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Heavier Than Heaven: The Biography of Kurt Cobain
 
 

Heavier Than Heaven: The Biography of Kurt Cobain (Paperback)

by Charles R. Cross (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Sceptre; New edition edition (20 Jun 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0340739398
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340739396
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 15,694 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #17 in  Books > Biography > Film, Television & Music > Theatre
    #23 in  Books > Biography > Theatre & Performance Art
    #89 in  Books > Biography > Film, Television & Music > Music > Rock & Pop

Product Description

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Daily Telegraph

`Cross's research is impeccable...Heavier Than Heaven is, or
should be, the last word on Kurt Cobain.' --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

65 Reviews
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 (44)
4 star:
 (14)
3 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (65 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, emotional, thought-provoking, 24 Jun 2002
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.
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Sad account of one man's descent into opiate psychosis., 10 Jun 2002
By S. Pickering Pick - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
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.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing insight to the life of a troubled musician, 11 Mar 2003
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!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Best biography I've read in ages.
Just finished reading Heavier than Heaven. I found it really hard to put down. It gave me an understanding what drove Kurt to the things he did. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Ms. Am Kennedy

1.0 out of 5 stars the truth will out.....please.....
The book gets a star just for the leg work Cross put into it, but no more than that. And where to begin in dismantling the contradictions? Read more
Published 5 months ago by The Sky Is Empty

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping
This book is so gripping. As a new Kurt Cobain fan, I found it so interesting. From a psychology point of view, you really learn to sympathize with Kurt, learning about his... Read more
Published 17 months ago by pinkfairyice

5.0 out of 5 stars A good insight to a very gifted artist
I thoght this book was great, a real insight into what Kurt went through as a child through to adulthood. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Ea Daniels

5.0 out of 5 stars The best music Biography I have read
Heavier Than Heaven is the best music Biography I have read. Whilst the author's access to Kurt's journal and the proximity to the events described undoubtedly helped, it is the... Read more
Published on 10 Jun 2007 by M. Smith

3.0 out of 5 stars Heavier than Heaven: Hagiography?
I regret to say that I find Charles Cross's "Heavier than Heaven" to be weighted altogether too much towards hagiography and apologetics for the subject of his biography. Read more
Published on 11 April 2007 by gary shooter

5.0 out of 5 stars Anyone can enjoy this
Whether or not you're a fan of Kurt Cobain or Nirvana, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. Charles Cross perfectly captures the character of Kurt Cobain, reavling him as a shy,... Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2006 by Katya

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Moving
after being a Kurt & Nirvana fan for many years, i finally decide to pick this book up. I had no expectations and took it for what it was. Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2006 by Mrs. D. B. Partridge

5.0 out of 5 stars Good...If only for humerous stories
I absolutely love this book. Cross goes through every single phase in Kurt's life with huge amounts of detail making this book the definative biography of Cobain. Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2006 by Martin Porter

2.0 out of 5 stars Kurt Cobains newest fan
This was an extremelly thought provoking and compelling piece of writing. Charles Cross seems to capture the spirit of Kurt Cobain effortlesly. Read more
Published on 17 May 2006 by Stephles81

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