Was it huge when it had aired?
What were people thinking when they had found out…. Was it a shocker/what was the general populations opinion?
I apologize I’m not trying to be controversial I just remember doing a report (and of all the things,my dad said that’s what he remembered from the 90s)
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Sadness mostly. The loss of another very talented artist.
I really had little reaction. Was not a fan of his so it did not hit me at all. But I know millions took it very hard.
many people were sad
I think I found out he’d existed about three years after he died.
In Seattle Courtney love read his suicide note to a bunch of people gathered with her. It was disturbing to say the least.
Edit to add: it was disturbing because she read the letter. Just talking would have been fine, but reading the letter was over the top in my honest opinion.
I was new in my profession and a new parent when he died so I hardly knew but if you watch Six Feet Under the character Nate is shattered in a flashback. Good show
I was very sad and it put me in a funk for a while
He was lightening in a bottle and a reluctant “voice of generation”
Shock and disbelief. I was in seventh grade at the time and he was pretty huge for us. I remember one girl at my middle school cried all day. The concept of suicide became something we all talked about more… like it was something that we might also be capable of if things went badly.
I wasn’t a huge Nirvana fan and wasn’t overly surprised by it. He always seemed pretty troubled.
I was 25 years old and on vacation …..I caught Kurt Loder on MTV announcing that Kurt was gone, and I actually sobbed like a baby….I was so sad, hurt & confused as to why he would take his own life…..
My mom called me and asked if I was OK and was I sad since he killed himself. I said he was a musician not a family member or friend
People were sad. But honestly I and many of the people I knew were not surprised. I couldn’t predict that he would go out the way he did. But, I was not surprised he died at a young age.
I had already gone through John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, etc. This was another young, talented artist gone. His death affected younger fans more; I figured it would be a shock to them.
I was pissed. And I still am.
He was great, and could have been exceptional. In the long run, now, he’ll be a footnote.
I was gutted. I really loved Nirvana at that time and I was only 14 so I felt it very deeply. When Courtney Love read his suicide letter on a mega phone to all his mourning fans outside the house, it was so fucked up and raw. I felt so bad for his daughter and I was pissed off that I’d never get to see them live.
It was clear he had problems from his overdose in Rome about a month before his death, but yeah, people were pretty shocked. He was only 27, it was a real tragedy.
I was, and still am rather upset with him. My friend Jessica cried for weeks.
I was 16 when that happen: some girls in my class were wearing black and crying.
I did not know who he was
I was so sad and shocked. Nirvana was The Band for me.
I was not a massive fan. Grunge wasn’t my vibe. But i recognized his talent. It was so sad and pointless. I am his age. He was 1 month younger than me. I knew he had drug problems. But all rockstars did. Just such a waste.
I was in university. I didn’t remember it being even a topic of conversation. We were all probably too busy studying for finals.
I was only 6 years old when it was happened and the story just didn’t register at all with me. It was at least another 5 years before I had any idea who Cobain or Nirvana were.
I do clearly Tupac’s murder being a huge media story at the time and that was only 2 years after Cobain died.
Depends on your age and music interests at the time.
For me, Freddie Mercury was more of a shock and very sad because I had been a fan since the beginning.
At the time, Nirvana wasn’t even on my radar because that was not the type of music I enjoyed.
I have a very good friend about 15 years older than me, Elvis’ death was their John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Buddy Holly, and on and on.
It’s all relative to your age, taste in music, life experience, etc…
He was 70 but Clem Burke dying a couple days ago made me very sad because I grew up with his music.
My friends and I were devastated. My pal David was a massive Kurt fan, and I could walk you to the exact spot where we were when I told him Kurt had died. Remember it clear as day. It was just so shocking, he was so hugely popular. We lived in Edinburgh, but he was just globally popular. He was a poster boy for teenagers and folk in their early 20s. MTV was sold Nirvana for days.
It was horrible. He so very clearly hated being well known
I remember hearing some devastating news at the same time and that overshadowed Kurt’s death and I always associate the two. I never thinkk of Kurt without thinking of the other
It was very sad, but not surprising. It’s always sad when talented people leave this world.
There were warning signs. I wasn’t surprised.
I thought Nirvana were merely okay.
