REMEMBERING KURT

It's staggering to think that Kurt Cobain died 25 years ago this week.

The Nirvana frontman was an incendiary cultural figure, a firebrand singer/songwriter and a commercial supernova. He had no interest in any movements that were spawned in his wake, and fame only exacerbated the torments that led to his untimely death.

Danny Goldberg, Cobain's co-manager and friend, has a new book about him, Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain, which, like the anniversary itself, will doubtless occasion much commentary about the deification of pop stars, the ravages of fame and drugs, the destructive impulses of youth culture and how the star-making machinery grinds up its darlings.

But as a new generation of young, brilliantly talented artists with dark visions emerges into the machinery, we might look at Kurt's story and see what might've been done differently. We can certainly do more than say, here we are now. Entertain us.