Few voices are as closely associated with grunge and the Seattle music scene as Kurt Cobain. Nirvana’s song Smells Like Teen Spirit represents the early 90s better than most songs.
Nirvana break through
There were perhaps bands in Seattle that was more likely to become the era’s icons; such as Alice In Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. But when Nirvana released their classic Nevermind they took over the attention from both media and audience. The album became the soundtrack of the time and features lots of Nirvana’s biggest hits; besides the aforementioned Smells Like Teen Spirit one finds songs like Come As You Are, In Bloom, Lithium and Polly.
Kurt Cobain was often dressed quite ordinary even while on stage and hardly looked like a glamorous rock star. He was left-handed and his favorite guitar was the Fender Mustang that was made for left-handers. Kurt founded Nirvana in 1987 along with bassist Krist Novoselic. The band went through several changes of drummers. On the debut album Chad Channing played drums but he resigned just prior to the bands major break and gave way to Dave Grohl.
Nirvana Unplugged
Nirvana’s Unplugged was maybe one of the most successful of MTV’s Unplugged series and the pure acoustic sound bared Kurt’s pained voice better than any other recording. Perhaps it reflected his tortured soul? Maybe this was the beginning of the end?
Kurt Cobains death
After a long period of time with drug related problems, including an overdose during a visit to Rome, Kurt Cobain admitted to rehabilitation at the Exodus Recovery Center in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles. After a few days following the program, he escaped and took a flight home to Seattle.
Courtney Love hired Tom Grant, a private investigator, to get a hold of Kurt Cobain after a few days when she couldn’t get hold of Kurt. Tom visited the house Kurt and Love lived in at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East in Seattle where he searched the house along with Kurt’s best friend Dylan Carlson without finding him.
On April 8th 1994 a electrician visited the house to install an alarm, and found Kurt lifeless upstairs of the greenhouse. The police concluded that Kurt had died three days earlier, on April 5th. His passing hit like a bomb in the music world and it became the end of the entire grunge era. On April 10th there was a large public vigil for Kurt at the Seattle Center with the entire 7000 mourners.
Suicide – or murder?
The private investigator hired by Courtney, Tom Grant, felt that all was not right. He has questioned whether Kurt Cobain really killed himself or not. He raises several questions about the case on his website. Among them he found that the large dose of heroin that Kurt had injected was enough to kill anyone and fast enough that he wouldn’t be able to remove the syringe from his arm. Hardly a condition for someone to after injecting being able to handle a gun and shoot himself. His suspicions are pointing at Courtney Love and her motive being money. Kurt wanted a divorce and she was about to loose a lot. Tom Grant also question the alleged suicide note, Kurt wrote similar things all the time, and also believe the last lines of the letter had been added later.
Kurt Cobains suicide note
Source: http://www.kurtcobainssuicidenote.com
Tom Grant website about the Kurt Cobain case
Documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield made a film about Kurt and Courtney in which he touches on some points of Tom Grants thoughts and although it may not provide answers, it does reveal the strange relationship between Kurt and Courtney and showed on some unanswered questions.
Kurt & Courtney by Nick Broomfield at IMDb
Nirvanas inheritance
Nirvana disbanded obviously after Kurt’s death, but there were rumors going on about a break up before that. From the rubble of the band the band’s drummer Dave Grohl started recording his own songs and soon got a new band which over time become very successful too, Foo Fighters.