Computers create ‘new’ Nirvana song 27 years after Kurt Cobain’s tragic death

Kurt Cobain on MTV Unplugged. Picture: Getty

Alan Caulfield

April 06 2021 07:03 PM

We’re so happy cause today we heard there’s a new Nirvana song – sort of.

Monday marked the 27th anniversary of the death of Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of the seminal US grunge band, and now a mental health charity has used artificial intelligence (AI) to create a ‘new’ Nirvana song by analysing the band's back catalogue.

The haunting track, Drowned In The Sun, has unmistakable undertones of In Utero-era Nirvana, with the vocals provided by Eric Hogan, lead singer of Nevermind, billed as the ultimate tribute to the US rockers.

The song was created as part of a project called Lost Tapes Of The 27 Club, which uses AI To analyse existing works by musicians who all have something in common – they all died at 27 and had struggled with mental health issues.

Among them are the Nirvana frontman, Doors singer Jim Morrison, and tragic British vocalist Amy Winehouse.

It is part of an effort by a Toronto, Canada-based organisation called Over The Bridge to raise awareness of mental health issues.

Cobain took his own life on April 5, 1994, at the age of 27 after shooting to worldwide stardom as the figurehead of the grunge movement with songs such as Smells Like Teen Spirit, Lithium and Rape Me; but he also struggled with mental health and addiction problems.

Hogan told Billboard magazine the track was “accurate enough to give you that [Nirvana] vibe, but not so accurate to where someone’s going to get a cease-and-desist letter”.

He added: “If you look at the last quote-unquote Nirvana release, which was 'You Know You’re Right,' this has the same type of vibe. Kurt would just sort of write whatever the hell he felt like writing. And if he liked it, then that was a Nirvana song.

"I can hear certain things in the arrangement of [Drowned In The Sun] like, ‘OK, that’s kind of an In Utero vibe right here or a Nevermind vibe right here.' … I really understood the AI of it.”