Nirvana

MTV UNPLUGGED IN NEW YORK Nirvana / DGC At first, the release of the Nirvana live album, "MTV Unplugged in New York," less than a year after Kurt Cobain's suicide smells like record company exploitation. After all, hasn't MTV aired the concert at Sony Studios in New York City enough already since it premiered last December? And wasn't it the almighty corporate dollar - and all the pressures that came with it - that sent Cobain over the edge, never to return? It would be too much for any cynic - fan or otherwise - to plug into if the album didn't serve as such a hauntingly beautiful elegy and eulogy of a man who was synonymous with ugliness in both life and death.

IN UTERO Nirvana (DGC/Sub Pop) Teen-age angst has paid off well. As Nirvana's Kurt Cobain scowls this on "Serve the Servants" from the group's long-awaited "In Utero" disc, you have to wonder whether adult anxiety reaps the same kind of benefits. After their gadzillion-selling "Nevermind" disc, the entire record industry is wondering if the first major-label effort by Nirvana was a total fluke. "In Utero" doesn't pack anything as timelessly cool as "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but the group's knack for scintillating pop hooks, coated by the obligatory veneer of distortion, is still intact.

Singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain, 27, whose group Nirvana popularized the rock genre known as "grunge," was found shot to death yesterday morning in his Seattle home, a shotgun lying across his body and a suicide note nearby. Cobain was the unofficial leader and primary songwriter of the three-member band that began in Seattle and became enormously popular with disaffected youth worldwide. Police did not disclose the specifics of the note. A police spokeswoman said that the body, found by an electrician hired to install a security alarm, had been there for about a day. Wendy O'Connor, Cobain's mother, said that her son had been missing for six days and that she had feared he would be found dead.

The hot music-related topics come in bunches this year. Tucked among the coffee-table picture books and the quickie-biographies are multiple books concerned with Nirvana, the pathfinding Seattle grunge band. There are two titles on The Band, two books on Duke Ellington, and the usual complement of Beatles books. It's more than the casual fan can afford, and a symbol of the relative health of the music-books subsegment of publishing. Just how strong is the appetite for words about music?

The one thing that Road to Nirvana, Arthur Kopit's satire of movie-industry deal-making, proves is that movie-industry deal-making is beyond satire. In Speed the Plow, David Mamet presented Hollywood's greedy, unbalanced deal-makers as they are, and they satirized themselves. Kopit chooses to exaggerate his characters and situations to such an extent that all credibility is lost in a luridly ridiculous play - one that is beneath the standards of the author of such works as Indians; Wings; and Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. The production by the Daylight Zone at the Try Arts Theater is marginally competent.

Forget what's been written about Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain, his wife, his child, his drug use. Forget those rumors about infighting among members of this celebrated Seattle trio. Forget everything that doesn't pertain to the music. Nirvana has. In an astonishing 90-minute set Monday at the Armory in West Philadelphia, the band that was considered a shoo-in for self-destruction just a few months ago roared to life with a fury rarely displayed (or sustained) on the rock and roll stage.

From the very first line of Nirvana's third album, In Utero, which arrives in stores today, the message is clear: Kurt Cobain's circumstances have changed. "Teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old," Cobain sings on the embittered "Serve the Servants," his disinterested tone miles from the usual paint-peeling shriek. Could he be offering a report to shareholders on the success of his band's once-humble endeavor? Or is he commenting, derisively, on the way the astonishing Nevermind, the 1991 album that brought grunge to the mainstream and went on to sell more than 9 million copies, was analyzed to excess and held up as an all-purpose explanation of the twentysomething generation?

Rocker Kurt Cobain opened his eyes and moved his hands yesterday in Rome 12 hours after lapsing into a drug-and-alcohol-induced coma. An Italian news agency reported that the Nirvana lead singer got ill after mixing a large dose of Roipnol, precribed for insomnia, with champagne. Cobain, 27, was in American Hospital. The former heroin user is touring Europe with the band. His U.S. management said yesterday that Cobain had been ill with the flu and fatigue, causing the cancellation of two recent concerts.

A collection of rare Nirvana material - possibly a box set - will be released for Christmas, says Courtney Love, widow of lead singer Kurt Cobain. Love told radio host Howard Stern that she had made nice with the surviving band mates, adding that "lots and lots and lots of money" was key to the new understanding. After telling Stern that the numerous lawsuits that had entangled her and band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic had been settled, Love announced: "We love each other.

It is crude, it is crass, it is the funniest show I have seen in years. It is Arthur Kopit's "Road to Nirvana," ne "Bone-the-Fish," widely considered to be a sendup of David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow. " It is playing through Feb. 27 at the Wilma Theater, and if there is any spunk left in the Philadelphia theatergoing public, this evil little winner will be held over on Sansom Street when the Wilmas move in with the Walnuts for their joint production of "Cyrano" as of March 5. This is the show that supplanted Mamet in the record books for the most lavish use of the f-word in a two-act play.

