In honor of what would have been the Nirvana frontman’s 50th birthday on Feb. 20,
three artists reflect on the towering impact and lasting legacy of the grunge iconKurt Cobain,
Remembered
TOVE LOI was 11 when I bought
my first Nirvana
album. I boughtMTV
Unpluggedbecause
I’d heard “Polly,” and
then I bought all the
other albums. I obvi-
ously write pure pop,
and it’s not in any way
as hard as Nirvana,
but what inspired me
the most was the
rawness of it. He sang
about the dark stuff;
where I grew up, you
didn’t talk about
anything like that.
You kept all the dark-
ness to yourself.
That’s what I loved:
It was okay to feel the
pain a little bit.LAURA JANE GRACE
AGAINST ME!I was an Army brat...
so I lived overseas
without MTV and
moved back to the
U.S. when I was about- It was right around
when they were
playing Michael Jack-
son’s “Black or White”
and Red Hot Chili Pep-
pers’“GiveItAway”
all the time. And then
they played “Smells
Like Teen Spirit,” and
that was just so
different than anything
else on [MTV]. At first
it was hard to even
understand it: Do I like
this? Why do I like
this?... [Nevermind]
will forever be one
of my all-time
favorite records.
DIPLOKurt Cobain was
a legend. He passed
away before the
music industry turned
in such a chaotic and
nasty way. He was the
guy who made music
and thought about it
later. It was pure.
You can’t have that
anymore. You have to
do marketing and
research.... There’s
no such thing as a
pure punk attitude. If
he had been around...
I don’t know if he
would have been able
to withstand the pres-
sures of the industry.Reported by Nolan Feeney and Madison VainCOBAIN: JULIAN BROAD/GETTY IMAGES; TOVE LO: JON KOPALOFF/FILMMAGIC; GRACE: D DIPASUPIL/GETTY IMAGES; DIPLO: TAYLOR HILL/FILMMAG
IC;