April 5, 2019

Twenty-five years ago today, on April 5, 1994, the American rock musician Kurt Cobain tragically took his own life. Cobain was the lead singer of the popular rock band Nirvana. The band revolutionized rock music in the early 1990’s with its fiery, raw sound and passionate songs about apathy and anger. Cobain shocked the rock music world with his suicide at the age of 27. He became even more famous after his death than during his lifetime.

The American rock musician Kurt Cobain died 25 years ago today on April 5, 1994. Credit: © Frank Micelotta, Getty Images

Kurt Donald Cobain was born in Hoquiam, Washington, on Feb. 20, 1967. He grew up in Aberdeen, Washington, where he began playing drums. Cobain and his friend Krist Novoselic formed Nirvana in 1987, with Cobain playing guitar and Novoselic the bass. They added the drummer Chad Channing and the guitarist Jason Everman and recorded the band’s first album, Bleach, in 1989. Channing and Everman left the group and were replaced by the drummer Dave Grohl in 1990. (Grohl later formed the rock band the Foo Fighters.)

Nirvana released the best-selling album Nevermind in 1991, which included the hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” In 1992, the band issued Incesticide, a collection of previously recorded material. That album was followed by another hit album, In Utero, in 1993. The band’s final public performance took place in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994.

During his short career, Cobain gained international attention for his personal life as well as his music. In 1992, Cobain married Courtney Love, a member of the rock band Hole. Their sometimes turbulent relationship was followed closely by the media.

Cobain had viewed Nirvana as a band that challenged establishment attitudes. He became upset when the group achieved mainstream popularity. Cobain suffered from depression as well as drug addiction. He overdosed twice on heroin in 1993 and apparently attempted suicide in March 1994, a month before his death. Two albums of live Nirvana performances were issued after Cobain’s death, MTV Unplugged in New York (1994) and From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah (1996). Selections from Cobain’s notebooks were published as Journals in 2002.

Cobain is often described as an icon of Generation X, the group of people born in the United States and Canada between 1965 and 1981. Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.