I remember walking into school and the only emo girl we had was sitting on the floor crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said Kurt cobain was dead . I didn’t know who he was but I asked if there was anything I could do to help her.
Where others are writing “shock and disbelief” my reaction was the opposite. At that point it seemed inevitable that he was not long for the world. Suicide was not surprising. The man was struggling.
they were really shocked. MTV news was in its prime and there was a lot of coverage. nirvana had rebooted with an album Kurt Cobain had really wanted to do
After all the news about his overdose, when the news about his death came out, I just figured he’d gotten what he wanted. I wasn’t shocked.
As a teenager with mental health problems, my feelings were complicated, and in hindsight more about me than him or his family. I was mostly sad and a bit hopeless, like if a person in his position couldn’t be happy, what chance did I have?
Ruined my mate Luke’s party. His parents let him have mad parties and he had one planned for that weekend. Loads of kids sitting about depressed and crying. Most of them had tickets to see Nirvana in the coming weeks too as they were on the in utero world tour. Definitely the first real celebrity death of my wee world.
It was a pretty big deal if you were a fan, or young at the time. Back when MTV actually played music and music news, they went into a 24/7 ‘live news’ type of thing from Seattle. A lot of people there gathered in a park to mourn together, Courtney Love called in, it was a big story for several weeks.
Just think he wasted his life.
I was shocked. I was 22 at the time, and had been in love with Kurt. His music changed me, it made me feel seen. I was really, really sad for quite some time. It was a shock.
I remember not being shocked. His status as legend has compounded with time. When he died he was extremely popular but his status as legendary visionary wasn’t yet cemented. It was not a shockwave on the level of Elvis or Prince, but it was still very noteworthy.
It was pointless, predictable and all together sad.
It really depended on your social group Nirvana was very popular in their circles but they were fairly new in truly popular culture. I lived on the East coast at the time and that look and sound was very West coast.
Kurt was at the time seen by many as just a random who had a couple of sort of okay songs. The entire grunge scene wasn’t as mainstream as it is now. There were definitely a good percentage of people who had no idea who he was. I’d say people under 25 were mostly who reacted and were upset.
I grew up in Arizona and definitely was way more into the West coast music scene so I knew and it made me sad because I felt like he barely got his foot on the door when he died. I absolutely remember my similar age coworkers being puzzled and saying they never heard of him.
My stepdaughter, 16 at the time, locked herself in her room for 3 days, inconsolable. Definitely over the top reaction.
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I saw the headline in a newspaper at an airport after disembarking and tottered over to a wall and slid down it to sit on the floor.
I was in the PNW when grunge was just getting started. Nirvana played little bars in and around my college town. The town where Cobain grew up was incredibly similar to where I grew up.
It felt like losing a neighbor or a classmate.
It was the first celebrity death that really impacted my day to day, in that there was a profound sadness, both that a young father had done this, and that no more of his fairly unique takes on music were ever going to be heard again. This also started several years of heavy rotation of the unplugged album being ubiquitous on the radio. Popular music got stuck for a while there, to the point I hated the first foo fighters album when it came out because it felt contrived. Musically for me things then moved in different directions both forwards and back – pixies and minutemen, cake and Radiohead. It was definitely an inflection point but the music you heard didn’t really change for a couple more years.
Honestly, I remember people making fun of the situation. Pretty immediately.
I, for one, wasn’t really affected. Not a fan. It’s sad, yeah, but for me – it was Steve Clark, Freddie Mercury and Bowie that was hard.
MTV talked about it nonstop.
Mild surprise that we didn’t die of an OD instead. At the time alternative artists were dropping like flies from heroin, so I expected him to die, honestly. Kinda dark, but that’s how the scene was.
I was 15 and at the peak of my angst years. I don’t think I’ll ever feel about a band the way I felt about Nirvana at that time. I was absolutely devastated. My friends and I were glued to Kurt Loder on MTV news because information was coming out in bits and pieces. Heartbreaking
Sad. It seemed reasonable to kill oneself – the ethos of the time in my crowd was that the world was crumbling and living was kind of pointless. But Kurt had so much going for him and a young child – to kill himself so violently was shocking
Sad, but also not surprised. He had been publicly spiraling for months.
