"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Classic Or Dud?

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I don't quite agree with you on this, Matt. System of a Down come from a pretty different place musically--if Rage Against the Machine or Primus or Zappa or Rush hadn't happened, THEN they might be dancing around in tight leather pants. (Oversimplification to make point; I'm sure y'all understand me here, i.e. please don't let this turn into the whiny bitchfest that this thread started out as.) Nirvana certainly had some impact on them, but not, to my ears, so much that it would've altered them completely.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 1 October 2002 02:28 (twenty-three years ago)

classic. its fun and catchy. kurt was cute with black hair. i like sliver better.

― di smith (lucylurex), Tuesday, 1 October 2002 03:26 (twenty-three years ago)

smells like teen spirit is a good song it still has meening to thos who have non. i guess the oly way to under stand is if it still has meening to you

― Alf G, Friday, 11 October 2002 19:16 (twenty-three years ago)

well I never heard a song by nirvana, (old school rap guy, ya ya flame away) anyway, the song is pretty cool and love listening to it when i'm wrenching or programming,
but then again I also like the transformers soundtrack =) great driving music!

cliff notes on mypost: thumbs up

― someguy, Thursday, 17 October 2002 00:23 (twenty-three years ago)

I rekon all you people out there hassling SLTS are just a bunch of moron. You go on about his life etc like u know him personally, and saying the lyrics are all shit etc.

Read the biography/autobiography of Kurt and all will make sense. Its a good book, and explains a lot about his life, and how his songs and lyrics came to be.

― TIMMY!!!, Tuesday, 22 October 2002 03:48 (twenty-three years ago)

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was one of those great, great, great record store moments. "What the fuck is this?"
"Nirvana. Comes out next week."
"What day?"
The only standard by which you can judge a song a million plays later is whether the sound is still arresting, and I still think it is. His screaming voice. The fucked up guitar solo. His cracking and rolling on the last verse. Sorry, but "Velouria" and "Safe European Home" aren't even in the same universe...

― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 22 October 2002 06:34 (twenty-three years ago)

just a bunch of moron

A freshly plucked, sweet smelling bunch at that.

Read the biography/autobiography of Kurt and all will make sense.

You are reading the words of Charles Cross, Springsteen apologist = you are cursed.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 15:14 (twenty-three years ago)

haha someone called someone else a "stinker" on this thread.

this song was created by pynchon you know

― bob zemko (bob), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 17:35 (twenty-three years ago)

p 538

― bob zemko (bob), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 17:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Like some other people I first heard SLTS when I had just left home and come away to university. I had a lot to take in in 1991 - although I'd been listening to a wide variety of things (including Sonic Youth and the Dead Kennedys), on arrival at uni I was exposed to Goth, Crusty (in case this is UK 1991-93 specific as I suspect that basically means The Levellers and other soap-shy folksters) and this new thing called Grunge. I did nothing but listen to records and go to clubs for that whole first year (and had to resit... but it was worth it!). There are a lot of songs that bring that time back for me. 'Add It Up' is one. 'Losing My Religion' is one. SLTS is another.

It's not possible for me to be objective about something so emotionally laden. So a nostalgic thumbs up from me. I THINK it's a classic.

― Zora (Zora), Tuesday, 22 October 2002 21:22 (twenty-three years ago)

As some of you know my day job involves with with behaviorally disordered children, average age 11. This morning I was driving one of the kids to school, a young man who if this had been four years ago would have been completely all about Nirvana, and "Teen Spirit" came on the radio. I turned it up: no reaction. I asked if he knew the song, and he said no, that wasn't really his kind of music. To at least one rebellious fuck-shit-up early teenager, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" now sounds like any other classic rock song.

