Bowing Out by Nisid Hajari

(b. 1967) The horrific certitude of Kurt Cobain's April 5 suicide is matched only by the haziness of its afterimage. Was it the "Incident #94-156500" described in a coldly minimalist police report ("Occupation: Musician... Tool/Weapon Used: Shotgun")? Was it the face-slap symbolism suddenly taken on by a church billboard in his hometown ("Jesus Cared Enough to Die")? Or was it the glimpse into the abyss that some of the decade's most powerful music now affords--the terrible irony of his howl, "I swear that I don't have a gun"?

The only certainty is that with his final act Nirvana frontman Cobain, 27, redrew the map of contemporary rock--for a second time. He grew up in the no- exit logging town of Aberdeen, Wash., and formed Nirvana with local bassist Krist Novoselic in 1987; Dave Grohl joined them in 1990, ending their shifting line-up of drummers. Recorded for $606.17, the band's 1989 debut, Bleach, earned Nirvana a modicum of notoriety in indie-rock circles, not at least for their association with the bands pigeonholed as "grunge." But the real revolution was televised: Chainsaw hooks and dock-work MTV airplay boosted "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to the anthem plane and Nirvana's gorgeous 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind, to more than 12 million sales worldwide.

That Nevermind's landmark success upended the music industry has already been mythologized. So has Cobain's gift for electrifying pop melodies with soul- baring fury, his epic marriage to fiery singer Courtney Love, his hroin use, and his self-abusive relationship with fame. But his demise presents a farther-reaching, if quieter conundium: For Kurt Cobain--beholden to a music, an art, a zeitgeist that treasured the supposed honety of edges- the center could never hold.

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