kurt cobain

Slightly overrated musician whose (not wholly voluntary) success allowed music companies to ladle the anti-establishment revivalist hard rock of the Pacific Northwest out of the pot it had been bubbling in for years, and attached a corporate label to it (grunge) that would soon be handed over to bloodsucking leeches like Bush, Creed, Puddle of Mudd, et al. This realization (and the widespread romanticising of his angst) led him to suicide in mid-1994. He was by no means untalented and had excellent melodic sense. A symbol of his age, for good and ill.