NIRVANA | text AMY RAPHEAL | photography DAVID SIMS

It was a year when Nirvana were much vilified but rarely heard, when grunge became more about catwalk capers and bandwagon bores than inspired music. Things are diffrent now. The Seattle trio are about to have their say-
GRRR!

The wonderful thing about Tiggers is - they've got big tails. Kurt Cobain, singer songwriter of the rock band Nirvana, holding on to reality Kurt in tigger suit


"being a celebrity is like rape" - John McEnroe

The Cobain family are having a nice day out. Its late afternoon in a photo studio in downtown Manhattan. Daddy Cobain is careering from one room to another, steering his 11-month-old daughter around in her pushchair, dressed in a suit that suggests he could well auditioning for a role of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh. he looks ridiculous. Frances Bean is gurgling uncontrollaby, a big grin on her angelic face. Courtney Love-Cobain is lounging barefoot on a sofa. "Where are my babies?" she demands, her arms outstretched. Kurt changes direction, pretends to be out of control and stops the pushchair just short of the sofa. He leans over his wife and kisses her. Long and passionately.

This is no ordinary family. This is royalty. Grunge royalty. This is as intimate as most people will ever get with Kurt Cobain, Nirvana frontman, so-called king of grunge, the X generation's rock star. He excels at not letting anyone inside his head. He has his opinions, sure, and he's vocal about many of them, but when it comes to baring his soul, well, he'll take you so far and then dump you. Listen to his lyrics which hint and tease but never quite come clean ("Have to have poison skin, give an inch take a smile/Never met a wise man, if so its a woman, gotta find a way to find a way" - "Smells Like Teen Spirit" [????]). For someone so insular, Kurt Cobain has mesmerised thousands - millions - of (young) people.


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