I don’t remember it being considered shocking. I think many people consider the lifestyles of many celebrities high risk.
Some unexpected deaths are much more shocking, John Lennon, Elvis, Glenn Miller, Buddy Holly etc.
The truth is if I would have been a rich, uncontrollable person, I may have met the same fate.
Senior in HS at the time. I remember thinking “oh, that sucks.” I wasn’t super into grunge other than I’d been wearing flannel for years anyway, but musically I was more into metal and NIN and kind of thought Nirvana was overhyped. There were a couple of people who were devastated in the way that only HS girls can be and a LOT of hate for Courtney Love. Also a lot of conspiracy theories took hold within that first week.
It definitely made its way through the school fast.
It was very sad but the only thing surprising about it was the method. Overdose would have been my bet. He was such a huge presence at the time so it really left a hole in the alt rock scene.
It was pretty shocking. I think most people assumed he would die from his addictions. A lot of people blamed Courtney. My friend lived in Seattle at the time and said the entire city shut down. I remember a few years later pictures – allegedly from the crime scene – had been taken and posted on some internet gore sites.
It reminded me of many other “rock and roll” sorts of deaths.
What I remember is most folks saying, that druggie guy killed himself? Oh.
Some kids were into Nirvana, but most weren’t into heroin chic and grunge. This was the Friends era beginning.
He grew in infamy after his death.
I was kinda sad, but honestly had very little impact on me. I remember that not long after it happened a friend of mine was asked if she was wearing black because she was mourning him. Nope, just goth.
I was in NYC. His Times obit was on t-shirts by the end of the day.
i thought “well, that was stupid of him” and went on with my day.
i was 23.
Why is this question being asked HERE, I’m not old yet 😮💨
His neighbours: “hey, keep the noise down! Stop banging so loud!”
Not surprised. I saw it coming long before it happened.
No reaction. I didn’t know him.
Shocking but not shocking.
Senseless. Kind of epic stupidity and sadness. The moment I began thinking about depression as something other than sadness.
I was in 7th grade in SW Florida. It was huge at the time. Most kids my age were listening to grunge or rap and everyone knew it was a big deal. A lot of my friends were in tears. It was our generations mega star death. Our parents were used to it and I remember them talking to me about it at dinner.
It was a big announcement on MTV but not as much on the major networks. They only briefly reported it.
Confusion and disbelief mostly. It spread through school but so did hundreds of other rumors. It wasn’t until I caught it on TV later that it rang true. I noticed a strange phenomenon about 20 years later in that people started insisting Nirvana only became popular after his death. I lived through the band and can assure you they don’t give any band MTV unplugged specials.
I was surprised and sad. What got me was I shared that depression and was the same age. I know he struggled with things, but he was so raw and honest, it was refreshing. I always felt for his daughter. She has his eyes.
I’m a huge Nirvana fan. (Saw them in ’92). His death really affected me and my friends. It felt like the end of an era.
I was 14 and I remember seeing America’s Uncle Kurt Loder make the announcement on MTV while I was at my dad’s house for the weekend.
a lot of 90s teenagers were shocked and sad; a lot of their parents, teachers and grandparents were like “who’s Kurt Cobain”
I was 14 when he died. I cried for days and wore my Nirvana shirt everyday for weeks. It wasn’t just him dying but realizing the band was also over. So much potential.
I remember walking into my job at Target, 19 at the time, and my work buddy asked if I’d heard the news? Cobain is dead. I wasn’t a huge Nirvana fan but I recognized what a huge loss for music this was. He had been hanging out with Michael Stipe from REM and changing his approach. Kurt had cleaned up, but apparently had gone back on the shit. What a bummer. And then we saw what that shit did to some other stars.
I was heart broken… I grew up listening to country music because it was my mom and dad’s music. I listened to New Wave and Hair Metal bands because it was my sisters’ music. Nirvana was one of the first bands I chose to listen to because it spoke to me. It was my music. A lot my friends and people I knew felt the same way. I felt the same way when Chris Cornell died too.
Cried like a baby. It was not a huge shock as he almost died of OD a few months prior if I recall correctly.
Was 14 when he passed hit me hard one of the only celebrities I remember where I was when I found out.
