Nirvana really weren't all that gloomy, says filmmaker Doug Pray.

There’s a new Nirvana record out, Kurt Cobain is back on the airwaves, his journals are in bookstores, and magazine covers everywhere are featuring his face again. I loved Nirvana. It's good to see them back so rapidly.

The bad news is that with the fond remembrance comes that damn creeping mould from the gloomy rainforests of Seattle: the media’s convenient perception of a dark and depressing “grunge” movement of the early 90s. Close the shades, put on your damp, grey, ripped up sweaters and muddy hiking boots, lower your mop of hair, get out the syringes and… That’s what grunge was all about, right? And hip-hop is all just violent, misogynistic, grandstanding, right? And how could anyone forget the great class struggles of the late 70s and all that punk-rock political aggression?

As we mine Cobain’s diaries for insight, all I want to know is this: why is the humour always left out of our memories of great underground pop movements? Why is it impossible for the media to recognize that bands like Nirvana had an absolute riot playing live? That early photography of their shows reveals hundreds of smiling faces in the crowd? That, while Smells Like Teen Spirit is fairly profound, it’s equally funny? (Teen Spirit was the brand name of a body deodorant sold at the time.) And, for that matter, that early hip-hop in the South Bronx was extremely joyful. And that those punk pioneers, The Ramones, were hysterical.

Please understand that I feel great sadness for the tragic ending of Cobain's life. I feel the urgency of gangsta rap. I thrived angrily on the Sex Pistols in my youth. And I can't deny that the best art, from Orpheus on down, is closely linked to pain.

I just want to note that humour is also an essential element of all great rebellious music. In their own way, they're ALL rebelling against self-seriousness. Just read Kurt’s journals. Doug Pray 05 November 02

Kurt Cobain's Journals are available now.

The Best Of Nirvana is out now on Geffen Records.

Doug Pray directed Scratch (2002) and Hype! (1996), about the rise and fall of the Seattle music scene. Scratch is available now on Region 1 DVD.

collective previews: scratch