NB three other kids in the car, roughly same age group, all comparably disinterested -- they go through the room for Slim Shady though ;)

― J0hn Darn13ll3, Tuesday, 22 October 2002 21:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Composing SLTS

More on Kurt's diaries: Newsweek, Observer

― Underclocked, Thursday, 24 October 2002 03:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm having a difficult time understanding the reasoning behind all of this unfair lambasting of "Teen Spirit." In order to really appreciate this song, I believe that you have to be, well, a little more sympathetic of the infinitely troubled psyche of Kurt Cobain and the true nature of the pain that existed behind his art. Cobain was by no means your stereotypical rock star; he made it clear that he reviled the avarice and superficiality of the corporate world. He also hated the unrelenting scrutiny forced upon him by the media. It is true that he desired success, but he wanted it on his own terms. He was, admittedly, rather idealistic in his thinking, but how could he have foreseen that he would leave such a profound marking on the hearts of so many people? When "SLTS" shot up the charts, Kurt was more confused than he was pleased. He ended up HATING the song as well as the entire "Nevermind" album; he was completely disgusted with the fact that the majority of the people who bought the record failed to truly empathize with his meaning and message. As for the song itself, well, I will try to present a valid defense of it. Contrary to popular skepticism, I don't think SLTS is a Pixies rip-off. Cobain was certainly heavily influenced by the Pixies, but Nirvana possessed a very distinctive quality and sound that no other band has been able to counter, at least in my opinion. "Teen Spirit" is a classic for many reasons - the opening riff, the brilliant use of the quiet-loud dynamic, the crashing guitar hooks and thundering drumbeats, etc. - but the thing that gives the song its greatest claim to power is undoubtedly Cobain's enraged, visceral, blisteringly heated vocals, and the feelings of urgency and perpetual angst that are conveyed through them. This song WAS the defining call-to-arms of the 1990s, an earth-shattering piece of guitar-driven rebellion that shook an entire generation and drove fear into the hearts of its elders. It had meaning as well; the lyrics were purposely vague and esoteric, but they were not all that difficult to interpret, especially with the release of a clever and time-defining video. "SLTS" was an ingenious encapsulation of the angst and apathy felt by the "Slacker Generation," and once unleashed on the public, its impact was indispensable. It rules. Period. Oh, and to those of you who try to devalue Cobain because of his choice to commit suicide - GET A LIFE! Are you yourself an excruciatingly sensitive, painfully artistic, heroin-addicted manic-depressive? No? Okay, then. Suicide is a right, and although it is an act of selfishness, it is not an act of cowardice. Judging a person for committing suicide, to me, in inexcusable; do you have even the slightest concept of what that person was going through when they decided to end their life? Have some goddamn sympathy! Okay, I'm done now.

― Becky, Thursday, 31 October 2002 03:45 (twenty-three years ago)

do you read many magazines

― boxcubed (boxcubed), Thursday, 31 October 2002 03:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I was nine in 1991. I actually have never heard the Nirvana version of the song (only an MP3 of the Tori Amos cover), have no clue what the lyrics are, and have never seen the music video. My hunt for the lyrics themselves on the internet has revealed many pages of random schmucks pontificating the life-changing aspects of a few selected lines, and how the world will never be the same, but the actual LYRICS don't seem to be out there. (Damn google to hell.) I think I'll give up and return to Ani Difranco's Swan Dive.

― Steph422, Thursday, 31 October 2002 04:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Between tribute bands and the omnipresence of Nirvana t-shirts on the Youth of Today, and Dave Grohl's new high profile, I've been thinking about this song (==Nirvana) a lot.

It was to me what a hundred songs were to a hundred generations, a starter's gun, a notice that this group of kids had more in common with each other than even with their like-minded older brothers and sisters. They didn't get it, they didn't have it, and now no-one else wants it. It's still great. The first few chords of it thrown into Moulin Rouge hit with an almost physical force.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 31 October 2002 14:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Suicide is a right, and although it is an act of selfishness, it is not an act of cowardice. Judging a person for committing suicide, to me, in inexcusable; do you have even the slightest concept of what that person was going through when they decided to end their life? Have some goddamn sympathy! Okay, I'm done now.

This is a criminally stupid thing to say.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 31 October 2002 18:01 (twenty-three years ago)

its a good song and cobain was a good songwriter but please Becky there's more to music than bloody grunge OK.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 31 October 2002 18:13 (twenty-three years ago)

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "More Than a Feeling" have totally different riffs. The chords in Teen Spirit are (roughly) F minor, A# minor, G# major, C# major; the chord in MTaF are (again, roughly) G major, C major, E minor, D major.

