Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – ca. April 7, 1994) was the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the Seattle rock band Nirvana. He served not only as the band's frontman and principal songwriter, but also as its "leader and spiritual center".[1] With the band's success, Cobain became a major national and international celebrity, an uncomfortable position for someone who claimed "Famous is the last thing I wanted to be." [2]
Cobain and Nirvana helped reshape popular music in the 1990s. In 1991, the arrival of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" marked the beginning of a dramatic shift of popular music away from the dominant genres of the 1980s, glam metal, arena rock, and dance-pop, leading to the ascendance of grunge and alternative rock. The music media eventually awarded "Smells Like Teen Spirit" "anthem-of-a-generation" status [3], and, with it, Cobain ascended as the reluctant "spokesman" for Generation X.
Among other well-known Cobain songs are "About a Girl", "Come as You Are", "In Bloom", "Lithium", "Heart-Shaped Box", and "All Apologies".

Cobain received his first guitar from his uncle at age 15, who had bought it at bargain price from Rosevear's Music Center in Aberdeen, choosing it over a bicycle. From there, he tried to form bands with friends, generally noodling on songs by AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. In high school, he often found himself without anyone to jam with, as none of his friends had any particular musical talent. Later in high school, Cobain met Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk rock, who lived across from the Young Street bridge. Novoselic's mother owned a hair salon (Maria's Hair Design) and they would practice there in the above room on occasion. A few years later, Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him by lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Cobain's earlier band, Fecal Matter. After months of prodding, Novoselic finally agreed to join Cobain, forming the beginnings of Nirvana.
For the first few years of their playing together, Novoselic and Cobain found themselves host to a rotating list of drummers. Eventually, the band settled on Chad Channing, with whom Nirvana recorded the album Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records in 1989. Cobain, however, became dissatisfied with Channing's style, eventually leading the band to Dave Grohl. With Grohl, the band found their greatest success via their 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind.
Cobain struggled to reconcile the massive success of Nirvana with his underground roots. He also felt persecuted by the media, comparing himself to Frances Farmer, and harbored resentment for people who claimed to be fans of the band but who completely missed the point of the band's message. One incident particularly distressing to Cobain involved two men who raped a woman while singing the Nirvana song "Polly". Cobain condemned the episode in the liner notes of the US release of the album Incesticide: "Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song 'Polly.' I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience. Sorry to be so anally P.C. but that's the way I feel."

Cobain's final weeks
Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. He flew to Rome the next day for medical treatment, and was joined there by his wife on March 3.
The next morning, Love awoke to find that Cobain had overdosed on a combination of champagne and Rohypnol. (Love had a prescription for Rohypnol filled after arriving in Rome.) Cobain was immediately rushed to the hospital, and spent the rest of the day unconscious. After five days in the hospital, Cobain was released and returned to Seattle. [9] Love later insisted publicly that the incident was Cobain's first suicide attempt.
On March 18, Love phoned police to inform them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. When questioned by police, Love admitted that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun. [10]
On March 25, Love arranged an intervention concerning Cobain's drug use. The ten people involved included musician friends, record company executives, and one of Cobain's closest friends, Dylan Carlson. Former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg described Cobain as being "extremely reluctant" and that he "denied that he was doing anything self-destructive." However, by the end of the day, Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program. [11]
On March 30, Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California. On the afternoon of April 1, one of Frances Bean's nannies brought her to the facility for an hour-long visit with Cobain. That night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, then climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility. He took a taxi to the airport and flew back to Seattle. The next morning, he stopped by his Seattle home and had a conversation with Michael "Cali" DeWitt, who lived at Cobain's house. Over the next several days, Cobain was spotted in various locations around Seattle, but most of his friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts.
On April 3, Love contacted a private investigator, Tom Grant, and hired him to find Cobain. The next day, Love filed a missing person report under Cobain's mother's name without her permission. She added in the file that Cobain was suicidal and was in possession of a shotgun. [12]

On April 8, 1994, Cobain's body was discovered in the spare room above the garage (referred to as "the greenhouse") at his Lake Washington home by Veca Electric employee Gary Smith. Smith arrived at the house that morning to install security lighting and saw the body lying inside. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, Smith reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep. Smith found what he thought might be a suicide note with a pen stuck through it beneath an overturned flowerpot. A shotgun, purchased for Cobain by Dylan Carlson, was found at Cobain's side. An autopsy report later concluded Cobain's death was a result of a "self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head." The report estimates Cobain to have died on April 5, 1994.
In the alleged suicide note, ostensibly written to Cobain's imaginary childhood friend "Boddah", Cobain quoted a lyric from Neil Young's song "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)": "It's better to burn out than to fade away." Cobain's use of the lyric had a profound impact on Young, who recorded portions of his 1994 album Sleeps with Angels in Cobain's memory. The note also evoked the name of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, who Cobain felt could revel in the adoration of an audience in a way that Cobain himself could not.
Cobain's body was cremated, with one third of his ashes scattered at the Namgyal tibetan buddhist monastery in Ithaca, New York, another third in the Wishkah River, and the rest left in Love's possession.