Courtney Michelle Love is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989. Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. In 2020, NME named her one of the most influential singers in alternative culture of the last 30 years.
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American musician who was the lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter, and a founding member of the grunge band Nirvana. Through his angsty songwriting and anti-establishment persona, his compositions widened the thematic conventions of mainstream rock music. He was heralded as a spokesman of Generation X and is widely recognized as one of the most influential alternative rock musicians.
Hole was an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1989. It was founded by singer and guitarist Courtney Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson. It had several different bassists and drummers, the most prolific being drummer Patty Schemel, and bassists Kristen Pfaff and Melissa Auf der Maur. Hole released a total of four studio albums between two incarnations spanning the 1990s and early-2010s and became one of the most commercially successful rock bands in history fronted by a woman.
Live Through This is the second studio album by the American alternative rock band Hole, released on April 12, 1994, by DGC Records. Recorded in late 1993, it departed from the band's unpolished hardcore aesthetics to more refined melodies and song structure. Frontwoman Courtney Love said that she wanted the record to be "shocking to the people who think that we don't have a soft edge", but maintain a harsh sensibility. The album was produced by Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie and mixed by Scott Litt and J Mascis. The lyrics and packaging reflect Love's thematic preoccupations with beauty, and motifs of milk, motherhood, anti-elitism, and violence against women, while Love derived the album title from a quote in Gone with the Wind (1939).
Pretty on the Inside is the debut studio album by American alternative rock band Hole, released on September 17, 1991, in the United States on Caroline Records. Produced by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, and Gumball frontman Don Fleming, the album was Hole's first major label release after the band's formation in 1989 by vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson.
Kristen Marie Pfaff was an American musician, best known as the bassist for alternative rock band Hole from 1993 to 1994. Prior to Hole, Pfaff was the bassist and backing vocalist for Minneapolis-based band Janitor Joe. Pfaff returned to Janitor Joe for a short tour in the weeks before her death in June 1994 of a heroin overdose.
Eric Theodore Erlandson is an American musician, guitarist, and writer, primarily known as founding member, songwriter and lead guitarist of alternative rock band Hole from 1989 to 2002. He has also had several musical side projects, including Rodney & the Tube Tops, which he formed with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and RRIICCEE with Vincent Gallo.
"Do Re Mi" is a song by American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist, Kurt Cobain. It first appeared on the band's rarities box set, With the Lights Out, released in November 2004. A second version appears on the deluxe edition of Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings, released in November 2015.
Journals is a collection of writings and drawings by American musician Kurt Cobain, who was the lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana. Though the content is undated, it is arranged in approximately chronological order. It was published in hardcover by Riverhead Books in November 2002, and in paperback by Riverhead Books in November 2003. Journals opened at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list (non-fiction). It contains scrawled notes, drafted letters, shopping lists, and drawings by Cobain.
"Beautiful Son" is a song by American alternative rock band Hole, co-written by frontwoman Courtney Love, lead guitarist Eric Erlandson, and drummer Patty Schemel. The song was released as the band's fourth single in April 1993 on the European label City Slang. To coincide with the song's lyrics, Love used a photograph of her husband, Kurt Cobain, at age 7 as the single's artwork.
"Miss World" is a song by American alternative rock band Hole, written by frontwoman Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson. The song was released as the band's fifth single and the first from their second studio album, Live Through This, in March 1994.
On April 8, 1994, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer and guitarist of the American rock band Nirvana, was found dead at his home on Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle, Washington. Forensics investigators and a coroner later determined that Cobain had died on April 5, three days prior to the discovery of his body. The Seattle Police Department incident report stated that Cobain was found with a shotgun across his body, had suffered a visible gunshot wound to the head, and that a suicide note had been discovered nearby. Seattle police confirmed Cobain's death as a suicide.
The 27 Club is an informal list consisting mostly of popular musicians, often expanded by artists, actors, and other celebrities who died at age 27. Although the claim of a "statistical spike" for the death of musicians at that age has been refuted by scientific research, it remains a cultural phenomenon, with many celebrities who die at 27 noted for their high-risk lifestyles.
Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, published by Simon & Schuster, is a collaborative investigative journalism book written by Ian Halperin and Max Wallace purporting to show that Nirvana lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain, believed to have committed suicide, was in fact murdered, possibly at the behest of his wife Courtney Love. It is a follow-up to the authors' 1998 bestseller on the same subject, Who Killed Kurt Cobain?. The book is based on 30 hours of audiotaped conversations, exclusively obtained by the authors, between Courtney Love's private investigator, Tom Grant, and her and Cobain's entertainment attorney, Rosemary Carroll, who both dispute the official finding of suicide and believe Cobain was in fact murdered.
"Asking for It" is a song by the American alternative rock band Hole. It is the fourth track on the band's second studio album, Live Through This, released on April 12, 1994 on Geffen Records. The song was written by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson.
Kurt & Courtney is a 1998 British documentary film by Nick Broomfield investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Kurt Cobain, and allegations of Courtney Love's involvement in it.
Hit So Hard is a 2011 American documentary film directed by P. David Ebersole. The film details the life and near death story of Patty Schemel, drummer of the seminal '90s alternative rock band Hole, and charts her early life, music career, and spiral into crack cocaine addiction. The film weaves together Hi8 video footage Schemel recorded while on Hole's 1994-95 world tour with contemporary interviews with her, bandmates Courtney Love, Eric Erlandson, and Melissa Auf der Maur, as well as her family members. The film also features interviews with other female drummers and musicians, including Nina Gordon, Kate Schellenbach, Gina Schock, Debbi Peterson, and Phranc.
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck is a 2015 American documentary film about Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain. The film was directed by Brett Morgen and premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. It received a limited theatrical release worldwide and premiered on television in the United States on HBO on May 4, 2015. The documentary chronicles the life of Kurt Cobain from his birth in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1967, through his troubled early family life and teenage years and rise to fame as frontman of Nirvana, up to his suicide in April 1994 in Seattle at the age of 27.
Cobain On Cobain: Interviews And Encounters is a book by author and writer Nicholas Soulsby. It was published in February 2016, and tells the tale of the band Nirvana entirely and only through the words of front-man Kurt Cobain and those of his band-mates through their five-year career. The interviews start from the release of their first album Bleach to the band's collapse on their 1994 European tour followed shortly by Cobain's suicide. The book also includes interviews that have never been seen in print before.
Who Killed Kurt Cobain?: The Mysterious Death of an Icon is a 1998 book that explores the premise that the death of Kurt Cobain, frontman of American rock band Nirvana, was a case of murder and not suicide. It is a collaborative investigative journalism book written by Ian Halperin and Max Wallace. It went on to be an international bestseller.
