Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain, lead singer for the Seattle-based band Nirvana, performs for an MTV special, Dec. 13, 2004. Nirvana spent only three years in the public eye and released only three studio albums before Cobain's suicide on April 5, 1994.

Yet the band's impact on the music scene was explosive, and Rolling Stone magazine named Cobain "Artist of the Decade" in 1999.

Kurt Cobain

Nirvana bassist Chris Novoselic, drummer David Grohl and Cobain pose in a 1991 publicity photo. Cobain and Novoselic formed Nirvana in the late 1980s and Grohl joined the band in 1990, the year Cobain began taking heroin, and the year Nirvana's first album, "Bleach," helped it win a major label deal with DGC, part of Geffen Records.

Kurt Cobain

Cobain performs during the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. His band launched the early '90s "grunge" movement, helped save the world from hair metal, and with a single line - "Here we are now, entertain us" - captured and captivated a generation that had grown bored and cynical about popular music.

Kurt Cobain

In February 1992, Cobain married volatile musician/actress Courtney Love, seen here performing with her band Hole. The couple's daughter, Frances Bean, was born that summer.

Kurt Cobain

Nirvana pose after receiving an award for best alternative video for "In Bloom" at the 10th annual MTV Video Music Awards, Sept. 2, 1993. The man at right is unidentified.

Kurt Cobain

Cobain performs during a benefit concert at the Cow Palace in Daly City, Calif., April 9, 1993. As Cobain's fame soared, so did his heroin use, in part as a self-treatment for his chronic stomach pain. He also grew increasingly uncomfortable with the trappings of fame, and spoke frequently during the last two years of his life of giving up music for painting.

Kurt Cobain

Cobain's body is taken to a medical examiner's van after an electrician found him dead in the greenhouse of his Seattle home, April 8, 1994. Three days earlier, Cobain wrote a suicide note, injected himself with a massive dose of heroin, put a 20-gauge shotgun against the roof of his mouth, and fired. In his note, he said he couldn't stand to think of his daughter becoming "the miserable self-destructive, death rocker that I've become."

Kurt Cobain

Seattle police officers investigate the greenhouse where Cobain's body was found, April 8, 1994. His journals, which Love had published in 2002, reveal a man tortured by drug addiction and illness. A few months before he died, he wrote: "I remember someone saying if you try heroine (sic) once you'll become hooked. Of course I laughed and scoffed at the idea but I know believe this to be very true."

Kurt Cobain

People line up in San Francisco to see the documentary "Kurt & Courtney," March 1, 1998. Although Cobain's death was ruled a suicide, questions and conspiracy theories continued to swirl on the Internet. In the film, Love's estranged father, along with many of the couple's former friends, say they believe Love may have been involved. Love's lawyers called the accusations "false and defamatory."

Kurt Cobain

Love appears in Grant County district court, Sept. 25, 1995, in Ephrata, Wash. Frances Bean Cobain is seated behind her. Love pleaded guilty to assaulting a singer from another band.

Kurt Cobain

Leland Cobain looks at a photo album of his grandson, Kurt Cobain, at his house near Aberdeen, Wash., March 26, 2004.

Kurt Cobain

A piece of Kurt Cobain's childhood artwork is displayed at his grandfather Leland Cobain's home near Aberdeen, Wash., March 26, 2004. According to Leland Cobain, Kurt could draw well from the time he was 6, and Leland's wife, Iris, an amateur painter herself, encouraged him and taught him.

Kurt Cobain

A piece of Kurt Cobain's childhood artwork is displayed at his grandfather Leland Cobain's home near Aberdeen, Wash., March 26, 2004. The Aberdeen Museum of History asked Leland Cobain to contribute to an exhibit about his grandson.

Kurt Cobain

Bob Hunter, an Aberdeen High School art teacher, holds up some artwork done by Kurt Cobain, March 26, 2004. The work is a portrait of President Reagan. Hunter recalls that Cobain was a good art student, who took most assignments seriously. "The art he had within him did as much for the music as the music did for the art," he said.

Kurt Cobain

Love, right, is joined by daughter Frances Bean Cobain before boarding the USS John C. Stennis for the premiere of Disney's film "Pearl Harbor" in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, May 21, 2001. Following Cobain's death, Love continued to record, earned a Golden Globe nomination for "The People vs. Larry Flynt," and made headlines for her antics and arrests.

Kurt Cobain

As a teen, Cobain would come to this spot underneath a Wishkah River bridge to escape his unhappy home and the persistent gray drizzle of the Washington coast. Now it's where many of his fans have come to pay their respects to the late musician.

Kurt Cobain

A message is written on a bridge support beam where Cobain used to hang out in Aberdeen, Wash., pictured March 26, 2004. "Peace, love, empathy," reads one message scrawled in graffiti. "Kurt," says another, "Your spirit will bounce on happily."

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain, 1989, "Experiencing Nirvana: Grunge in Europe, 1989"

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain, 1989, "Experiencing Nirvana: Grunge in Europe, 1989"

Kurt Cobain

JESSE FROHMAN/THE MORRISON HOTEL GALLERY

Kurt Cobain, 1989, "Experiencing Nirvana: Grunge in Europe, 1989"