I never knew before. It was sad to read about how he felt like he didn't belong anywhere, and had a lot of turmoil involving his family. It brought a smile to my face when I read that Kurt used to like sledding down a hill near his home as a child, but as the book went on it became sadder and sadder because of his downwards spiral in life. The suicide was written in such deal and with such care that upon finishing the book I was in tears, and I wasn't the only one - so was one of my friends who has also read the book. I would recommend this book to anybody who has an interest in Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, or just music in general as it is a fascinating insight into what made him the legend that he is today. A fitting tribute to a man who changed the face of music forever.

Sad account of one man's descent into opiate psychosis.
Charles Cross's popular biography of Kurt Cobain is alarming reading. I read Michael Azzerad's Come As You Are back in '94 and remember an acutely different tale. Azzerad was fortunate enough to have had extensive interviews with Cobain, unlike Cross, and his book is strikingly disimilar to this.

Ultimately, I think Cross's account is the more accurate of the two. It is also somewhat different in tone, being a biography of Kurt Cobain, not Nirvana. Cross pulls no punches, and his book is the better for it.

Cobain's duplicity as recorded here is astonishing. This is a compelling account of a man who desparately sought fame and recognition, who invented a history for himself barely worse than his actual past and, inevitably, this is a story of serious drug abuse.

The second half of the book - detailing the years 1991 to 1994 - is overwhelmingly concerned with Cobain's addiction to heroin. Contrary to popular belief, the singer was rarely clean for more than a few weeks during the last three years of his life. This is not light reading; it is the painful account of a young man's weakness and mental decay.

Throughout the book, Courtney Love is respectfully portrayed by Cross as a loving wife and supporter of Cobain. No doubt this is true in some respects, but you get the impression Cross backed-off detailing much of Love's character. In return she provided him with access to Kurt's diaries, some entries from which are published here. It was a reasonable trade-off, I suppose, but not terrific journalism.

Interesting and often horrific, Heavier Than Heaven is a valuable biography for its honesty, and the only essential piece of writing on Cobain so far. Recommended.

Amazing insight to the life of a troubled musician
Although a fan of Nirvana's music before I read this book, I admit I was little aware of Kurt Cobain's life prior to his rock star alter ego. But reading about his parents divorce and the sheer abandonment he felt and the isolation he ofted lived through as a child, obivioulsy marked his life from an early age, and undoubtedly his fate.

He was an extremely talented arist, writer and musician, and probably a victim of his own self - deprecation act, which led to his profound use of Heroin and his manic depression.

The story traces back from his birth to the infamous April in 1994, where he decided to take his own life. We learn about his friends, family, stories from his childhood -(often exagerated by Cobain to make himself the 'hero' of the hour'), and his relationship with his notorious counterpart, Courtney Love. Although, suprisingly, it is her that seems to try her hardest to help him, and many readers will also feel the sympathy for Love at the end of the book as I did too.

The book is warm and sometimes haunting, as Cobain had already decided he would kill himself before the age of 30, and can make the reader feel almost bemused to his actual knowledge of his future as a musician, i.e he knew he was gonna make it!

It will definatley shed a few tears at the end as Charles R Cross has researched so much into his life and conducted so many interviews with those who knew him, it's almost an autobiography.......?

A must read!