Rating: 
Summary: coffee table friendly unit shifter
Review: When reviewing this could people quit the moralising & hearsay? thanks. I have not bought myself a copy yet but have pored over its contents for hours a few times @ the bookstore & have found much to enlighten, entertain, agree with & share rage about. I think it's overly expensive, the trendy minimalist design jacket inappropriate, but definitely think the right choice was made in directly scanning the originals rather than typing it up & losing the whole feel of the thing. I would certainly buy a cheaper black & white paperback edition though. I also think it's been given an unfair rap in the press by middle aged ikea-hungry yuppies & Kurt's character given a beating. It's to be consumed by those who appreciate the DIY fanzine style or indeed gonzo journalism & always understood the irony of "he likes to sing along but he knows not what it means". But getting to what's in the book itself, Kurt's political worldview is on full display & I tend agree w/ most of it [& Bill Hicks' too], his plans for the band, top album lists, mix tape tracklists, letters [many unsent], drawings, guitar designs, Nirvana promo spielage [& Melvins too!], etc. Admittedly there's a fair bit of repetition of ideas, actual rewritten drafts of letters, which my be tiresome but overall paints the full picture. "You will read & you will judge" means it wasn't intended to be super-private & he was always bluntly honest anyway, so whilst it's not for everyone I'm glad it exists & recommend it to full-on fans.
Rating:
Summary: Getting Into a Legends Mind
Review: For the person who says this book was poor and that he could not understand Kurt Cobain, you are ignorant. This book shows the true feelings of a person. It is for anyone who ever wanted to know what someone else was thinking, anyone who did not think anyone ever felt the same as themselves, and for just any plain Nirvana fan. Journals give the insight of a normal person stuck in the spot light. It wasn't the best book i have read but it was certainly not the worst. the picutes of the actual journal added alot of character to the book making it feel as if you were actually reading it staight from his notebook. I would definately recommend this boook to any Nirvana fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as revelaing as I thought
Review: As a huge fan of Nirvana and one who thinks Kurt is the Dylan of Gen-X, I was really looking forward to reading this. I had read all the reviews from "pious" Nirvana fans who thought that no one should read this and all I have to say to them is get a clue. Everything about Cobain was contrived, including this. His plan was simple: get famous, hate fame, kill yourself, leave behind "mysterious" scriblings that fan the fame of legend. If these notes were so private why do they reveal so little. Don't get me wrong, I think Cobain was a genius with melody and his talent is greatly missed but gimme a break with the Kurt didnt want this read
Rating: 
Summary: Continues to inspire true believers
Review: In his short life as a voice for my generation (whether he sought the designation or not) Kurt Cobain was often derided for being too gloomy or cynical to have a positive impact on the nation's youth. Critics were both eager to claim the music as 'cutting edge' while derriding the very people who made it possible, particularly the petite frontman. This book clarifies society itself and not the man contributed the most to the morose imagery. Inside this book we learn of a young man who tried in vain to keep a sense of self and humor in a world that did not always make sense. Sure, mainstream music loves to pitch audiences endless 'hard-luck' tales of their current favirotes, but actually reading real experiences is conciousness raising. Born into a working class Washington state neighborhood, Cobain toiled around in various families and odd jobs before forming the band which would permanently change his life forever--Nirvana. The band played small venues in virtual obscurity until the release of 1991's suprise (especially to Cobain who was unprepared for the mass stardom) Nevermind, permanently altering the face of rock. Nirvana were never overtly political in the sense of the past's Dead Kennedy's or today's Le Tigre, but Kurt's penchant for talking 'about things that piss me off' indicate an individual with a very deep sense of compassion for others that may as well have been rooted in the 1960's. Avoiding such 'mainstreamed' causes as AIDS awareness and the environment, he includes a healthy amount of information on gender and women's issues along side the above mentioned standard comments. Yet, this was not a stunt as Cobain actually believed enough in his own oppinons to warn racists, sexists and homophobes to REFRAIN from giving money to the Nirvana media empire, against all conventional perspectives. As the handwriten, litteral translations also revealed, Cobain was hardly perfect, but this humaness provided the consolation that so many of my generation were seeking in a time when numerous other sources told us we did not understand or did not matter. Indeed, Cobain's legacy is that one person can have a profound impact on the collective psyche of a generation.
