The shot heard round the rock world was, at first, heard by nobody. It wasn't until two days later, on April 8, 1994, that an electrician installing an alarm in the Seattle home of Kurt Cobain discovered the body of the 27-year-old Nirvana frontman, a gunshot wound to his head, a suicide note scrawled in red ink by his side.
To outsiders, the shy, slightly built young man had seemed to have myriad reasons to live: fame, fortune, and admiration as the leader of the band that had crashed the barrier between alternative rock and mainstream; a lovely daughter, Frances Bean; and a wife, Courtney Love, leader of the acclaimed band Hole. But the news came as small surprise to those who knew Kurt Cobain. Born near Aberdeen, Wash., he'd grown up with friends and relatives after his parents split when he was 8, sleeping for a time under a bridge. A heroin user since 24, he'd never stilled the private demons he exorcised so eloquently in his noisy songs; at his death, he'd been missing for six days after scaling a six-foot wall at a drug treatment center in Marina del Rey, Calif. ''I haven't felt excitement in listening to as well as creating music for too many years now,'' he wrote in his final message. ''The worst crime I can think of would be to put people off by faking it.''
Cobain's pop success, in stark contrast, had been swift and smooth. Nirvana's 1989 debut album, Bleach, was recorded for $606.17. Two years later, their Nevermind sold more than 5 million copies in the U.S.; yet one of the last songs Cobain wrote was called ''I Hate Myself and Want to Die.'' His suicide derailed, temporarily, several other careers. Hole canceled a tour for its second album, Live Through This, but went on to top many best-of-1994 lists. Love, erratically and flamboyantly, has kept going -- ranting on America Online; being linked with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Brad Pitt; getting busted in Australia for harassing flight attendants. Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl has formed the band Foo Fighters, and bassist Krist Novoselic has helped found JAMPAC, an organization battling legislation to limit the sale of music ''harmful to minors.''
After Cobain's suicide, Jim Carroll, in his poem ''8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain,'' asked: ''Didn't the thought that you would never write another song/Another feverish line or riff, make you think twice?'' But one of rock & roll's most plagued, passionate voices will never answer.
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