I was 15 so it’s was like my whole teenage self was in shock. I remember making a big collage of Kurt pics from all my music magazines and cutting out newspaper articles to keep. The same with River Phoenix. To think about it now is very cringe! I mean get over yourself! As a teen I was so dramatic🤣
I was also gutted. I’m Gen X and was 27 when i moved from Kansas to Seattle in ’91. Saw all the bands, whoever we could, whenever and wherever we could. Nirvana and Kurt were huge for me during that part of my life. Can’t say I was exactly surprised that it happened but it felt like a tragedy nonetheless.
for AskOldPeople a better question would be “who did people react when Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, and Jim Morrison” died. Kurt Cobain was the kids musician.
It was huge, but many of us felt he was spiralling. MTV aired a memorial and Courtney Love’s speech and it was just heartwrenching.
edit: Link to some of the service https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bsK7Mr_oDQ
To put it into a modern term it was some thing a long the lines of “that tracks”. I wasn’t a fan, but somehow passively garnered enough info about him to not be surprised.
It was a big thing.
People were sad and angr and pretty much blamed Courtney Love for his death. She did a concert afterwards where someone through a rife case on stage that was pretty big news at the time also.
Shocked? Maybe not. He had ended up in a Rome hospital not long before due to an OD. Sad? Absolutely. I remember people being very upset and it was talked about a lot.
A kid in my Jr High carved “Kurt” into his arm with a razor blade the day the world found out. It was the gnarliest thing I’d ever seen a peer do up to that point.
In all kinds of manners
It was on the cover of Newsweek I think it was. I think that’s the article that prompted my dad to talk to me about it. He knew I was a fan and there were fears of copycat suicides. It was surprising to me as a young person because I thought why would someone so popular kill themselves? This was before the internet but even so there were conspiracy theories about someone else doing it. Anyway it was a pretty big deal for those of us into grunge and I never got to see them live which made me sad. But as an older person looking back? Yeah, it was obvious that would happen.
TBH, heroin OD’s and other forms of death amongst that music cohort made it not overly surprising
I was sad but Cobain was just another casualty in rock music. I had already watched 25 years of that. He was such a mess that I expected him to be found on a bathroom floor with a needle in his arm.
I was in a car waiting for a friend to get out of work and it was on the radio. It was awful back then.
Meh…
I was in the 8th grade, only me and 1 other kid knew who he was. The next year many freshman boys had their Kurt Cobain tees. People don’t seem to remember that they were only just breaking mainstream when Kurt died.
I was in high school, and I remember the morning clear as day. We used to stand in front of the school and smoke cigarettes before they let everyone in. There was a buzz in the air that you could feel when you got there. Everyone was walking around and saying….did you hear? etc. Nirvana was HUGE. Music is so different now since the internet, and I’ve argued that the internet brought with it the death of rockstars, these people that seemed larger than life…..Michael Jackson, Kurt, etc. People that weren’t around back then don’t get how different it was, and it’s really hard to explain. Paradigm was completely different.
It was a big deal to my age people (I was in my 20’s) as I remember it .
It was sad. We were sad. He was so close to our age when he took his own life. I understand his deep depression, anxiety, pressures of unwanted fame, chronic digestive issues and addiction, but he had his entire life in front of him. New daughter and tons of potential. All gone.
I wasn’t surprised. It was one of those things that was obviously in the news and people I knew talked about, but I didn’t get the sense that most of us were really shocked or particularly sad about it. The fact that it was a suicide and not an OD was a bit shocking.
As many have already commented, while most people thought it was sad that he suicided, it was not a complete surprise. He had OD’d and been hospitalised prior to his death, so I was more surprised he did not pass due to a heroin overdose.
From what I have read, Kurt Cobain had obvious mental health issues. It is unfortunate that he died at such a young age, and left his baby daughter. At the time I remember feeling really bad for Frances Bean, his little girl, as she would never know her dad.
I was mad at first. As others said, he almost died a few months before in what sounded like a suicide attempt to me. So it wasn’t a surprise he finally did it. I was mad because they had just had Francis Bean, and I thought it was so selfish to leave your baby.
