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Fans mourn grunge rock icon Kurt Cobain 25 years after death

On the 25th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, dozens of people are leaving flowers, candles and written messages at a Seattle park near the house where the music icon killed himself

FILE - This 1993 file photo shows Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of the rock band Nirvana. On Friday, April 5, 2019, people gathered throughout the day at Viretta Parkin in Seattle, leaving flowers, candles, and written messages on the 25th anniversary of Cobain's death. Cobain, whose band Nirvana rose to global fame amid Seattle's grunge rock years of the early 1990s, shot himself on April 5, 1994, in his home near Lake Washington.
FILE - This 1993 file photo shows Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of the rock band Nirvana. On Friday, April 5, 2019, people gathered throughout the day at Viretta Parkin in Seattle, leaving flowers, candles, and written messages on the 25th anniversary of Cobain's death. Cobain, whose band Nirvana rose to global fame amid Seattle's grunge rock years of the early 1990s, shot himself on April 5, 1994, in his home near Lake Washington.Read moreMark J. Terrill / AP
    by The Associated Press, The Associated Press
    Published 

SEATTLE (AP) — On the 25th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, dozens of people left flowers, candles, and handwritten messages at a Seattle park near the house where the Nirvana frontman killed himself.

Cobain, whose band rose to global fame in the city's grunge rock music scene of the early 1990s, was 27 when he died April 5, 1994, in his home in a wealthy neighborhood near Lake Washington.

Fans trekked Friday to nearby Viretta Park, leaving memorials on benches, where flowers mixed with handwritten phrases like "thank you for your art" and "find your place."

In an essay on the Crosscut news website, Cobain biographer Charles R. Cross wrote that few Seattle musicians "have been as tied to Seattle in the mind of the popular zeitgeist as Kurt Cobain."

Nirvana’s breakthrough album, Nevermind, was released in 1991. Featuring the hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the album went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts and has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide.

Nirvana was the most prominent of the era’s series of Seattle grunge bands, including Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, that would go on to release best-selling records.

Cobain’s angst-filled lyrics and his band’s powerful, dark rock struck a chord with young people. Days after his death, thousands of people gathered near the Space Needle for a public memorial.

An investigation determined he took a massive dose of heroin and then shot himself.