― Curtis Stephens, Thursday, 31 October 2002 21:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Your enharmonics hurt me in my heart.

SLTS: F minor, B-flat minor, A-flat major, D-flat major (which, IIRC, resolves back to F minor 2nd inversion). i-iv-iii-VI(i)

MTAF: G major, C major, E minor, D major. I-IV-vi-V.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 31 October 2002 22:19 (twenty-three years ago)

(I have PROVEN BY SCIENCE that the main riffs to SLTS and MTAF are both intro-level theory exercizes.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 31 October 2002 22:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Am I the only person who sees how shit Nirvana are? Maybe it's being surrounded by mind-numbing teenagers with Nirvana hoodies on that makes me hate them so much, but I really don't see what makes them so great.

― Callum (Callum), Thursday, 31 October 2002 22:27 (twenty-three years ago)

by the time this hit rock radio, my freshman year at U of Michigan, I had been listening to an advance cassette copy for about 5 or 6 months. I dug it, but definitely did not expect it to hit as hard as it did--and for a while I was majorly stoked, thinking "wow, music that I like is actually going to be on the radio." needless to say my dream was shattered by the level of sheer genericism that quickly invaded grunge rock, and the groups I really liked like the afghan whigs (back before greg dulli was a washed-up fat slob) were basically overlooked. soon, weak-ass bands like bush were all that was left of grunge and shitty neu-metal was beginning to wax.

So to me, SLTS was a spark of hope that quickly turned into disappointment by the mid-90s.

― webcrack (music=crack), Thursday, 31 October 2002 22:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Pffft. Grunge killes Shoegazer. Or was it brit-pop... Meh. Brit-pop sucks too.

*is so full of hate*

― Callum (Callum), Thursday, 31 October 2002 22:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Pffft. Grunge killed Shoegazer. Or was it brit-pop... Meh. Brit-pop sucks too.

*is so full of hate*

― Callum (Callum), Thursday, 31 October 2002 22:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Dan, the whole SLTS minor/major thing... you're saying those aren't fifth chords:


e - x
b - x
g - x
d - 3
a - 3
e - 1

just wonderin'... i haven't heard the song in a while (thank god) but can't imagine that KC's intentions would necessarily be theory-aligned.

― gygax!, Thursday, 31 October 2002 23:35 (twenty-three years ago)

(Bear in mind that I'm looking at this strictly from a notes-on-the-staff perspective; I don't play guitar at all.) The intentions may not be theory-aligned, but it's a very standard chord progession that fits directly into the first-year theory framework; I'm not sure what you mean by "fifth chords", but if you wrote out the F minor scale and looked at the chords within its framework, you'd write them the way I did as opposed to the way Curtis did. (I did make a mistake and notate "iii" when I meant "III", though.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 1 November 2002 15:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Not a bad song, but I can't hear it now without thinking of Chris Morris's far superior version from The Day Today. ("You can wear it on the high street, body contours, very discreet. And the comfort you won't believe, cos the top sheet is a dry weave. Yeah!")

Closely followed by the great FurQ.

― James Ball (James Ball), Friday, 1 November 2002 15:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, I'm aware they're fifth chords, but I was trying to make a point of the fact that Teen Spirit is in a minor key. Besides, I have minimal knowledge of theory..

― Curtis Stephens, Friday, 1 November 2002 20:41 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm aware they're fifth chords, but I was trying to make a point of the fact that Teen Spirit is in a minor key. Besides, I have minimal knowledge of theory, I'm a self taught musician; I can't even read sheet music... Enharmonics don't bother me :P

― Curtis Stephens, Friday, 1 November 2002 20:42 (twenty-three years ago)

gra, double post

― Curtis Stephens, Friday, 1 November 2002 20:43 (twenty-three years ago)

just a counterpoint:

what if the opening F is indeed major and the key changes mid-measure from F-major to whatever (is it G#?)...

the only reason i'm propping this argument up is because i was schooled in music that did not follow traditional convention (erm, *hardcore*), and just because a chord progression includes another chord up 3 tones does not automatically dictate that the previous chord was its relative minor... esp. when dealing with power chords of the grunge superstar variety.

