My Millennial’s Thoughts on Nirvana & Kurt Cobain

My 17-year old son Cannon, wanted me to give him a platform to discuss Nirvana and the would-be-50th birthday of Kurt Cobain. Here's what he came up with:

Title: Smells Like a 50^th Birthday

Subtitle:  February 20^th would have been Kurt Cobain’s 50^th birthday

If you were a teenager or older in the mid-90's, you’d know of the shock of the death of Kurt Cobain. Whether you were a fan or someone who only barely knew who Nirvana was, you heard about the death of the 27-year-old front man of grunge group “Nirvana” one way or another.

Although it was a huge tragedy in the music industry, some people have said they saw it coming.

It was a classic “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll” story, except for the sex. I think he was doomed the moment Nirvana released Nevermind, their second album, becoming a national bestselling album in 1991 alongside Pearl Jam’s Ten. Before Nevermind blew America away, Kurt was already into drug use and the fame and fortune of Nevermind, if anything, made it worse. When Nirvana came into the mainstream he was introduced to other musicians who dabbled in drugs as well, so he was given more connections for drugs and people, “friends” if you will.

Nevermind became an overnight success. He was shoved into the spotlight but was a shy person. The reason I say Nevermind was the beginning of the downfall is because he was given tons of money and already had a drug problem so the money that kept pouring in from that album mostly was used towards drugs. The ultimate downfall was his success because it kept giving him money to fuel his drug addiction. In my humble opinion his addiction and depression was fueled by the then famed singer of the band Hole, Courtney Love, who became his wife.

When they met they were both practically using drugs every day and bonded over drugs. In my opinion I think Kurt wanted to quit but Courtney didn’t want him to. Each of their addictions fueled each others and that’s what kept the drug use alive. There were many factors ultimately leading to his death. The toxic relationship with his drug addicted wife, his own addiction, and the depressions, emotions, etc. caused by drugs.

Ready for this? I agree with what some people have put out there: Kurt Cobain was murdered. There are other conspiracies surrounding his death but murder was the main one. Feel free to look up some conspiracies and see what people think, or what the news said might’ve actually happened. But it’s up to you to decide what you want to believe. But now it’s in the rock and roll history books that he did off himself.

If you’d like to learn more about Kurt, watch his famed HBO documentary Montage of Heck. You can also read Time Magazine’s special edition of Kurt Cobain here.

And for the record, Nirvana's "Nevermind" just passed it's 350th week on the Billboard Hot 200 chart.

C.W.C.

Nice work, dude. A real chip off the old block. You can't have my gig.