Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967, Aberdeen, Washington – ca. April 5, 1994) was the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the Seattle grunge band Nirvana. He served not only as the band’s frontman, but as its “leader and spiritual center”. With the band’s success, Cobain became a major national and international celebrity, an uncomfortable position for someone who claimed to be “ill at ease with fame and ill-equipped to handle the responsibility that accompanies success”.
Cobain and Nirvana were highly influential, popularizing what came to be known as “grunge music”. In 1991, the arrival of Cobain’s best known song, “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. The music media eventually awarded “Smells Like Teen Spirit” “anthem-of-a-generation” status, and, with it, Cobain ascended as the reluctant “spokesman” for Generation X. Kurt Cobain changed the course of music forever even though it was never his intention.
Kurt Cobain battled drug addiction during his fame, and though desperate to get clean in the end was unable.
He was found dead on April 8th, 1994 in a greenhouse above the garage of his house in Seattle. The cause of death is a shotgun wound to the head, the estimated time of death is believed to be the late evening of April 5th. He also injected himself with a lethal dose of black tar heroin beforehand. A note proclaiming he was done with mainstream music was found near him. .
