previously marginalized as part of Americaâs resolutely independent music scene. Several such bands became part of the most exciting movement since punk fifteen years previously, of which Nirvana were direct descendants. REM â already frontrunners â Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Dinosaur Jr., Rage Against the Machine, Screaming Trees, Janeâs Addiction, and â for Kurt, the spiritual godfathers â Sonic Youth, now swept all before them.
Not only was Kurt Cobain the most successful musician of his generation, he was the rock ânâ roll god of his age: a rock star, a father, an anti-style icon, a junkie, a suicide. Yet his was also the story of what happens to a man when he gets what he wants.
Kurt took the universal pain of a child of divorce and expressed it (the parents of Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl had also split up). His persistent feelings of utter isolation were so archetypal that he managed to truly connect with an enormous audience. Kurt seemed an almost professional loser, which was why he became such a huge star. Everyone identified with him and his struggle to be himself. Yet there was always an element of pose, and although Kurt Cobain seemed the personification of what would soon become known as Generation X âslackerâ apathy, he was also a very good actor. He was largely content to go along with anything that could boost his success, perfectly prepared to sign with a major label, to ditch an inappropriate drummer, and to accept huge pay cheques for playing major festivals. Yet he was persistently conflicted over his role as a star, uncomfortable with the financial rewards it brought.
Nirvana were a punk act that drew on the spirit of the Sex Pistolsâ
Never Mind the Bollocks
, on the churning drive of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and on the melodic possibilities of the Beatles, with whose music Kurt had grown up. Many of his relatives loved the English group. âMy aunts would give me Beatlesâ records,â he told Jon Savage. âFor the most part it was just Beatlesâ records.â In fact, many of Kurtâs influences were from the UK. Appropriately, at the end of 1991, when
Nevermind
was surging up the US charts, Nirvana were touring Britain and then Europe, largely unaware that their lives were about to be utterly transformed.
An anti-hero figurehead for his generation in his moth-holed thrift store woollen apparel, in January 1992 Kurt Cobain and Nirvana dislodged Michael Jacksonâs
Dangerous
album from its long stint at the top of the US album charts. As a cultural figure, Kurt represented a very specific moment when a unique sense of community â the global Nirvana community â emerged from popular culture. The early 1990s were a period of recession and war, both in the Gulf and the former Yugoslavia, and Kurtâs hand-me-down garb was the antithesis of the designer-besotted late 1980s. His rebel music bespoke the soul of a difficult, dysfunctional individual, which was precisely the interior landscape of many of his fans.
As the Beatles had done with Liverpool, Bob Marley with Kingston, Jamaica, and Bruce Springsteen with New Jerseyâs Asbury Park, Nirvana put Seattle on the musical map. Seattle, which has a population of three million, has a long-standing liberal, progressive outlook, and is an affluent city. But it does not enjoy an easy climate: central to the sound of Nirvana is the mildly depressive, laconic feel of the American Pacific North-West, where rain clouds ceaselessly tumble inland from over the vast ocean and sit over the blustery city.
It was only later that it became known that Nirvana were not actually from Seattle at all. The biggest city in Washington state happened to be the one to which Kurt Cobain and bass player Krist Novoselic had eventually relocated from the logging town of Aberdeen, three hours drive to the south west. This is where they had grown up, a
Not only was Kurt Cobain the most successful musician of his generation, he was the rock ânâ roll god of his age: a rock star, a father, an anti-style icon, a junkie, a suicide. Yet his was also the story of what happens to a man when he gets what he wants.
Kurt took the universal pain of a child of divorce and expressed it (the parents of Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl had also split up). His persistent feelings of utter isolation were so archetypal that he managed to truly connect with an enormous audience. Kurt seemed an almost professional loser, which was why he became such a huge star. Everyone identified with him and his struggle to be himself. Yet there was always an element of pose, and although Kurt Cobain seemed the personification of what would soon become known as Generation X âslackerâ apathy, he was also a very good actor. He was largely content to go along with anything that could boost his success, perfectly prepared to sign with a major label, to ditch an inappropriate drummer, and to accept huge pay cheques for playing major festivals. Yet he was persistently conflicted over his role as a star, uncomfortable with the financial rewards it brought.
Nirvana were a punk act that drew on the spirit of the Sex Pistolsâ
Never Mind the Bollocks
, on the churning drive of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and on the melodic possibilities of the Beatles, with whose music Kurt had grown up. Many of his relatives loved the English group. âMy aunts would give me Beatlesâ records,â he told Jon Savage. âFor the most part it was just Beatlesâ records.â In fact, many of Kurtâs influences were from the UK. Appropriately, at the end of 1991, when
Nevermind
was surging up the US charts, Nirvana were touring Britain and then Europe, largely unaware that their lives were about to be utterly transformed.
An anti-hero figurehead for his generation in his moth-holed thrift store woollen apparel, in January 1992 Kurt Cobain and Nirvana dislodged Michael Jacksonâs
Dangerous
album from its long stint at the top of the US album charts. As a cultural figure, Kurt represented a very specific moment when a unique sense of community â the global Nirvana community â emerged from popular culture. The early 1990s were a period of recession and war, both in the Gulf and the former Yugoslavia, and Kurtâs hand-me-down garb was the antithesis of the designer-besotted late 1980s. His rebel music bespoke the soul of a difficult, dysfunctional individual, which was precisely the interior landscape of many of his fans.
As the Beatles had done with Liverpool, Bob Marley with Kingston, Jamaica, and Bruce Springsteen with New Jerseyâs Asbury Park, Nirvana put Seattle on the musical map. Seattle, which has a population of three million, has a long-standing liberal, progressive outlook, and is an affluent city. But it does not enjoy an easy climate: central to the sound of Nirvana is the mildly depressive, laconic feel of the American Pacific North-West, where rain clouds ceaselessly tumble inland from over the vast ocean and sit over the blustery city.
It was only later that it became known that Nirvana were not actually from Seattle at all. The biggest city in Washington state happened to be the one to which Kurt Cobain and bass player Krist Novoselic had eventually relocated from the logging town of Aberdeen, three hours drive to the south west. This is where they had grown up, a
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