Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967, Aberdeen, Washington, U.S.A – April 5 1994, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A ) was the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the Seattle grunge band Nirvana. With the band's success, Cobain became a major national and international celebrity, an uncomfortable position for someone who claimed to be "ill at ease with fame and ill-equipped to handle the responsibility that accompanies success".

Cobain and Nirvana were highly influential, popularizing what came to be known as "grunge music". In 1991, the arrival of Cobain's best known song, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", marked the beginning of a dramatic shift of popular music away from the dominant genres of the 1980s: glam metal, arena rock, and dance-pop. The music media eventually awarded "Smells Like Teen Spirit" "anthem-of-a-generation" status, and, with it, Cobain ascended as the reluctant "spokesman" for Generation X. Kurt Cobain changed the course of music forever even though it was never his intention. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.