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Rock & Roll Museum Nirvana |
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Nirvana is widely credited with bringing the sound and spirit of late-Seventies punk rock to a mainstream pop audience. In 1992 the Seattle-based trio took the angry, nihilistic message of the Sex Pistols "Anarchy in the U.K." to #1 with its own sarcastic blueprint for frustration, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The band’s reign was tragically cut short two years later, on April 5,1994, when leader Kurt Cobain took his life following at least one earlier suicide attempt and severe bouts with drug addiction, a chronic stomach ailment, and depression. He was 27. Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic grew up in Aberdeen, Washington, a small logging town 100 miles southwest of Seattle. When Cobain was eight, his secretary mother and auto mechanic father divorced, leaving him constantly moving from one set of relatives to another. As a child beloved the Beatles, but by nine he discovered the heavier music of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Kiss. Cobain met the 6-foot-7-inch Novoselic, son of a local hairdresser, through mutual friend Buzz Osborne of the Aberdeen band Melvins. Osborne introduced them to the hardcore punk of Black Flag and Flipper. In 1987 Cobain and Novoselic, both of whom had long felt alienated from their working-class peers, formed Nirvana and started playing parties at the liberal Evergreen State College in nearby Olympia. The following year, Seattle independent label Sub Pop signed the band and released its first single, "Love Buzz" b/w "Big Cheese." Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach, recorded for $606.17, came out in 1989 to kudos from the underground rock community; it sold an initial 35,000 copies, which is considerable for an indie-label release. The next year Nirvana put out another Sub Pop single, "Sliver" b/w "Dive," and recorded six new songs (including "Smells Like Teen Spirit") with producer Butch Vig. Although opposed to major labels in principle, the band claims it shopped the songs to bigger companies in hopes of getting the message of punk to a larger audience. |
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By early 1992 the group’s success was biting back. As "Smells Like Teen Spirit" continued climbing up the charts, Cobain began bemoaning the group’s meteoric rise, worrying that fans were missing the point of Nirvana’s antiestablishment message. Simultaneously his new relationship with Courtney Love, singer of the underground band Hole [see entry], had become a hot topic in the gossip columns. The couple married on February 24. When Love became pregnant with Cobain’s child and was quoted in a Vanity Fair article as admitting she had used heroin during the pregnancy, news of the couple’s alleged drug addiction hit the media fan. Scrutiny of the Cobain/Love affair reached a level of intensity met in the pop world only by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, or the ill-fated punk couple Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. On August 18, 1992, the Cobains delivered a healthy, seven-pound baby, Frances Bean. After a battle with children’s services in Los Angeles, which challenged the Cobains’ parental fitness based on Love’s comments in Vanity Fair, the couple was granted custody of the child. Amid the chaos, Nirvana released Incesticide, a collection of early singles and outtakes. Beginning in spring of 1993, a series of events occurred that foreshadowed the demise of Cobain and Nirvana. On May 2, the singer overdosed on heroin at his Seattle home. The following month, he was charged with domestic assault after Love summoned the police during an argument over Cobain’s gun collection. On July 23, Cobain overdosed again, this time in the bathroom of a New York hotel room before a Nirvana show at the Roseland Ballroom. On September 21, Nirvana released In Utero, which debuted at #1 and ultimately produced the modern-rock radio hits "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies." On January 8,1994, Nirvana performed what would be their last American concert at the Seattle Center Arena. On February 2, the band departed for a European tour, but after a series of shows in France, Portugal, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, and Germany, decided to take a break, during which Cobain remained in Rome. |
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When the Cobains returned to Seattle, things took a turn for the worse. On March 18, police arrived at the Cobain home again after the singer locked himself in a room with a .38-caliber revolver, threatening to kill himself. On March 30, Cobain checked into the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, but fled on April 1, after telling staff members he was going outside for a smoke. On April 8, he was found dead in a room above the garage of the couple’s Seattle home, the result of a self-inflicted 20-gauge shotgun wound to his head. For weeks afterward, fans, the news media, MTV, and radio mourned his death with specials about Nirvana and the generations they inspired. In November 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York (#1, 1994), an album of the acoustic show taped in 1993, was released. Following Cobain’s death, Novoselic spent most of his time as an advocate for various political and social causes. Grohl started a band, the Foo Fighters, which included guitarist Pat Smear, who played on Nirvana’s last tour. For the band’s self-titled album, released in 1995, Grohl sang lead, played guitar, and wrote all the songs. No meio de um caos, o Nirvana lançou Incesticide, uma coletânea de singles e apanhados antigos. Em meados de 1993, ocorreram uma série de eventos que ofuscaram a fama de Cobain e do Nirvana. Em 2 de maio, Kurt Cobain teve uma overdose de heroína, em sua casa de Seattle. No mês seguinte, ele foi preso, após Love o denunciar por assalto doméstico e por colecionar armas de fogo. Em 23 de julho, Cobain teve uma outra overdose, desta vez, num banheiro de hotel, em Nova York; antes de um show do Nirvana, em Roseland Ballroom. Interesting Links: Send
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