Kurt Cobain (February 20, 1967 - ca. April 5, 1994) was the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist of the Seattle grunge band Nirvana. He served not only as the band's frontman, but as its "leader and spiritual center". 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.
Among other well known Cobain songs are "Lithium", "About a Girl", "Polly", "In Bloom", "Come as You Are","Something In The Way", "Heart-Shaped Box", "All Apologies", and the controversial "Rape Me".
