Kurt Cobain, 30 years since his death. Why those who lived punk loved him
On 5 April 1994, the frontman of Nirvana took his own life. He showed the witnesses of '77 that the spark of punk was still burning
by Franco Sarcina and Francesco Prisco
4' min read
Key points
4' min read
On 5 April 1994, at the age of 27, Kurt Cobain, Nirvana frontman, grunge ideologue and Generation X icon, undoubtedly the last ecumenical phenomenon in rock history, died by suicide. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, we asked ourselves: why was it so loved by those who experienced the punk revolution first-hand? And why was it also so loved by those who did not experience the punk revolution first-hand? Franco Sarcina tries to answer the first question, the second Francesco Prisco.
What will a troubled rock star and an aging journalist have in common? Many will say: nothing. Actually, there is something.
Both of us - we have a difference of only three years, Cobain was born in 1967, the writer was born before - lived through that period in the music scene when changes were so fast that they took you by surprise. In the mid-seventies, rock seemed a genre almost in decline. The greats of the Sixties had long since released their best albums, some had broken up, and the new musical trends had turned to a sometimes 'difficult' music, which had little to do with the energy of rock'n'roll and its subsequent evolutions, until the watershed at the end of the 'magic decade'.
It was what in retrospect is described as the golden age of progressive: in short, people who could play, yes, but perhaps no longer honoured the great Pete Townshend's phrase: 'Rock won't get rid of your problems. But it will allow you to dance to them'. Dancing to the odd tempos of Genesis and Yes would certainly have been a good exercise for a future professional dancer, but it was out of reach for a common, blond, already pretty and perhaps a little shy pre-teen like Kurt Cobain.
The Spark
.Yet something was happening in those contradictory Seventies. In the USA, on the ashes of that 'anomalous' and screaming rock made by the MC5 and the Stooges, a new phenomenon was exploding. Short, fast songs, seemingly easy to play, with rhythms as straight as a spindle, bass on the tonic of the three/four chords that make up the song, distortion so blaring as to be considered by seichord purists as sacrilege or almost sacrilege, almost alienated vocals.
