Kurt Cobain: an icon of alienation

It smells like nirvana. Up here in Madrona, one of Seattle's smartest neighbourhoods, the air from Lake Washington breezes new and sweet. The trees, their leaves shiny, add an extra tang of their own, and what breath you have is taken away by the view. It's the kind of place which makes visitors sigh, "I could live here." No wonder the street signs welcome you to "Madrona - The Peaceable Kingdom".

But one house on the hill has been spoiled. Black plastic tarpaulins hang from the trees to keep out prying eyes, bed-sheets have been pulled across the windows. Nevertheless, you can still see into the room above the detached garage, the room estate agents would call "the mother-in-law apartment".

The patterned lino is visible, so is the bare table, and the vase of pink tulips placed on the floor to mark the exact spot where Kurt Cobain took a shotgun and blew his brains out.

The birds keep singing outside, undisturbed by the police paraphernalia that has cordoned off the driveway since Cobain's body was found. Occasionally a robin comes down to peck at the pools of red candlewax, leftovers from the vigil of fans who gathered here the moment Seattle radio stations declared April 8 the day the music died.

They were mourning the passing of the king of grunge, the frontman of Nirvana whose 1991 hit, Smells Like Teen Spirit, was credited with exporting the Seattle sound worldwide, injecting "indie rock" into the mainstream, and so altering the course of modern music. The grown-up media followed close behind, reporting that Kurt Cobain's death had deprived the world's twentysomethings of a spokesman, that Generation X had lost its crown prince.

To outsiders, the fuss was hard to fathom. For one thing, Nirvana's music is an acquired taste, a blend of punk and metal, in which melody is often buried under layers of sheer noise. And Cobain's story seemed so obvious, so familiar. The words "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" came so easily - and Kurt Cobain's demise had all the elements. From the coma induced by a tranquilliser-and-champagne cocktail in Rome a month earlier (now regarded as a first suicide attempt), to the tales of long-term heroin addiction, to the self-pitying note he left behind - it was a saga of self-destruction that made Cobain look like nothing more than a Nineties Sid Vicious.