Let’s put it this way, I was on spring break driving around with my dad for work because I had nowhere else to go. We were listing to the AM news/tradfic/weather station because that’s what he did and Kurt’s death was a big thing in that channel. The 6pm news that night had a big story and of course the music press/news/MTV was huge. Kids at school were outwardly showing grief for a week when we returned. It was huge.
Opinions were as they always are. Artists and fans expressed what a tragedy it was and people that hated him said another druggie musician killed himself.
It really depended on your age at the time.
For my generation it was John Lennon’s death which was epochal – old friends calling each other and it seemed to be the end of an error.’
Also while they might not have been suicides, there were so many deaths from drug OD’s – Joplin, Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones that were much more emotionally resonant to me.
I really didn’t care about Cobain except as a personal tragedy to his family but other than that I really didn’t care or discuss it with anyone as it was just a bit of news about a “celebrity”
Sad.. but not surprised.
It wasn’t surprising, but I was deeply saddened. More importantly, my daughter was really starting to get into music at that time. So I was keeping a careful watch on her and her friends.
I remember hearing about it on the radio and thinking it was sad. I was very unsuccessfully attempting to teach at a middle school back then and the day after his death a bunch of students festooned a tree in front of the school with black ribbons and the principal was forced to let them have a memorial service at lunch time because otherwise no one was getting any work done.
I was in eighth grade and I was so upset. People passed around a photocopy of a picture of his body too! Then I wrote a paper for social studies about it and only got a B
As my son said, the most selfish act imaginable. Then he did it himself. I have sympathy for the families of these people. Drug addiction, whether active or in recovery, is the most insidious social issue we have to deal with. We, meaning the world.
Oh my God, it was HUGE. He disappeared from rehab, nobody could find him. Courtney Love went on the radio and read his suicidal note. The whole thing was out of control.
I was a freshman in College and I remember feeling oh no, not again because we had just lost River Phoenix a few months before. They definitely both felt like a very big loss.
It was sad but it felt like the inevitable end with the news stories that had been coming out leading up to it in the months prior. It was clear he was struggling with demons.
I was a freshman in high school. This was pre-internet, pre-cell phone*…I just remember that by the afternoon EVERYBODY had heard the news. My guess is that some seniors were listening to KROQ on their car radios on their way to lunch and thats how they found out. After that the news just spread. Students were crying in the hallways. There was really no way to verify the news while at school and we all hoped that it was a hoax.
*yes, both existed but they were not prevalent.
I was at work and people had the radio was on all day with people listening and then reporting developments as we found out he was missing, he was reported to have a gun, police were outside his home etc. Others were getting phone calls from home and getting full descriptions of what was on the news visually and reporting to the rest of us as we crowded around them. After a while one guy was on the phone with someone at home watching cnn and relaying each sentence describing the ambulance backing up, the first responders coming out, then the body bag confirming he died.
When it was confirmed no one was shocked. Just sad.
It shocked me, I didn’t know his previous hospitalization was a suicide attempt. So I had no idea he was suicidal.
I knew he wasn’t very long for this world when he OD’ed in (i think) Rome and fell into a coma.
A friend of mine had recently ended his life and in therapy I learned about signs of potential suicide.
Kurt was showing some of those signs, so when the news came out that he had died, I was really sad, but not surprised.
I was in HS, at a track tournament on Staten Island when I heard the news. I remember it being pretty upsetting. Nirvana was a favorite (still is) of mine so it was a hard hit.
I didn’t think much about it, but i recall being more bummed out by John Candy recently dying.
I was really sad. It was one of the first deaths I of someone I “knew.” It was before social media so when no one in my household cared I remember feeling alone and also silly cause I didn’t know him. I just liked his art.
It was shocking, sad, you felt pissed off. They were so huge at that time, smells like teen spirit was like an anthem in a weird way.
Just another lost soul who chose to blow his brains out. Did not bother me and barely thought about it.
No, he was married to Courtney Love.
Melancholy and infinite sadness
I remember exactly where I was. I was just finishing my shift delivering bread at 8am when I heard the news. They weren’t positive it was him at that time just that somebody had committed suicide at his residence.
Kurt Cobain’s death hit Gen X like an asteroid. It was a real tragedy. MTV Unplugged had just proven that Kurt was a timeless talent with endless ability. Nirvana had reinvented and re-energized rock music. The violence and suddenness of his death was a real trauma. he was loved and he was gone.
