Kurt's last stand

A DECADE after Nirvana's leader, Kurt Cobain, fatally shot himself in an outbuilding of his Seattle mansion, he bellows at us from the grave once more. Released on Monday, With the Lights Out is a swashbuckling box set comprising 61 mostly unreleased tracks over three CDs, plus another 18 on DVD.

What would Cobain have thought of it? He would, it is reasonable to assume, have taken another armful of heroin, as he always did when thought was required. Then, surely, he would have giggled at the sheer absurdity of it all.

Nirvana changed the course of white popular music, more so than any band since The Beatles.

They merged rock and punk: hardly a revolutionary concept in itself, but they added something else. Call it what you will, because nobody has defined it adequately. Everybody, though, hears it in their astounding Nevermind album.

Bassist Krist Novoselic and (eventually) drummer Dave Grohl were also present, but Kurt Cobain was Nirvana. Alas, he was wholly unsuited to his anointed task. Contradictions abounded: he remains one of the most hostile, ignorant people I have crossed paths with, although others cite innate decency, wry humour and gentleness of spirit. He was the incessant attention- seeker who wanted fame more than anything, except to be ignored. And he had truly rotten musical taste, as those who purchased Melvins albums upon his recommendation will attest.

With the Lights Out (released by Geffen, Pounds 37.99) should be his allconsuming epitaph. It is not; it is the compromise following a bitter, lengthy legal dispute between Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, and the Nirvana survivors. As a result, there are gaps, especially most of the group's final recording sessions and sufficient Cobain diamonds to warrant a solo retrospective somewhere along the line. The notalwaysreliable Love describes the entirety of the unreleased material as "rock 'n' roll's holy grail", hinting that there is more interesting stuff still to come.

What is here is almost chronologically sequenced and an approximation of the Nirvana saga, told through live tracks, radio sessions, demos and alternative takes. Therefore, With the Lights Out (a phrase used in the era-defining single, Smells Like Teen Spirit) is frustrating and exhilarating in equal measures.

Smells Like Teen Spirit itself appears three times. Although the final version probably stakes Nirvana's claim for immortality more concisely than the complete box set. Certainly a Butch Vig mix comes mightily close here, while a rehearsal version has a certain ragged beauty, but lacks finesse and power. A live version trundles along merrily, if inconsequentially.

Curiously, the best place to start is at the very end of the DVD, with Cobain (on drums and vocals), Novoselic and Grohl (guitar) covering Seasons in the Sun in 1993. Allegedly, Terry Jacks's version of this mawkish tale of a dying man's farewell was Cobain's first vinyl purchase. He seems in good spirits, but when he sings "goodbye my friends, it's hard to die", it is unspeakably poignant.

THE three discs detail C o b a i n ' s t o r t u r e d j o u r n e y from alienated ranter to unwilling spokesman for an alienated generation.

The first one (1987-1989) is sometimes unlistenable to and it seems unfair to include the alarmingly ramshackle Heartbreaker from their 1987 live debut.

It is, however, Beethoven's Ninth compared with the 101 seconds of Beans, a ghastly, helium-voiced slab of nothing.

The second disc (1990-1992) is Cobain at his creative and commercial zenith.

Breed and a Peel-session Dumb almost eclipse the standard versions and even the nine howling minutes of Endless Nameless are mesmerising.

Cobain's heroin-assisted descent from maverick to madness is portrayed-with unyielding starkness on the intriguing and harrowing final disc (1992-1994).

At times it is genuinely unsettling Cobain's baby Frances Bean weeping along to Rape Me - but its importance is both historical and musical. In 1993, the discordant I Hate Myself and Want to Die, Cobain's desired title track for the In Utero album (it ended up on a Beavis Butthead soundtrack), seemed an attempted humour. Now, it couldn't sound less funny if it had been written and sung by Jim Davidson.

The previously unheard Do Re Mi encapsulates a frazzled man at the end of his tether. Typically unintelligible, but atypically highpitched, its beautiful melody shows that even towards the end Cobain had the capacity to beguile.

Perhaps the question is less what he would have thought of With the Lights Out, more what would he have achieved had he lived?