Although Kurt Cobain was only 27 when he died, he accomplished a lot in his few years by becoming a generational music icon as the leader of Nirvana. Still, given that he died in 1994, he missed out on a lot of modern technologies.
This is something Helen Mirren apparently thinks about a lot.
In a new interview with Evening Standard, Mirren said:
“I always say, it’s so sad that Kurt Cobain died when he did, because he never got to see GPS. It’s the most wonderful thing, my little blue spot walking down the street. I just find it completely magical and unbelievable.”
Technically speaking, the US Department Of Defense launched GPS in 1978 and it was made available for civilian use in 1983, so GPS was around before Cobain’s 1994 death. But, Cobain certainly did miss out on what Mirren is more specifically referring to: widespread use of GPS navigation on modern smartphones.
This actually isn’t Mirren’s first time discussing the modern technologies Cobain didn’t get the chance to fully experience: In a 2014 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Mirren said while discussing aging, “You either die young or get old. There’s no other way. I didn’t want to die young. Look at Kurt Cobain — he hardly even saw a computer! The digital stuff that’s going on is so exciting. I’m just so curious about what happens next.”