I know "grunge" is a little passe, but it's making a holiday season resurgence. About Kurt Cobain's journals: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/07/arts/music/07POPL.html
"More disturbing, said musicians who knew Cobain, was the publication of unsent letters and drafts of letters. This is not because it is unfair to the ghost of Cobain, but because it is unfair to the people they were written to (mostly musicians whom Mr. Cobain admired in bands like the Vaselines, the Screaming Trees, and the Melvins) and who will never be able to respond to him.
"Journals" leads off what seems to be a Christmas season grunge revival. The trouble-plagued greatest hits album from Nirvana was finally released with one new song; Pearl Jam, much disparaged throughout Cobain's journals, puts out its new "Riot Act" next week; and the following week Chris Cornell of Soundgarden releases his collaboration with band members of Rage Against the Machine, "Audioslave.""
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The journal entries throughout show Cobain's lifelong commitment to the alternative bands he loved, however rarefied (be they the Young Marble Giants or Jad Fair); his contempt for Republicans, bigots and big business; and his loathing for the popular music of the 80's. Clearly, he would not be pleased if he were alive today to see the teen-pop takeover, the Republican dominance of Capitol Hill and the 80's pop culture revival.
Though much attention has been focused on his revelations of heroin use (as if anyone didn't know), much more interesting is the character revealed between the lines. It was growing up in a broken home, being teased to the brink of suicide at school, and trying to cope with pent-up adolescent sexual anxiety that seem to have led to the self-tormented Kurt Cobain who hated everything about the mainstream society, although much to his surprise and anguish, it eventually embraced him. (In fact, with its sketches of football players hanging from nooses, the journals could have appeared as evidence in any number of high school massacre trials.)
---- Peter (former high school all conference football player)