Few frontmen changed rock like Kurt Cobain. Nirvana’s leader delivered nihilistic grunge to teens disillusioned of hair metal and transformed the rockstar image with his unabashed support for women and equality. He wrote timeless songs like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Come As You Are’ with his colleagues Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl. Cobain struggled behind the scenes while writing grunge classics and recreating frontmen. Nirvana vocalist struggled with mental illness, suicidal ideation, drug addiction, and a toxic relationship with Courtney Love. Cobain was found dead at home with a suicide note in spring 1994.
As a 1990s cultural icon, one of rock’s most beloved frontmen, and an inspiration to aspiring guitarists, his music and persona would survive him. Fans wondered what additional grunge soundscapes and wisdoms Cobain would have shared had he lived. Eric Erlandson, former guitarist for Courtney Love-fronted grunge band Hole, didn’t wonder. Before the Nirvana leader died, Erlandson heard some of his material, which would have seen him leave the three-piece and work alone and collaboratively. Erlandson told Fuse that Cobain was going in a “really cool” path. “It would have been his White Album,” he said, “a solo album but working with different people.” Comparing his lost effort to The Beatles’ 1968 White Album is a great praise.
Beautiful songs like ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Blackbird’ make the album one of the best. Erlandson’s statement implies that Cobain’s finest album would have been this one, which is not collaborative. Would have been interesting to see Cobain collaborate more. Even in Nirvana, he seldom collaborated on songs. Only the classic ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and the shrieking ‘Scentless Apprentice’ were attributed to all three band members. To observe Cobain collaborate while keeping his own sound vision was a rare pleasure. Erlandson, who witnessed Cobain perform this work before his death, said, “If nobody ever hears those songs, except for like three people, then that’s the way it goes.”
Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings, a 2015 posthumous compilation, published Cobain’s home recordings after Erlandson’s statements. Over over a decade of spoken word and cover recordings, Erlandson may not have heard any of them before the frontman’s death. This appears unlikely to be everything Cobain planned to release, and the album received mixed reviews, with many calling it exploitative. Erlandson’s White Album counterpart may have been limited to Cobain’s loyal confidants.
