MTV VMAs 2026: Nirvana Named Video Vanguard Award Winner

Following years of chart-topping songs including “Lithium,” “Come as You Are” and “In Bloom,” the band released their third and final studio album, In Utero, in 1993. Half a year later, lead singer Cobain tragically died at his home in Seattle, with the King County Medical Examiner concluding it was a suicide.  

Since then, his surviving bandmates have honored Cobain—dad to Frances Bean Cobain with wife Courtney Love—and the legacy they made together through their music. In 2025, Grohl, Novoselic and guitarist Pat Smear played reunion shows at the FireAid Benefit Concert and SNL50, with Grohl explaining how reconnecting has nurtured their bond. 

“Sometimes when people think of bands, they just think of instruments and songs and stuff, but it really is, it’s this connection of people and life experience and relationships with other human beings,” the Foo Fighters frontman said on The Colbert Show in May. “And then you put on guitars and play music, and that translates your love and respect and the relationship you have with the other person, it really comes through the music.”

Keep reading for more iconic moments from the VMAs over the years.