In their brief seven-year history, Nirvana unwillingly brought alternative music into the mainstream and defined a generation
of young people. Nirvana's roots lie in the underground hardcore scene of the mid-1980s. Ironically, 1991 marked the birth
of Nirvanamania and the beginning of Cobain's mental and physical deterioration. The success of the album, Nevermind,
which went triple platinum, was fueled by MTV's incessant airplay of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The song was hailed as the
anthem of the grunge generation. Rumors of Cobain's heroin use were ever-present and as the band grew into a
multi-million dollar commercial entity, he began to withdraw into his own drug-induced world. In early 1994 Nirvana
embarked on a European tour that was cut short by Cobain's much publicized drug overdose in Rome. At the end of March
Cobain entered a drug rehab facility in Los Angeles and on April 1 he escaped from the center and returned to Seattle.
Cobain's body was found April 8 in his Seattle home with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
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