Don’t remember at all. Couldn’t have even told you it was 30 years.
But I like Nirvana.
I was driving, and I heard the news over the radio. I still remember the specific stretch of road I was driving down at the time, and that it was a rainy day.
I wasn’t a huge Nirvana fan, though. I appreciated their music, but I didn’t really identify with it. I felt like I was a little too old for the teen angst vibe that they seemed to be about, though I was just a couple years older than Cobain.
I did really enjoy the ‘Unplugged’ album- the only Nirvana album I ever owned. I used to have a friend I’d jam with (dead himself 15 years now from a heart condition) and one of our favorite covers to play was ‘Lake of Fire’; my friend playing the guitar part and me doing my best Cobain impression.
I had the same reaction when I first heard SLTS. I was a big fan and had seen them live in Seattle three months before his death.
I had just moved back to San Francisco and was at work when a friend called with the news. I hung up in shock and turned to a coworker to tell her, and she said “who?” So not exactly a supportive environment.
When I got home, my roommates and I walked to lower Haight street to drown our sorrows. Every bar (even the industrial Noc Noc) was playing Nirvana and filled with people reminiscing.
I’m a Boomer - a Joneser to be more specific - and I have no memory of finding out that he had died. Mortgage, young family, that sort of thing - I had somewhat drifted away from music at the time. I guess the story was on the evening news. @Pork_Rind puts it well:
I listened to a Nirvana album (Nevermind) for the first time about 2 weeks ago, and enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to.
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The early 1990s were a weird time for me. Most of the time I was trying to keep my immune system from killing me. I was still listening to a lot of pop, but one night I turned on the radio and that all changed. The DJs were taking a lot of calls from people who kept saying some variation of “I can’t believe it. Why did he do it?” “Why did who do what,” I muttered to myself. Finally someone said that Kurt Cobain had killed himself that morning. “Kurt who?” I muttered as I changed the station.
Right to the alternative rock station. That was the first time I heard Nirvana. I kept my radio on the alternative rock station for the next ten years. Nirvana wasn’t and isn’t my favorite grunge band (that would be Alice in Chains) but thanks to Kurt Cobain I was introduced to a wonderful new musical world.
I was in the Airport, coming home from a two month period of working in Argentina. I had not heard any of the drama about his leaving rehab.
I was in my mid-20s and at work as a manager of a regional call center for Ticketmaster when the news broke. I don’t know how the news spread inside the call center and office, it was pre-internet of course. But suddenly a lot of our employees in the call center were distraught, crying, some got up and just left work.
I’m slightly disappointed in my own reaction in that “You were so young and knew so little then” way. My reaction was to be very pissed at him for committing suicide. He had a newborn baby, how could he do something so damn cruel to that child? I didn’t feel any sympathy for him at all. Now in my 50s I am more aware of mental health issues and suicide, I found my way to empathy for all affected by suicide. That’s not to say I don’t still feel anger too, but it’s now balanced.
Yeah, my sister called me with the news. She asked something like “Did you hear about Kurt Cobain?” and I thought of his recent hospitalization (I think now known to be a suicide attempt, I’ll have to look that up), so I said “yeah, he was in the hospital”, and she clarified. It was quite a shock to me.
Reminds me of when my Mom called me about Michael Jackson. “Did you hear about Michael Jackson?”
Me: “Did they cancel his big shows?” <–he had been preparing “This is it” or something in England.
Mom: “He died.”
I was not only shocked it happened, but also shocked my Mom heard about it before I saw it on the internet.
I was a senior in high school and only a very casual Nirvana fan, so his death really didn’t matter to be on a personal level. But I wasn’t a jerk about to anyone who was upset. The first celebity death to hit me on a personal level was Phil Hartman four years later because I was a big fan of his.
When I first heard Nevermind in a record store, it was obvious things were going to change. I liked most of what came out of that movement; it was a good combination of some of the meaningfulness of the alternative scene with actually trying to appeal to a larger audience.
I was at work when it happened, the same business I work at today. Wasn’t surprised due to the incident a month earlier, and just Cobain’s general demeanor in life. Saw it coming I guess.
Was in Aberdeen once. Frankly, it wasn’t a surprise that someone who lived there would wind up depressed.
I was a couple of years older than him, and his death didn’t affect me as a pop icon. I was beyond that phase. However, I think his death was hugely significant and really the beginning of the end, or maybe even the end itself, of rock as a cultural movement.
I was only 9 at the time and wasn’t really a music fan yet, so I hadn’t even heard of it when it happened. I would get much more into music a few years later, but I gravitated much more towards metal, so I didn’t have a very high opinion of grunge in general for a long time.
I would eventually start enjoying Nirvana’s music more and really liking Kurt as a person and feeling sad over his death, but I still think they are kind of overrated.