Billboard is reporting the soundtrack for the new Michael Azerrad documentary, “Kurt Cobain: About A Son,” is ready and set for a September 11 release on Barsuk. Tracks on the album will include many Cobain favorites including, Half Japanese, the Vaselines, Scratch Acid, Ledbelly and the Butthole Surfers.
Other tracks include the Bowie song that Nirvana covered on their MTV Unplugged, and songs from artists Cobain contacted late in life for potential collaboration (R.E.M. and Iggy Pop).
An plaintive, ambient score has been composed by Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and Steve Fisk — a Seattle-based engineer that at one time worked with practically every artist in the grunge scene during its ’90s heyday. Gibbard also covers Beat Happening’s “Indian Summer,” for the album; another band dear to Cobain.
The movie is centered around rock journalist, Azerrad’s audio interviews with Cobain and puports to be something other than a documentary. Azzerad interviewed Cobain many times in the early ’90s and the two became so close, Azzerad wrote their official biography, “Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana.”
“We didn’t want to call it a documentary,” Azerrad told MTV News in August of last year. “We’d call it a nonfiction film, because it wasn’t really going to trace a journalistic narrative. It became more of an intimate visit with a person who a lot of people thought they understood but probably didn’t. You’re listening to him talk in these very intimate conversations, and you get a feeling that I don’t think anyone has ever gotten from Kurt. He talks about his generation — the world as it was when he was a kid and the world it became later.”
Co-director A.J. Schnack echoed Azerrad’s sentiment. “It won’t fit into what anyone is expecting about a Kurt Cobain documentary, and it’s not a traditional rock doc,” Schnack told MTV. “There’s no archival footage in the film, and Kurt only appears at the very end. Basically it’s the chance to sit with his voice and listen to him tell his story.”
“Kurt Cobain — About a Son” tracklist:
“Overture,” Steve Fisk and Ben Gibbard
Audio: Never Intended
“Motorcycle Song,” Arlo Guthrie
“Eye Flys,” the Melvins
Audio: Punk Rock
“Banned in D.C.,” Bad Brains
“Up Around the Bend,” Creedence Clearwater Revival
“Put Some Sugar on It,” Half Japanese
“Son of a Gun,” the Vaselines
“Graveyard,” Butthole Surfers
Audio: Hardcore Was Dead
“Owner’s Lament,” Scratch Acid
“Touch Me I’m Sick,” Mudhoney
Audio: Car Radio
“The Passenger,” Iggy Pop
“The Borgeois Blues,” Leadbelly
“New Orleans Instrumental No. 1,” R.E.M.
Audio: The Limelight
“The Man Who Sold the World,” David Bowie
“Museum,” Mark Lanegan
“Indian Summer,” Ben Gibbard
Download: R.E.M – “New Orleans Instrumental No. 1”
Download: David Bowie – “Man Who Sold The World”
Download: The Vaselines – “Son Of a Gun”