Michael Azerrad
American music journalist
Michael Azerrad is an American author, music journalist, editor, and musician. As a graduate of Columbia University, he has written for publications such as Spin, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. Azerrad's 1993 biography Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana was named by Q as one of the 50 greatest rock books ever written. His 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life, a collection of profiles on prominent indie rock bands, received similar critical acclaim.
Early life
Azerrad grew up in the New York City area and received his BA degree from Columbia College in 1983. His father was an art director at NBC, and his mother a senior consultant at Art and Technology, a computer consulting firm in San Francisco. During his college years, he was both a roommate and a bandmate of keyboard virtuoso Marc Capelle (who later went on to become a member of American Music Club.) May 21, 1988 he married Julia Barnett Just.
Music journalism
After college, Azerrad played drums in various small bands while pursuing a career in music journalism. Besides writing features for Spin, Musician and Details, and a stint at MTV News from 1987 through 1992, Azerrad wrote several hundred pieces for Rolling Stone from 1987 through 1993, including cover stories on the B-52's and Nirvana, and was eventually named contributing editor. He has since written major features for The New Yorker, Mojo, Italian GQ and the New York Times, as well as cover stories for Spin and Revolver.
The public source identifies “Michael Azerrad” as american music journalist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michael, Azerrad and American.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q647640. VIAF identifies the subject as 19773239. The Library of Congress control number is n93037819. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993, 2001, 1983 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michael Azerrad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.