The only celebrity death that really affected me was David Bowie. Of course, if Mick, Keith, or Ronnie die, it will be the death of the greatest rock and roll band of all time, I will cry. Kurt Cobain was just a junkie with a guitar. Didn’t phase me.
I was in high school at the time and it was a big deal. Kids were crying in the hallways.
I really didn’t care. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a tragedy when someone chooses to end their life without regard for the train wreck they leave behind for family and friends to cope with. Had some friends that were shocked by it, and a couple that cried.
Many of us in gen X were more affected by people who died from accidents like Cliff Burton and Randy Rhodes. Not to mention the AIDS scare was a new thing and the thought that you could get a deadly disease from sex or a blood transfusion.
I’m Gen X and I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the news that Kurt Cobain died. I was shocked and brokenhearted. My freshman year of college was when Nevermind was released and we played it non-stop. My roommate cried for days after Cobain died. His music was so important. Our generation hadn’t lived through the deaths of people like Joplin, and Lennon’s death wasn’t the same because we were so young. But Cobain? That was the first celebrity death that a lot of us had experienced and it hit my friend group really hard.
Just sad. The whole grunge genre was hitting the mainstream airwaves and suicide is just hard to accept. Still sad
I was unsurprised and didn’t particularly care. I wasn’t a fan and knew he had serious drug problems. My co-worker, though, was a huge fan and was extremely upset, I felt terrible for him, it was as though he lost a friend.
I don’t think I’ve even knew who he was.
I was living in Seattle at the time and it was really bad.
It was shocking. Most people were expecting him to OD on heroin. A lot of people were sad, and a few had taken their own lives. Whether it was copycat or they were already on the edge and this pushed them over is speculative.
Literally crying in class. I hated grunge so I didn’t care.
I was around 20, was driving to work, and heard it on the radio. Had to pull over. People my age at work knew about it by the time I got there, and it was a small city. It was a quiet and sad day. We were all shocked.
Sad but not surprised. He had just attempted the month before.
I was a musician and around the same age. I thought it was a shame; but not a surprise. I wasn’t personally emotionally affected by it.
I was in middle school and it was a pretty big deal for kids my age. Probably wasn’t as significant to folks who were older and already had established musical tastes from the previous decade.
For most of us it was a collective “meh….saw that coming”
I was living in Portland, OR at the time. I saw a little memorial (picture with candles) downtown where some of the skateboarders hung out. A colleague of mine who taught at Reed College was worried about the impact of heroin chic among his students. My impression is that the impact varied a lot, depending on age and musical taste. Even in the PNW, some people barely noticed.
I remember it being shocking and very much a big deal. I wasn’t a big fan and it didn’t affect me much personally. To that point in my life certainly the biggest celebrity death I can remember in terms of media coverage and just the “bigness” of it all. Of course there was Freddie Mercury a couple years before but I don’t remember it being treated as nearly as big of a deal. Maybe it was less surprising idk
I was in college. It was a big, huge damn deal there. The closest thing I can think of in recent history is when Prince died, but it was bigger. A lot of that, however, was because of the fact that MTV was a much bigger deal then and was a comprehensive music/ news-about-music source that seemingly everyone my age watched all the damn time. This was an immediate Kurt Loder/ Tabatha Soren breaking news thing that stayed on for a few days.
The news totally killed the vibe at Corn Dog Fest IV, I’ll tell you that.
The 27 Club
Nirvana I think is way bigger now because he killed himself unfortunately. Smells like teen spirit was huge, but they weren’t critically acclaimed I don’t think. I remember people wearing nirvana stuff after and not even owning an album or knowing that Dave from the Foo Fighters was in Nirvana.
I was in high school and this one chick was really sad and cried.
It seemed like a huge let down to my HS group. Felt like he was starting to bloom musically after the unplugged album. I was excited to see where he would go next beyond grunge. My girlfriend’s little sister wore black and went into full mourning for a long time as she was in the very young teen fandom phase of life.
People said he wasn’t that talented because he wasn’t a guitar aficionado and screamed a lot. Let me tell you that guy was a genius level pop song writer and his voice was raw and amazing. Just listen to his cover of “Where did you sleep last night” and it will give you chills.
