Kurt Cobain rose to prominence as Nirvana’s frontman and guitarist, with his career taking flight during his twenties once the group came together. Tracks including “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Come as You Are,” and “Heart Shaped Box” propelled the band to global recognition.
Born in Aberdeen, Washington, the future musician displayed hyperactive tendencies in childhood, prompting prescriptions of Ritalin to aid focus during classes and sedatives to ease nighttime restlessness. Following his parents’ divorce when he turned seven, his increasingly challenging behavior led them to place him with relatives—an experience that later surfaced in material such as “Sliver.” Disinterested in academics, he devoted hours to painting and vocalizing; early listening favored the Beatles and the Monkees until 1979, when his tastes shifted toward Kiss, Black Sabbath, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash. On his fourteenth birthday he acquired his first guitar and began exploring assorted styles while also serving as a roadie for Seattle’s the Melvins. He abandoned high school weeks shy of graduation in pursuit of steady employment, yet proved unable to maintain any position for long.
Nirvana assembled in 1986 with Cobain handling vocals and guitar, Krist Novaselic on bass, and a rotating cast of drummers. Their debut album, Bleach, arrived in 1989; the band subsequently crisscrossed the United States and performed its first show abroad in Newcastle, England. An unsuccessful follow-up single prompted a label switch, and after inking a deal with Geffen Records in 1991 and installing Dave Grohl as permanent drummer, the group issued Nevermind. The record earned widespread acclaim on the strength of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Come as You Are,” and “Lithium,” while appearances on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and NBC’s Saturday Night Live further amplified its reach. Cobain found the mounting fame unsettling, preferring the close quarters of clubs even as financial considerations steered the band toward larger venues. Around the same period he began heavy use of morphine and heroin; his private life nevertheless took a positive turn in 1992 when he wed Courtney Love in Hawaii and welcomed daughter Frances Bean. Settling into family life, he grew somewhat steadier, and Nirvana released Incesticide.
The trajectory darkened in 1993 when Cobain suffered a heroin overdose. Although he entered rehabilitation, he departed before finishing treatment. The band pressed onward regardless, delivering its final studio album, In Utero, that same year. Nirvana performed an MTV Unplugged set and a concert in Munich during 1994; one week after the German date, Cobain was hospitalized in a coma. After regaining consciousness and checking out on his own, he was reported missing and discovered three days later at his home, the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Cobain’s stature continued to expand over the ensuing twenty years, fueled partly by posthumous Nirvana releases. The concert albums MTV Unplugged in New York and From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah surfaced in 1994 and 1996, respectively, followed in 2002 by a self-titled greatest-hits collection. Two years later the archival box With the Lights Out appeared, marking the last major excavation until 2015, when Brett Morgen’s documentary Montage of Heck premiered alongside a companion soundtrack. That album compiled home recordings and demos and became the first release issued solely under Cobain’s name.
