Nirvana was an American rock band formed in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1987. Founded by lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic, the band went through a succession of drummers, most notably Chad Channing, before recruiting Dave Grohl in 1990. It was “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that launched them to stardom in 1991. The sound of Generation X, now the blueprint for alternative rock, Kurt Cobain was the most charismatic frontman of the 90s.  Nirvana pretty much single-handedly catapulted alternative music into the mainstream when their second album, Nevermind, took the music industry by surprise and turned popular culture on its head on its release in 1991. Nirvana settled on their name because Cobain “wanted a name that was kind of beautiful or nice and pretty instead of a mean, raunchy punk name like the Angry Samoans”. Before they became Nirvana, the band were known as Skid Row, Fecal Matter and Ted Ed Fred.