― gygax!, Friday, 1 November 2002 20:54 (twenty-three years ago)

I cannot find an A played anywhere in Teen Spirit...

― Curtis Stephens, Friday, 1 November 2002 21:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Could someone tell me what a "fifth chord" is?

Relative minor is related to this only because I rewrote the chord progression so that they were related to a home key (F minor) rather than a series of unrelated chords. The reason they sound so good together is because they naturally lead into each other.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 1 November 2002 21:37 (twenty-three years ago)

A fifth chord consists of a note and its perfect fifth. Not really a "chord" by the standard definition but it's definitely one of the central components of modern rock music, especially metal.

― Curtis Stephens, Friday, 1 November 2002 21:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Destiny's Child revived this one for me.

― Ben Williams, Friday, 1 November 2002 21:47 (twenty-three years ago)

BTW, I'm 14 and I've only recently become a Nirvana fan (and no, it wasn't because of YKYR :P). It's safe to say that Nirvana hasn't lost any meaning over the years.

― Curtis Stephens, Friday, 1 November 2002 21:57 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm 13 and a gemini... wanna hang out?

― gygax!, Friday, 1 November 2002 22:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Okay, so since there's no third in a fifth chord, it's implied by whatever key signature the song is in (F-minor in this case, precisely because the first chord is an F and the second chord is an A-flat).

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Saturday, 2 November 2002 16:53 (twenty-three years ago)

"Smells Like Teen Spirit"?? Good song and all, but my main question is why the hell was it chosen as the anthem for Generation X? You can't understand any of the words!! It's not for nothing that my main man "Weird Al" Yankovic wrote a song called "Smells Like Nirvana" about how you couldn't understand any of the guy's words. "It's unintelligible / It's hard tomuhph mummph meeph muff mouff / With all these marbles in my mouth."

I don't know. it's an OK song. I guess I'm just more of a "Bastards of Young"/"Groove is in the Heart" kinda guy when it comes to my personal generation anthems.

― Evan, Saturday, 2 November 2002 21:41 (twenty-three years ago)

four months pass...

Great Song off a great album.

Why does no one get the lyrics? They're mostly very literal, and those that aren't have obvioua meanings.

― mei (mei), Friday, 28 March 2003 18:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Hard to deny it being a classic. The "Nevermind" album isn't too bad either.

But the rest of grunge, the world could have done without.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 28 March 2003 18:39 (twenty-three years ago)

"Smells Like Teen Spirit"?? Good song and all, but my main question is why the hell was it chosen as the anthem for Generation X?

And the irony is that Nirvana never asked to be chosen, but the song still rocks, though. My guess is that the bored and broke masses could identify with the apathy in the lyrics. Since there are both of those folks than the employed and older ones, it had an opportunity to race up the charts...frightening record execs everywhere.

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Friday, 28 March 2003 18:46 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

This is one of the best songs of all time and yet one understands it's true meaning yet. The only one that can truly tell us is dead and that's what's even more deppressing about the song.

― Dave Clarke, Tuesday, 20 April 2004 03:48 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

ok.whose the best band then?

wat kurt said was right ,evry rock band are stupid entertainers

― janis, Thursday, 12 January 2006 09:27 (twenty years ago)

he sure was

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Thursday, 12 January 2006 09:31 (twenty years ago)

My memory was being told by my bosses at the time (I was an assistant manager at the Sam Goody in Rockefeller Plaza) that I could not play that noise in the store after it first came out. I told them it was gonna be huge and this grand prediction was met by apathetic shrugs and a reinteration that, whatever, I shouldn't play it in the store.

Asshats.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Thursday, 12 January 2006 10:24 (twenty years ago)

Ned, I kiss you for that Bloom County quote. Someone should put that strip at the top of the ILX main page.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 12 January 2006 17:35 (twenty years ago)

We must start a thread of random Bloom County quotes/punchlines for meaningless fun

“Ya know, I always thought mother LICKED ‘em clean.”

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 12 January 2006 17:45 (twenty years ago)

For making the "Bloom County" reference, I ::heart:: Ned Raggett.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 12 January 2006 18:02 (twenty years ago)

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