Kurt Cobain Biography

Kurt Donald Cobain was the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana. He served not only as the band's frontman and principal songwriter, but also as its "leader and spiritual center." With the band's success, Cobain became a major national and international celebrity, an uncomfortable position for a man who once said, "Famous is the last thing I wanted to be."

Cobain and Nirvana helped reshape popular music in the 1990s. In 1991, the arrival of Nirvana's hit single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" marked the beginning of a dramatic shift of popular rock music away from the dominant genres of the 1980s (glam metal, arena rock, and dance-pop) and toward the ascendance of grunge and alternative rock. The music media eventually awarded the song "anthem-of-a-generation" status, and, with it, Cobain ascended as the reluctant "spokesman" for Generation X. Other hit songs written by Cobain include "Come as You Are", "Lithium", "In Bloom", "Heart-Shaped Box", "All Apologies", and "About a Girl".

During the last years of his life, Cobain battled drug addiction and the media pressures surrounding him and his wife Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Cobain's body was found in his home. His death was officially ruled a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound. Since then, the circumstances surrounding his death have fueled much analysis and debate.