Credit: Far Out / Alamy
Even though grunge was already in full swing by the time Nirvana rocked up and began to dominate the scene, what the trio achieved in terms of drawing more attention towards the movement can’t be ignored.
It was the release of their second album, Nevermind, in 1991, that helped elevate them to star status, with it receiving large amounts of acclaim for all of its pop sensibilities that collided with raucous instrumentation. It was considered not just a landmark release for the grunge movement, but a benchmark that others felt as though they had to aim for in order to even come close to surpassing its level of excellence.
Bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl were, of course, praised for their roles in Nirvana’s ascension, but in truth, it was Kurt Cobain who was placed at the centre of it all, immediately landing himself a place in rock history as one of the most truly original songwriters of a generation.
Cobain was essentially hailed as the king, the saviour and the guiding light for all of the grunge scene, both within the scene’s native domain in the Pacific Northwest and further afield, and while he personally struggled with the pressure of being idolised in such a way, people were still using him as a model example of what heavier music with skilful songwriting could look like in the 1990s.
So many others were trying to follow in their footsteps, even those who had been an inspiration to him in the first place, and without his presence, the entire scene would likely have felt lost and lacking in direction from their North Star.
One such example of another songwriter who Cobain himself had looked up to was Bob Mould, whose output in college rock outfit Hüsker Dü throughout the 1980s was a major influence on Nirvana’s sound. The respect was mutual, and once Cobain had entered the spotlight for his work with Nirvana, Mould expressed a great fondness for how his acolyte had turned the roles on their heads, going on to serve as a major influence on his next project, Sugar.
Sugar’s 1992 debut, Copper Blue, was a superb display of Mould’s talent that found itself aligning with what Nirvana had done the year before on Nevermind, fusing pop with heavy guitars. But, when they re-entered the studio to make a follow-up in 1994, something seemed immediately off about the sessions they were laying down, which was only compounded by the tragedy of the news that Mould was presented with on April 8th.
Further reading: From The Vault
In a 2026 interview with The Guardian, Mould recalled how the news of Cobain’s death came on the TV while the band were in the studio, and he felt an immediate sense of hopelessness washing over him, making him question the futility of attempting to record an album. “It was a good time to walk away for a bit,” he said, noting how the tragedy sapped all of the energy out of him. “I pulled the plug, erased the tapes completely. There was nothing worth saving.”
If Cobain and Nirvana were no longer there, then where could the rest possibly go from there? Sugar knew that the loss of someone who had been so important to the alternative rock scene over the past half-decade would have an extreme and profound effect on others in the same scene, and forcing creativity during a period of collective mourning was not going to be the way forward.
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