Investigation of Alternative Sources regarding Kurt Cobain’s Death

Kurt Cobain was a star, a bright and blazing celebrity musician making waves in both music and society. However, just like a star that burns too brightly, Cobain died on April 5, 1994 at the young age of 27. The apparent cause of death was suicide. Kurt Cobain’s death afterwards was a very controversial topic, with fans and so called “private investigators” coming out with many other explanations for the musician’s death. I have investigated a couple of these alternative views and below are my findings on the validity of these views.

The first viewpoint I investigated was the “Kurt Cobain Murder Investigation” by Tom Grant. In the case outline, he explains different reasons why Kurt Cobain either had no reason to kill himself, as well as a couple reasons why he wouldn’t have been able to kill himself in the way that he did. The second article supporting this claim is written by Alternative Nation. It gives 10 reasons why Kurt did not kill himself, drawing from song lyrics and responses he had in interviews.

The second viewpoint I looked at was a Daily Star Sunday article describing how the CIA planned to get Kurt Cobain addicted to the narcotic drug heroin and later killed him. The article describes Nirvana’s ascent to fame and how their polarizing nature along with their political goals made Cobain a target of the CIA. The second article supporting this claim is from a webpage (No More Rock and Roll) created in 1994. Inside, it claims that the CIA kidnapped Cobain and brainwashed him to be able to control his mind.

I found these articles through a broad google search on Cobain’s death which eventually led me to a webpage containing a compendium of different conspiracy theories on the topic of Cobain’s death. Using this webpage, I was able to identify popular alternative viewpoints and searched for the original article where the viewpoint arose. After that, I decided to use advanced search options to search for keywords contained in the articles I already obtained to find more sources.

The only article I believe could be credible is the case investigation by Tom Grant. The main reason for this credibility is how close Grant is to the case itself. Kurt Cobain’s wife at the time hired him as a private investigator to find the details of Cobain’s death. However, all the evidence that Grant gives is never proven empirically. For example, he claims that there was no suicide note and that it was only a note to his fans that he was going to quit music. The claim was made, and Grant never gave any photo evidence to prove his point. Also, the article seems very biased. Grant never includes information from the actual investigation and seems to ignore crucial facts that go against his case. The article written by Alternative nation is the freshest article of the bunch, being written in 2017. The biggest drawback for the source’s credibility is the authors. Many of the authors of the claims are writing from their internet accounts, meaning that anyone in the world could have contributed to the article and placed false information inside.

When dealing with two CIA case articles, both did not have very well-designed websites. The pages were eclectic, and advertisement filled up all sides of the page. The freshness of both sources could be questioned as well, with the articles being written in 2010 and 1994. In the sources, there is a bias against the government. Very strong language including the words “evil” and “serious threat” were used to describe the CIA’s plan to kill Cobain. The articles seem to rely on creating an emotional connection to Cobain and leverage the fact that avid fans could not believe he killed himself to create doubt in people’s heads.

In conclusion, with a case such as Kurt Cobain’s death, which has been investigated very thoroughly in the 24 years since, there is very little double in what caused his death. All the articles I looked at seemed to rely of emotional connection to create doubt. The pages as well were not very nice to look at, with bland background and questionable formatting present in every page. In the end, looking deeper into all the sources, not a single could be deemed credible under a keen eye.

 

 

Bibliography

Buchanan, Brett. “10 Reasons Why Kurt Cobain Wasn’t Murdered.” AlternativeNation.net, 5 May 2017, http://www.alternativenation.net/10-reasons-kurt-cobain-wasnt-murdered/.

Grant, Tom. “Case Outline.” Case Outline, cobaincase.com/.

McKeown, Rory. “Kurt Cobain ‘HOOKED on Heroin by CIA – before They Killed Him’.” Dailystar.co.uk, Daily Star, 5 Apr. 2018, http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/552058

“NO MORE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL.” Alt-X, www.altx.com/interzones2/london/rock.n.roll.html.