Born: February 20, 1967, 7:38 PM local time, Aberdeen, Washington, USA. Source: Astro-Databank, Rodden rating AA.
The AA rating means the time comes from a birth certificate or an equivalent record, so the rising sign, the Midheaven and the houses below can be read without qualification. Open Kurt Cobain's chart on Astrolas to follow along.
Two features run this chart. Four planets sit in cPisces, spread across the houses of daily work and close partnership. And the rising sign itself, in hVirgo, carries an almost exact conjunction from IUranus, the tightest aspect anywhere in the chart. A soft, absorbent inner world sits right behind an identity wired for sudden, visible change.
Four planets in Pisces, across two houses
Sun at 1ยฐ49' and Mercury at 18ยฐ28' sit in Pisces in the 6th house. Venus at 26ยฐ33' and Saturn at 28ยฐ44' sit in Pisces too, one house over in the 7th. Four of his ten planets share one sign.
The library's Pisces Sun lives through imagination and empathy, sensitive to pain in a way that can produce art as easily as it produces withdrawal. Pisces Mercury thinks in intuitive leaps rather than clean logic, reads a room's mood before it reads its words, and needs to protect itself from absorbing other people's moods as its own. Pisces Venus loves without much defense, often putting someone else's happiness ahead of its own comfort. Pisces USaturn carries the placement's hardest lesson, facing reality rather than escaping into it, with real risk of early disappointment before that lesson lands.
In the 6th house, the library ties the Sun here to identity built through work and a perfectionist streak, with a tendency to expect recognition in proportion to the effort put in, and Mercury here to a mind that wants steady, hands-on engagement and gets restless in slow environments. In the 7th, Venus here still carries real magnetism and luck through partnership, with the challenge of staying clear-headed enough not to mistake infatuation for real love, and Saturn here brings a serious, cautious approach to commitment, one that can benefit social standing through a more settled partner.
Nirvana's run was short by design: formed in 1987, Nevermind in 1991, In Utero in 1993, and an MTV Unplugged session the same year built almost entirely from quiet, stripped arrangements. The band's defining sound paired a loud, aggressive surface with lyrics that read as personal to the point of discomfort, close to the split the library reads into this Pisces group. "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the single that carried Nevermind into the mainstream, is the loud half of that split; the hushed cover of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" on the Unplugged session is the Pisces half.
Uranus almost exactly on the Ascendant
The tightest aspect in the whole chart is here. Uranus at 23ยฐ15' Virgo and the Ascendant at 23ยฐ21' Virgo form a conjunction with an orb of 0ยฐ06', essentially exact.
The library reads this pairing as an independent, unconventional identity, one that acts suddenly once it decides change is due, sometimes moving or transforming on short notice. It specifically warns against impulsive, major decisions and recommends stepping back before acting on the urge to upend everything. Cobain's arrival mirrored that description closely: Nevermind's sudden commercial breakout in late 1991 reshaped mainstream rock within months, pushing a sound built in small Pacific Northwest clubs into the center of popular music with little warning.
Uranus sits in the 12th house, which the library reads as a layer of private rebellion, independence kept inside rather than performed, visible mainly to people close to him. The library adds that this placement can leave someone feeling part of a group while still standing apart from it, a tension that matches how often Cobain is described as uneasy with the fame Nevermind brought him. Pluto sits nearby too, at 19ยฐ48' Virgo, also in the 12th house and also retrograde. The library reads Pluto here as an intense inner life that runs well below the surface, with real healing potential once its owner learns to tell true intuition apart from old fear.
Moon and Jupiter together in Cancer, in the 10th house
Moon at 13ยฐ24' and Jupiter at 25ยฐ42', retrograde, both sit in fCancer, in the 10th house of career and public standing.
The library's Cancer Moon is deeply attached, private about its real feelings, and most comfortable building around family. Cancer's YJupiter is one of this planet's more fortunate placements, bringing support and opportunity especially through home and close relationships. In the 10th house, the library reads the Moon as tying self-worth directly to public recognition for effort, with real swings possible across a career, and reads Jupiter, retrograde, as success that still comes but arrives more slowly and only after real self-questioning rather than easy opportunity.
Cobain married Courtney Love in 1992, the year their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born. Nirvana's rise to that kind of visibility happened over roughly three years, not a slow career climb, which fits a retrograde Jupiter's pattern of success arriving in bursts rather than along a straight line. The band signed to a major label, Geffen Records, in 1990, after two years on the independent label Sub Pop, a jump the library's 10th-house Moon reads as status becoming the primary goal rather than a side effect of the music.
Venus conjunct Saturn in Pisces
Venus and Saturn, both already discussed above, also form their own conjunction, with an orb of 2ยฐ10'.
The library reads this pairing as emotional caution: a fear of being hurt that keeps real feelings guarded until a relationship has proven itself stable. It also ties the aspect specifically to artistic and musical talent, since Saturn's discipline here gives Venus's creative instinct a frame to work inside, plus a pull toward financial caution and careful, long-term use of money. That combination, a guarded heart with a disciplined creative output, runs through both the Pisces group and this aspect at once, two separate placements pointing at the same trait from different angles.
A note on the chart's one near-exact aspect
Sun and Mars form a trine with an orb of 0ยฐ01', as close to exact as this chart gets anywhere. Mercury also opposes Pluto (orb 1ยฐ20') and the Ascendant (orb 4ยฐ53'), and Uranus squares the Midheaven (orb 1ยฐ28'). The Astrolas library doesn't have entries for any of these pairings yet, so this piece only notes that they exist rather than assigning them a meaning.
What the chart adds up to
The chart doesn't explain songwriting, and it can't explain why one band's sound became a cultural turning point. What it shows is a split: an absorbent, empathetic Pisces identity built for feeling things deeply, sitting just behind a Virgo rising sign with Uranus almost exactly on top of it, wired for sudden, total change. Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, two decades after Cobain's death. He died in April 1994, at 27.
Open Kurt Cobain's chart on Astrolas, find the Pisces group and the Uranus-Ascendant conjunction on the wheel, then compare it with a chart you know.
Questions people ask
What is Kurt Cobain's rising sign?
Virgo, at 23ยฐ21', based on his AA-rated birth time of 7:38 PM. Uranus sits almost exactly on top of it, at 23ยฐ15' Virgo, an orb of just 0ยฐ06'.
What are Kurt Cobain's Sun and Moon signs?
His Sun is at 1ยฐ49' Pisces in the 6th house. His Moon is at 13ยฐ24' Cancer in the 10th house, alongside a retrograde Jupiter.
What is the strongest feature of his chart?
The near-exact Uranus-Ascendant conjunction, paired with four planets in Pisces split across the 6th and 7th houses. A guarded, feeling-led interior sits behind an identity built for sudden change.