In the film loosely based on Kurt Cobain’s final hours, Last Days, by Gus Van Sant (2005), there is a strange allegorical sequence. When an electrician discovers the corpse, a naked, spectral body emerges from it and rises — an illustration of how, on April 8, 1994, when Cobain’s body was found three days after his demise, the man died and the myth was born.

Thirty years later, it might be said that Nirvana is still the last great classic rock band. But not just because of their iconic achievements — most visibly, dethroning Michael Jackson from No. 1 in the U.S. charts and making so-called alternative rock hegemonic in the early 1990s — or even because their frontman shot himself when he was just 27. “I’m sure the way Kurt passed away has a kind of appeal to some people, but it’s not a key component of the group’s legacy,” explains music critic Michael Azarrad, author of Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana and co-producer of the documentary Kurt Cobain: About A Son (2006). “Even when Nirvana existed, everyone knew they would be legendary. They were a great band that played great songs that evoked deep, powerful, complicated feelings that no one had articulated before. That kind of thing tends to last.”