Listen To Kurt Cobain’s Darkly Brilliant Sound Collage From 1988
It’s called “Montage of Heck.”
In 1988, Kurt Cobain stitched together a sound collage on a 4-track recorder, Dangerous Minds reports. The product—called "Montage of Heck" and embedded above—was made the year before Bleach came out, and it sounds as manic and angst-riddled as you'd expect from the troubled icon at age 21. The bizarro mixtape features snippets from known Kurt favorites (Daniel Johnston, Butthole Surfers, Shocking Blue), plus some other esoteric sound bites (William Shatner's "Wild Thing," vomit sounds), all sewn-up with heaps of tape deck distortion. It's straight-up frightening in a few places. Have a listen for yourself; the extensive list of its components, as compiled by United Mutilations, is below. I don't know if you can really call it a track list, though.
Montage of Heck "track-listing":
The Men In My Little Girl's Life" by Mike Douglas
"The Sounds of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel
"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" by The Beatles
"A Day In The Life" by The Beatles
"Eruption" by Van Halen
"Hot Pants" by James Brown
"Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" by Cher
"Go Away Little Girl" by Donny Osmond
"Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver
"Everybody Loves Somebody" by Dean Martin
"The Candy Man" by Sammy Davis, Jr.
"In A Gadda Da Vida" by Iron Butterfly
"Wild Thing" by William Shatner
"Taxman" by The Beatles
"I Think I Love You" by The Partridge Family
"Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?" by The Barbarians
"Queen Of The Reich" by Queensryche
"Last Caress/Green Hell" covered by Metallica
"Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin
"Get Down, Make Love" by Queen
"ABC" by The Jackson Five
"I Want Your Sex" by George Michael
"Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden
"Eye Of The Chicken" by Butthole Surfers
"Dance of the Cobra" by Butthole Surfers
"The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave" by Butthole Surfers
"New Age" by The Velvet Underground
"Love Buzz" by Shocking Blue
Orchestral music from 200 Motels by Frank Zappa
"Help I'm A Rock" / "It Can't Happen Here" by Frank Zappa
"Call Any Vegetable" by Frank Zappa
"The Day We Fall In Love" by The Monkees
"Sweet Leaf" by Black Sabbath (intro)
Theme from The Andy Griffith Show
Mike Love (of The Beach Boys) talking about "Transcendental Meditation"
Excerpts of Jimi Hendrix speaking at the Monterey Pop Festival
Excerpts of Paul Stanley from KISS' Alive!
Excerpts of Daniel Johnston screaming about Satan
Excerpts from sound effects records
Various children's records (Curious George, Sesame Street, The Flintstones, Star Wars).
Lead image: Frank Micelotta/Getty Images
