Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain’s guitar from Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged show to go on display in UK

The Martin D-18E, played at renowned performance five months before singer’s suicide, sold for £4.8m in 2020

Lanre Bakare Arts and culture correspondent

31, Mar, 2025 @7:21 AM

Helen Mirren: it’s so sad Kurt Cobain died before GPS was invented

The Oscar-winning actor has made the latest in a series of references to the Nirvana frontman and the technological advances he didn’t live to see

Catherine Shoard

25, Oct, 2024 @10:53 AM

From Elton John at the piano to Stormzy at Glastonbury and Madonna snogging Britney: 41 era-defining music photos

Icons, rock stars – and divas behaving badly: these photographs of musicians struck a chord around the world

Alexis Petridis, Michael Cragg and Gabrielle Schwarz

28, Sep, 2024 @6:00 AM

Back to the 90s! The TV show giving a front row seat to fashion’s hard-partying superstars

The supermodels ruled. A Vogue cover was a coronation. And the party rolled from the catwalk to the Groucho. Ahead of In Vogue: The 90s, Jess Cartner-Morley remembers the grunge and glamour of her favourite decade

Jess Cartner-Morley

11, Sep, 2024 @10:01 AM

Guitar played by John Lennon on Help!, lost for 50 years, going up for auction

Guitar also played by George Harrison on Norwegian Wood could sell for millions in May auction, alongside other memorabilia including a book of Tupac Shakur’s handwritten lyrics

Ben Beaumont-Thomas

23, Apr, 2024 @12:25 PM

Kurt Cobain: Moments That Shook Music review – even 30 years on, his death seems utterly tragic

This documentary about the Nirvana singer’s demise is at its best when it uses archive interviews with fans to show the scale of their loss. Otherwise, it struggles to really convey his impact

Rebecca Nicholson

13, Apr, 2024 @9:10 PM

The angst, the sensitivity… and the songs: how gen Z got hooked on Nirvana

For a new generation of musicians, the grunge band and their frontman Kurt Cobain have provided a blueprint for a more inclusive style of stardom

Hannah Ewens

31, Mar, 2024 @9:00 AM

Foo Fighters: But Here We Are review – a raw, unapologetic act of mourning | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

On the veteran band’s first album since drummer – and Dave Grohl’s best friend – Taylor Hawkins’ death, every anguished, searching and sometimes triumphant song is about death

Alexis Petridis

01, Jun, 2023 @12:30 PM

‘Kurt was not in a good way’: backstage on Nirvana’s first – and only - Australian tour

Promoter Stephen ‘Pav’ Pavlovic spent weeks on tour with bands like Nirvana and Hole in the 1990s. ‘I hoarded everything,’ he says – and a new exhibition reveals all

Katie Cunningham

26, Oct, 2022 @3:00 PM

Last Days review – Leith’s opera is bleak and beautiful

Oliver Leith’s new work, based on Gus Van Sant’s fictionalised account of the final days of Kurt Cobain, keeps its audience at arm’s length, allowing its dense score to articulate and drive the drama

Andrew Clements

08, Oct, 2022 @1:19 PM

‘Kurt Cobain was a walking paradox’: inside the opera about the star’s final days

It has little plot, the dialogue is mumbled, cereal bowls are a big theme, and a fast-talking cattle auctioneer plays his manager. We meet the team behind the Royal Opera House’s daring new show

Alexis Petridis

03, Oct, 2022 @3:56 PM