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A recently dug up Kurt Cobain demo, titled 'Sappy', is now available to stream online. Regardless of whether the song is any good, it raises an important point - should we celebrate the release of posthumous material that was never intended for release?
The track will be included on Kurt's so-called 'solo album', which isn't so much of a solo project as it as a compilation for the Cobain biopic 'Montage Of Heck'. The album will be released on 13 November as a 31-track deluxe record or a 13-track standard edition.
'Sappy', which you can listen to below, is a claustrophobic demo with chorus-laden guitars that trace a simple powerchord structure as Kurt croons in a low register into, what sounds like, a rusty four-track. It's sinister and indicative of the Nirvana man's writing style around the time of In Utero layered with morbid imagery: "And if you kill yourself / You will think you're happy".
Listen to 'Sappy' below
What's more disturbing than the aural suicide note this lyric entails is the fact that, I can only speculate, Kurt probably had no intention of anyone hearing this music. If it was written pre-In Utero then it would have made it on the record. The more reasonable explanation for 'Sappy', and every other Cobain demo released, is that it was recorded for solely referential purposes.
The song is simultaneously deeply personal and hidden from plain sight, while various versions of 'Sappy' have been circulating the internet for years now, this release represents a corporate stranglehold on the Cobain's legacy - and that's just not right.
