September 13 marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana’s “In Utero,” which was, of course, the band’s last studio album before lead singer Kurt Cobain took his life at the age of 27. However, yesterday was also the 20th anniversary of the album, as it was the day that Nirvana fans could fork over $150 for the new super-duper box set that features the reissued album and a bevy of other exclusive recordings.
With so many people once again thinking of one of rock’s greatest bands of at least the 1990s, what better time for Cobain’s family to cash in on his legacy? Wait, no. I mean, what better time for them to get someone to buy his childhood home to turn it into a museum? For just $500,000, you or any other lucky Nirvana fan can buy this Aberdeen, Washington bungalow, complete with the mattress that he slept on as a boy and a variety of pictures from his childhood.
The house, a 1923 bungalow with dingy carpeting, water-stained wooden shingles on some interior walls, and a recent coat of yellow paint, is on East 1st Street in Aberdeen, a gritty timber town at the mouth of the Chehalis river, two hours’ drive southwest of Seattle. Cobain’s parents bought it in 1969, when Kurt was two. He lived there until they separated when he was nine, and again with his mother during his later teen years.
Kurt’s sister, Kim Cobain, said in a statement: “We’ve decided to sell the home to create a legacy for Kurt, and yes, there are some mixed feelings since we have all loved the home and it carries so many great memories. But our family has moved on from Washington [state], and [we] feel it’s time to let go of the home.” (Via The Guardian)
That legacy thing is the important part because, again, they’re asking $500,000 for the house and it’s only valued at $67,000. I don’t know how the housing market is in Aberdeen, but I imagine that’s going to be a pretty difficult sale.
As for the reissue of “In Utero,” Dave Grohl spoke with Rolling Stone about the origin of the album and a little about how the three members of Nirvana coped with fame and their meteoric rise, as well as Cobain’s drug use, and he had this to say about how people should approach listening to it 20 years later:
The album should be listened to as it was the day it came out. That’s my problem with the record. I used to like to listen to it. And I don’t anymore, because of that. To me, if you listen to it without thinking of Kurt dying, you might get the original intention of the record. Like my kids. They know I was in Nirvana. They know Kurt was killed. I haven’t told them that he killed himself. They’re four and seven years old. So when they listen to In Utero, they’ll have that fresh perspective – the original intention of the album, as a first-time listener.
Someday they will learn what happened. And it’ll change that. It did for me.
Read the rest of the interview, because it’s pretty great.
