Kurt Cobain's Ghost Adventures - A Rock Opera Revisited

My mother liked musicals. And since my father didn't, she had to find someone to go with her, so it was obvious that fate should befall her sons. It was the late 80s, so, for better or worse, I've seen a bunch of 'modern classics' of the genre, notably Andrew Lloyd Webber. The Phantom Of The Opera was actually pretty good, whereas Cats...uhm, was not.  

I hadn't thought of musicals in a good long while when three years ago for my birthday my wife gave me tickets to something called Smells Like Teen Spirit - L'Opera Rock. A rock opera (to differentiate it from an ordinary musical) by a local theatre/music ensemble. Huh. Why not. The description was, uh, promising (?!). The ghost of Kurt Cobain, wandering earth after his suicide, helps out some people. That's it, that's the pitch. After a false start (Covid outbreak cancellation), we finally got to see the premiere of Smells Like Teen Spirit. And, not knowing what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised. A good evening was had by all, the band playing the music could really shred when they wanted to. And say this for local entertainment: they pull out all the stops. The stage design and props were top notch, they even recruited a local girl as a pole dancer. She was pure window dressing, but hey, that kind of window dressing we take (before you get any wrong ideas, she was pretty much fully clothed). 

Symbolic image

The story was pretty bonkers, and you probably don't much care, but I'll summarize it quickly anyway, in case you want to follow the 'story' of the accompanying music collection: So, as said above, ever since his suicide Kurt Cobain is walking the earth in a sort of purgatory, with no one able to see or hear him. For some reason he's hanging out in this mafia bar, where the two barmaids who are friends or maybe friends with benefits?! - one is pretty clearly a lesbian whereas the other is probably bi-sexual, seeing how she's got a kid with a dude - decide they need to get away from it all. At the same time, a small-time crook swindling people as a medium shows up in this bar and - wouldn't you know it - he can see and hear ghost Kurt. So ghost Kurt gives him instructions how to help the girls make their getaway, steal the car keys to the cadillac etc. Problam being, that when the two girls run off with the fake medium and ghost Kurt in tow, they haven't realized there's a suitcase full of drug money in the trunk, spurring some mobsters into hot pursuit. One of the girls has to stop by her ex, an Elvis-imitator, to get her son, and it's there where all protagonists collide and their fates will be decided...

"Why Do I Have To Do Stuff? Purgatory, Shmurgatory, I Tell Ya..."

So, that's Smells Like Teen Spirit - L'Opéra Rock in a nutshell for you. There was obviously never any sort of soundtrack for that thing, so I decided to make my very own. Some comps don't always turn out quite like I hoped to, but I'm happy to report that Smells Like Teen Spirit - L'Opera Rock Redux turned out pretty much like I wanted it to. Finding a number of female-led Nirvana covers helped set the tone and mood and imitated the two protagonists. 

As I like to do (some of you may have noticed), I like to use recurring music as sort of Leitmotive, which is something I do again here with Ramin Djawadi's "Heart-Shaped Box" (from the Westworld soundtrack), as well as a number of other numbers that get instrumental introductions/reprises from The Hipster Orchestra (terrible name, but good tracks). "Lithium" is the sort of theme song for the central couple, whereas "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is obviously ghost Kurt's. I thought Foxy Shazam's "Drain You" was the perfect end for the retelling of the rock opera's story: "One baby to another says I'm lucky to've met you" seems to sum up perfectly the relationship between the two protagonists at the end of the story (and its inevitable happy end).

Some fortunate events exist, like The King, a real-live meme before everyone had internet. An Elvis imitator from Northern Ireland he had about five minutes of fame in the late 1990s, when for Gravelands he covered a bunch of classic rock/pop songs in the voice of Elvis. So for the role of - you guessed it - the Elvis impersonator we get The King's "Come As You Are". For "I Can't Help Falling In Love", with which in story the Elvis impersonator wants to win back his ex, I picked a version from Youtube singer Chase Eagleson, whose babyface hides an impressively modulable voice. 

The other fortunate event was that for years I had this SPIN comp celebrating Nirvana's Nevermind, but I didn't like the flow and about half of the covers on it, so I rarely played it. The Smells Like Teen Spirit project was just the thing to revisit and plunder that comp for my purposes, sometimes just keeping bits I liked. For a comp of other people covering Nirvana covering Bowie, who better to go to than back to the man himself? But not for the usual: This is Bowie's drum'n'bass re-imagining of "The Man Who Sold The World" which fits better into the Redux project. Fittingly, the 'end credits' are Kurt's heroes The Meat Puppets covering his most famous song.   

So, do you need to know or care about the story to follow or enjoy Smells Like Teen Spirit - L'Opéra Rock Redux? Absolutely not. If nothing else, it will be a cool comp of Nirvana covers. And hell, even if you don't like Nirvana all that much, but you love, say, soul music, you should still get this for Charles Bradley's cool-as-fuck version of "Stay Away" and Irma Thomas' smoking reading of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?". 

So, join Kurt's ghost on his adventures. With the lights out, it's less dangerous...