It felt huge to me.
Kurt and I were the same age when he killed himself so that was shocking because we were so young and we both had a small child. I also loved his music and he was an amazing lyricist. It was a huge blow to me.
Eh. Tortured artists tend to end it early one way or another. But the things they make are beautiful.
Not a big deal to my generation. John Lennon being gunned down in 1980 was a much bigger story. M 67
First time I’d ever heard of him.
We are in Seattle, where it was a big deal. Even more so because he was missing for a bit before he was found inside his own house. There was a massive gathering at Seattle Center (where the space needle is) and Courtney’s letter to him was read over a speaker. People were distraught.
In 1998 I was working at a stock transfer company, and they used Cobain’s death certificate as an example of a death certificate when training people on stuff. The trainers all used to chuckle about it for some reason. I thought it was in poor taste.
In the 90’s, we didn’t focus on “reacting”. There were no turd brains making videos about it. “Reacting” is a Gen Z phenomenon.
There had been false reports of his death previously, so I was sure it was just another hoax.
Once it turned out to be true, it was a pretty huge deal in my circle – I was in college and heavily involved in the campus radio station, so for a bunch of alt-rock nerds, this was devastating.
Seems the same as when some modern day rappers die (juice wrld comes to mind) fans were upset, I know some that cried. People talked about it and then moved on.
Freddie Mercury’s death a few years earlier had a greater impact on me and my circle, but Kurt’s death was really, really sad. That said, it wasn’t terribly surprising.
My younger siblings and their friends (b. ~ ’77-79) were completely devastated, though. Real tears for the loss and an overall greater vigilance re depression among friends and family.
I don’t even think I heard about it when it happened. It wasn’t like it was Elvis Presley.
It was a shock and a sad time, especially as the band was so big at the time. The shock was much like when John Lennon was murdered, an event I remember very well.
“Another rock star joins the 27 club”
For a cohort of his fans it was tragedy, for others news of a sad young death of someone they only vaguely knew who he was.
My friend Clint was a huge Nirvana fan and news broke in the morning. I saw it on TV because my mom always watched the news but Clint had no idea. So when I got to school I told him sorry and he had no clue what I was talking about so I was stuck either breaking it to him that Kurt had not only died but took his own life. So was it a big deal to everyone? Probably not but to a big fan it wasn’t a great morning.
I was in middle school at the time in the pacific northwest and it seemed to hit a lot of my classmates really hard. I remember one kid standing at the front of the room in science class just breaking down and crying right before class began that day. It was definitely all over the news and pretty shocking, lots of memorials, speculation that Courtney Love was involved and renewed interest in their music. It seems like MTV played Nirvana Unplugged a thousand times over the next couple of months.
Another one bites the dust.
We expected all of them to overdose. Same as all the older rock n rollers did.
Live fast. Die young. Leave a good looking corpse.
Most saw it coming.
I was in my twenties and driving to work when KROQ radio reported the breaking news. I was floored, would be depressed for a long time over that. The dj was shaken up by it too; I remember he said something like “local authorities believe Cobain shot himself in the head with a shotgun… dear God… and they are awaiting a positive ID on the body.. hopefully it’s someone else then, maybe a neighbor.”
My friends and I drove around all night listening to nirvana. The local college radio station was playing his music. I remember stopping at the gas station and they had the same station playing and we all talked about it and hung out for a bit. It was so shocking. I was a senior in high school.
It was hard to understand at the time. To casual fans, it appeared like he had great success, and that it should have brought happiness. Of course, we also know a lot more about mental illness and addiction than many understood at the time. It was an oddity that could be dismissed as a one off. I didn’t think much more than that. Obviously tragic.
When it happened I wasn’t much into Nirvana yet. It didn’t mean much. Over years and time I came to appreciate him much more, and grieve a little I guess….
It was huge.
I didn’t care.
I like rock, but I found Nirvana mid.
My college musician friends and I gathered at the bar. We ranted about the industry, Courtney, the lack of mental health care and awareness of the time, where music would go now and what kind of legacy he left. It was pretty shocking and sad for us.
I’m pretty sure I said “who”? But I’m super old according to only answer if born before 1980.