Kurt Cobain
February 20, 1967 — April 5, 1994
Kurt Cobain was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who fronted Nirvana, wrote "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and in two albums and three years of mainstream fame became the defining artistic voice of Generation X — a raw, contradictory, achingly vulnerable figure who articulated alienation with such precision that millions of young people felt he was speaking directly to them.
Aberdeen and the Early Years
Born on February 20, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington, Kurt Donald Cobain grew up in a working-class family that fractured when his parents divorced when he was nine — an event he described as deeply traumatic and formative. He was passionate about art and music from childhood, taught himself guitar as a teenager, and moved in with various relatives (and briefly under a bridge) after his parents' divorce upended his home life. In the mid-1980s, in Seattle's nascent punk scene, he formed Nirvana with bassist Krist Novoselic. Their first album, Bleach (1989), was made for $606 on the SubPop label.
Nevermind and the Grunge Revolution
Nirvana's second album, Nevermind (1991), featuring "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are," and "Lithium," exploded out of nowhere to sell 30 million copies worldwide and push Michael Jackson out of the number-one spot on the Billboard charts. It fundamentally shifted the commercial landscape of rock music, making alternative and grunge mainstream overnight. Cobain's songwriting married pop melody to punk noise, anguished lyrics to hooks so powerful they lodged in the brain permanently. Their follow-up In Utero (1993), produced by Steve Albini with deliberate abrasion, was a direct challenge to the glossy sound of Nevermind — and it still sold three million copies in its first month.
Did You Know?
Kurt Cobain was left-handed but played guitar upside-down — using a right-handed guitar restrung for a left-handed player, with the body's contour on the wrong side. He reportedly never learned to read music and composed primarily by feeling, recording song ideas on a four-track cassette recorder. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was written in about 15 minutes at a single rehearsal; Cobain described it as his attempt to write "the ultimate pop song," influenced by the Pixies' loud-quiet-loud dynamic. He named it after a phrase his friend Kathleen Hanna had spray-painted on his wall.
Illness, Fame, and Death
Fame intensified Cobain's existing struggles: severe chronic stomach pain, an addiction to heroin he said he used to self-medicate, and a profound discomfort with the commercial spectacle of celebrity. He married Courtney Love in 1992; the couple had a daughter, Frances Bean, later that year. In March 1994, after a suspected overdose in Rome, he entered a rehabilitation facility and then escaped. On April 5, 1994, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Seattle home. He was 27. Cobain is widely cited as one of the greatest songwriters in rock history and his death at 27 placed him in the tragic company of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Amy Winehouse.