Kurt Cobain is still shaping culture – 30 years after the Nirvana frontman’s death

By Howard Monk, University of Southampton

Thirty years from his death on April 5 1994, the impact of Kurt Cobain and his band, Nirvana, and their values, still resonates in today’s culture and music.

Nirvana were everywhere at the start of the 1990s, much like Taylor Swift’s omnipresence today. But unlike Swift, who has embraced and mastered the business side of her fame, Cobain was very much the anti-superstar of his time.

While Nirvana were certainly at the very top of the industry, headlining sold-out festivals, Cobain clearly felt uncomfortable being in the corporate music business. He expressed this discomfort in many ways, from merchandise emblazoned with the words “corporate rock whores” to his rows with MTV and journalists. No Swift-style media savvy slickness here.

Since 2010, the person responsible for Cobain’s name and image rights has been his daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Nirvana LLC, meanwhile, is managed by a team including original band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic.

These rights are expertly managed and controlled in a way that benefits from hindsight, showing an understanding of what Nirvana stood for which would scarce have been possible when the band was active, or Cobain still alive.

Cobain and the press

I’ve often said that Nirvana were the last band to reach the very top on their own terms. It didn’t hurt that they embodied the rags-to-riches type stories the press love so much. Cobain had an unhappy childhood and his art was a solace while he worked shifts as a janitor, relying on his girlfriend to fund his band.

Cobain’s relationship with fellow musician Courtney Love also attracted a lot of snide celebrity journalism attention, as did his struggles with his mental health and addiction. Looking back at some of the supposedly supportive headlines of the time, it is clear how the press perpetuated myths and heaped pressure onto an already vulnerable Cobain. I wonder whether headlines today would be quite so leading, or unthinking.

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