George Clooney , who seems to be everywhere these days, led a demonstration against the government of Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir Friday outside Sudan's embassy in D.C. It wasn't long before the cops clapped Georgie in cuffs and led him away. What did his mom, Nina Clooney , think of the prospect of his arrest? "He's a big boy. He'll be OK. " Yes, he will. So will his dad, Nick Clooney , who also got arrested. George has been active investigating reports of war crimes by Bashir, reports that outspoken George says are true.

YOU EITHER HAVE SOMETHING or you don't. Claiming you have something you don't actually have is not something you can lie about for too long. Eventually, it catches up with you. So Tattle is baffled by the report on RadarOnline.com that Hustler claims it has a sex tape of leggy "S&M" singer Rihanna and rapper J-Cole , (who may have really been) her opening act on her recent "Loud" tour. " Hustler is in possession of the Rihanna and J-Cole tape," said a rep for Larry Flynt's porn empire.

C RYSTAL HARRIS, former fiancee of Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner , told Howard Stern on Tuesday that Hef lasted "like two seconds" in the sack. But she's apparently had a change of heart. "The Stern interview scared me, he's harsh," Harris tweeted Thursday night. "I was unprepared and blurted out things I shouldn't have said, I'm sorry. " Hef, who denied Harris' original claims on Twitter, despite being an 85-year-old man who should be lucky to last "like two seconds," tweeted that Harris' original comments "didn't have much to do with reality" after Harris retracted her statements.

With its mix of maudlin metal, earthen psychedelia, and animalistic punk done up in complex chord changes, Soundgarden was an anomaly on the American music scene of the '90s. While grunge-era gods Nirvana and Pearl Jam played it noisily or straight, Soundgarden made a racket, sure, but made it sing and swing, racking up platinum album sales for their troubles. Topped by Chris Cornell's powerfully primal howl and emotionally tortured lyrics, guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron, and bassist Hunter "Ben" Shepherd could do no wrong and went out on top when they disbanded in 1997.

CHERRY SPRINGS STATE PARK, Pa. - This is one of the darkest places in the Eastern United States, an oasis of blackness so deep it must be what our ancestors saw at night. A little after 9, as twilight turned itself down, Dwight Dulsky, an art teacher and amateur astronomer from Bucks County, saw the first light snap on. It was the bright star Vega, the master of ceremonies, opening the show on a rare, perfect night, with a clear sky and no moon over the endless, big woods of northern Pennsylvania.

Others may continue to bandy about identity issues concerning Cage the Elephant; few seemed to care at the exuberant rockers' sold-out Electric Factory show Saturday. Animated fans were later heard asking one another about "the Elephant's" killer new encore song and how it combined the best elements of Cage live. Which it did: front man Matt Shultz hopping about, dirty blond hair a-whirl when not delivering grainy, occasionally yowling yet tuneful vocals; his brother, the shorter- and darker-haired Brad Shultz hunched over his guitar, furiously strumming; the other guitarist, Lincoln Parish (oft-mistaken as the singer's sibling, given his own blond mop)

David Kalinowski and his wife, Teresa Lee, heard the buzz. Philadelphia is the hot new city for young artists. The New York couple - he's a 38-year-old writer and illustrator, she's a graphic designer, 37 - put up a posting a couple of months ago on Craigslist asking for feedback from artists who had moved here recently. "I got 18 replies," says Kalinowski, "and everybody except one said, 'It's awesome.' " One expatriate New York photographer waxed ecstatic over his studio, with its French-style skylight.

Regardless of how well Microsoft does with its video-game consoles or the quality of titles produced by U.S.-based game developers like Bungie or Epic, Japan is still considered the nirvana of gaming for most people. Sega, Sony, Nintendo, Capcom, Square-Enix, Konami, and many more hail from the Land of the Rising Sun. The 10th annual Tokyo Game Show was held last weekend, in Chiba, Japan. Unlike the recently downsized Electronic Entertainment Expo held in Los Angeles in the spring, fall's TGS opened its doors to fans.

It is, as Steve Young calls it, "nirvana," that relatively brief window when a quarterback's physical ability and mental understanding of the game share a plateau. It doesn't last long, two years, maybe three, four if you're lucky. Those who have watched Donovan McNabb during training camp and through the preseason have seen a quarterback on nirvana's precipice. They've seen a veteran who is healthy, sharp and, possibly most important, happy. McNabb and the Eagles have to capitalize.

CHRISTINE FLOWERS' combination of (anti-)pop psychology, right-wing pseudo-morals and rampant speculation is almost but not quite as useful as a copy of the National Enquirer as a guide to managing personal relationships. I suspect - with almost, but not quite as much authority as Ms. Flowers, that the materialistic nirvana pushed on us relentlessly by Madison Avenue has far more to do with modern challenges to marital bliss than the relatively brief fling many of us got to enjoy during our youth.