Rating:
Summary: Going beyond infinity
Review: Kur Cobain Journals, was insightful, amazing, and profound. Pictures, stories, philosophical insight, and lyrics from the notebook of a musical genious makes every page interesting. What also made it so great was that it showed the actual pages in the notebook, instead of typing it. This makes you see life though his head, and almost feel as if you know him. To the average person, some entries may seem a little bit disturbing, but Kurt Cobain was not an average person.
Rating: 
Summary: In Kurdt's words.
Review: Well, after hearing how many note books there actually are and then seeing just how little information there is in this "book", you have got to wonder why was so much was left out. The same can be said for the so-called "greatest hits" CD recently released. (Money it's a gas) Courtney Love is a monster (has anyone seen what she looks like lately?)(Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash)
There is no need for this "book". You won't learn anything from it. It's the equivalent of the National Enquirer going through a celebrity's garbage. Kurt was a screwed up junkie who killed himself. I lost all respect for him a long time ago. I do not own this book and do not plan on buying it. I was curious so I peeked inside. Oh the guilt.
Rating:
Summary: Sacred or secret?
Review: Anne Frank? Emily Dickinson? Kurt Cobain? Fame comes with a price. If you actually bother to read Cobain's journals, you'd realize fame is an ongoing theme in them. Not a huge Cobain fan, I picked up the book only because I was curious after stumbling across the reviews here. Whether or not the journals are an invasion of privacy, the fact remains it's a price one pays for fame. Cobain appears to have understood this, even if he couldn't stand it. As for the quality of the journals? They are the quiet, mad ramblings of someone who was probably less mad and more frustrated with his predicament of fame. They say the rich and famous have problems too, but it seems those are the problems many of us would like to have...which makes for fascinating reading in same spirit of buying lottery tickets and slowing down to look at car accidents...
Rating:
Summary: Kurt, left us many questions, One is why?
Review: I agree with most, this is Kurt's and should be Kurt's only. But Kurt served many of us, many of us became close and any die hard rock fan knows that you are family when it comes to music fans. He left us with many unanswered questions as to why he left. I myself, loving Kurt, had to know more being a music fan family member. I feel from reading these pages that I do understand his own reasoning, even partially understanding why he decided to go. Karl Maddox was very close to Kurt and wrote some reasoning as well in his book concerning this departure. I for one do see reason why we should be able to read books as these to draw us to an understanding of who WE also lost.
Rating:
Summary: issues
Review: I disagree with the publishing of this book. I'm am a huge fan of Kurt Cobain but how can you put a price on your husband's private life? It's not even all his feelings b/c Courtney and some gang of publishers cut it down to make it how she wanted it to be. If he said something negative about her she cut it out. It's bull. Although I disagree with the publishing I'm still going to read it. I'm sure it's awesome b/c I'm a hardcore Cobain and Nirvana fan. As for people who don't want Courtney to gain money from this your options are to borrow it or steal it. I'd go with stealing it because if you borrow it that means someone has already paid for it. Courtney Love doesn't deserve anything. She didn't even deserve Cobain even looking are her. For all you courtney love fans out there...how do you live with yourselves?
Rating:
Summary: NOT A GOOD PHOTOCOPY
Review: Who knows how many millions the publishers paid Kurt Cobain's estate for his journals - for they sure didn't spend much more on editorial costs. Admittedly, it's a nice big lavish book - but basically it's just a collection of photocopied pages torn out of Cobain's spiral notebooks. Apart from a short note at the back of the book saying these were either drafts of letters or letters that were never sent, there is no biographical content about the origin or dates (Cobain himself never dated his diary pages) that shed any light on the entries. Sure you get the picture from Cobain's outpourings - frustration before fame, frustration after fame etc. But unless you're a fan of Nirvana, you'll have to read one of the Cobain biographies to find out more about the band's story for yourself. But then, this is for the fan - isn't it? Scribbled drafts of some of the most famous song lyrics - like Smells Like Teen Spirit - with all the scored out deletions and doodles on the page only empower the image of the grunge icon. And that's exactly why the photocopied pages appear as they were written; just jottings, really, in Cobain's fast and furious handwriting, which is almost illegible at times. A typed book would have shown up just how ordinary the writing is - just a guy letting off some steam, trying to keep a record. It wasn't meant to be literature. With any journals - particularly a dead famous person - the power of the prose is in the subject's thoughts at the point in their life they were at when they put the words down on the page, especially if it was before they found fame. Now wouldn't it have been better if the publishers had added some editorial content to the text - or Cobain's estate had provided some private photos? Even in death, it seems, you can't get cooler than Kurt Cobain.
|
