"I'm going to be a superstar musician, kill myself, and go out in a flame of glory." - Kurt Cobain, aged 14.
Kurt Donald Cobain was born in a small logging town in Aberdeen, Washington on the 20th of February, 1967 to Donald and Wendy Cobain, a young married couple just out of high school. Kurt showed an interest in music and art from a young age; his skill at drawing was obvious even from kindergarten, and he learned to play piano by ear as a toddler. Cobain had a happy childhood until he was nine years old: his parents went through a bitter divorce and Kurt and his sister Kim were heavily affected. After this time, Kurt became heavily withdrawn and went to live with his father and new stepmother, who he resented. At ten years old, Kurt recieved a beaten up wooden guitar from his uncle Chuck. It inspired Kurt, who began to play as a form of catharsis and to find respite from the problems he had at home. He began experimenting with drugs during his mid-teens, and pushed himself further away from his father.
In 1982, aged 15, Kurt left his fathers house and bounced between relatives' homes for a few months before returning home to live with his mother and her new boyfriend, abusive alcoholic Pat O' Connor, who she went on to marry.
Kurt's life changed when he discovered local punk band Melvins, and although he was still in high school, Kurt spent all of his free time drinking and taking drugs with bandmembers Dale Crover & Buzz Osborne. In 1986, Kurt met first long-term girlfriend Tracy Marander, and started what would become Nirvana with Krist Novoselic, who Kurt knew from high school, and drummer Aaron Buckhard. Their first gig was at a house party in 1987: they played mostly covers, one being a badly executed Heartbreaker, originally by Led Zeppelin.
Cobain struggled with his rapid rise to fame during 1989, and his depression and drug use escalated. He gained a reputation as a talented but deeply troubled musician, and rumours of his private life were heavily misreported in the media. The most disturbing example of this is after the birth of Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter of Kurt and Courtney Love, headlines read that the baby was born addicted to heroin and warped from birth defects. This alledgedly sparked inspiration in Kurt, who claims that the line in Heart Shaped Box, 'hey/wait/I got a new complaint' documents his relationship with the media.
Kurt Cobain identified as a feminist ally, and was heavily intertwined with the 'riot grrrl' scene, a punk sub-genre in the 1980s and '90s, which revolved around the promotion of agressive females, and birthed bands such as Hole, Bikini Kill, L7 and Pussy Riot.
Though Kurt Cobain's career was only 8 years from starting in a house in Washington to playing Reading in '92, his influence on the music industry is irreversable. Smells Like Teen Spirit was released in 1991, was certified platinum (one million copies of the single sold) and has been named as 'the best rock song of all time' by numerous critics. This song broke the alternative rock scene through to the mainstream music scene, and brought with it the success of other alternative bands such as Sonic Youth, who Nirvana toured with, Mudhoney, and Tool.
