Few frontmen have transformed the rock realm quite like Kurt Cobain did. As the driving force behind Nirvana, he brought nihilistic grunge to teenagers who were growing tired of hair metal and changed the rockstar persona with his open support for feminism and equality. With little help from his bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, he penned all-time greats like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Come As You Are’, tracks that still stand up today.
While Cobain was penning future grunge staples and reinventing the idea of the frontmen, he was struggling behind the scenes. The Nirvana singer was grappling with mental illness and suicidal thoughts, alongside substance abuse and a destructive relationship with Courtney Love. In the spring of 1994, Cobain’s body was discovered at his home, alongside a suicide note.
His music and his character would outlive him, as he became remembered as a cultural icon of the 1990s, one of the most revered front people in rock, and an inspiration to budding guitarists everywhere. Fans were left to wonder what other grunge soundscapes and wisdoms Cobain might have imparted upon the world had his life not ended.
But Eric Erlandson, former guitarist for the Courtney Love-fronted grunge outfit Hole, didn’t have to wonder. Before the Nirvana frontman passed away, Erlandson heard some of the material he was working on at the time, which would have seen him moving away from the three-piece into simultaneous solo and collaborative territory.
During a conversation with Fuse, Erlandson said that Cobain was headed in a “really cool” direction. “It would have been his White Album,” he commented, “That’s what he was going towards, a solo album but working with different people.” To compare his lost work to the White Album, also known as The Beatles’ self-titled record from 1968, is a huge compliment.
The record is considered amongst the greatest of all time, spawning gorgeous tracks like ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and the endlessly delicate ‘Blackbird’. It’s not a particularly collaborative record, so we can only assume that Erlandson’s comment suggests that the record would have been one of Cobain’s best.
It would have been interesting to have seen Cobain working more collaboratively, too. Even during his time in Nirvana, his songwriting methods rarely included working with others. Only two of their tracks were credited to all three members of the band – the iconic ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and the screeching ‘Scentless Apprentice’.
To see Cobain working more collaboratively, while still maintaining his singular sonic vision, was a privilege few were afforded. Erlandson was one of those who saw Cobain playing this material before his death, concluding, “If nobody ever hears those songs, except for like three people, then that’s the way it goes.”
Since Erlandson’s comments, a series of Cobain’s home recordings were released on the 2015 posthumous collection, Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings. It’s unclear whether any of those included were songs Erlandson had heard before the frontman’s death, as they spanned almost a decade of recordings including spoken word and covers.
It seems unlikely that this was all material Cobain had intended to put out into the world, and the album earned a variation of reviews with many considering it to be exploitative. It seems that that White Album equivalent Erlandson spoke of may be restricted to the ears of those Cobain trusted while he was alive.
