Today marks the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death.
I have never been a die hard Nirvana fan. I now have four of their albums and appreciate the band for how it changed the face of rock music in the early 90s. However, as I have mentioned before, I am also a “hair band” fan and honestly, when Nevermind hit the music stores, it in effect killed the hair band scene. I didn’t take to that too kindly and in fact boycotted Nirvana until my sophomore year of college (which incidentally also happened to be the year Kurt Cobain shot himself).
By late 1993, I had evolved from the hair bands to hard rock acts like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and co. I thought since I liked these groups maybe I should give Nirvana a second chance. However, I had yet to buy a Nirvana album when I heard on our college radio station on April 8, 1994, that Kurt Cobain killed himself. I knew the guy had problems and thought it was too bad. I also realized that he had now joined the ranks of Jim Morrison, Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and the like. Another rock musician immortalized not only for his music, but also for dying too young.
neil says:
I had a real affinity for the whole Seattle scene, maybe it was because studying in Glasgow we thought of ourselves as living the British equivalent - “its the North West, it’s cold, miserable and rains all the time”.
By the time he killed himself though, we’d obviously all decided they’d “sold out”, the suicide was kind of obviously coming and I was more interested in this German girl who would be the cause of me making Easter trees and doing a Doktorarbeit in T?bingen as opposed to Edinburgh in the years ahead……
I don’t think anyone thought, 10 years ago, that Nirvana would be the “high point”, so to speak, of the 90s
8 April 2004 at 22:14
Tracey Marshall says:
My home is Seattle and I have to say, with regard to the “grunge scene,” it was the strangest sensation having the whole world hanging on your (Seattle’s) every move. When Kurt Cobain killed himself, it felt like the city got one last scrutinous look and then it was over. And it wasn’t a bad thing that it was over. Seattle felt normal again.
And, with the exception of Buddy Holly, Cobain also joins the ranks of the rock-musician who died-too-young because of drug addiction. The tragedy is that there was no real tragedy.
Honestly, it was no great loss to me. I didn’t think there was much there to begin with. I know most of the world seriously disagrees with me (even my boyfriend thinks I’m nuts when I say this), but I just wasn’t a fan and still don’t understand the hype.
10 April 2004 at 10:45