"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Classic Or Dud?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Asshats.

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

I hated this song when it first came out - mostly because I hated the kind of people who were into it and thought it was all just a big wank. Recently I started writing a Masters thesis about it (which is now nearing completion), mostly sparked by Soulwax's mash-up "Smells Like Bootylicious." I have since found that the more I research into and analyse it, the more I love it. I now understand why it was so huge at the time, being a perfect mix of pop, punk, grunge and metal. The melody is crafted so beautifully and simply - mirroring their intention (as Grohl is quoted as saying) of writing simple songs, like the songs you remember from childhood - but the vocal delivery and dynamism deliver a level of electricity that was sorely missing in music at the time.

If you look at the drafts of the lyrics in his recently published journal, Cobain obviously worked quite hard at crafting lyrics that were intentionally ambiguous and open to interpretation - hence its broad appeal. You can take whatever meaning you want from them, and his constant alternation between "I" and "we" speaks to anyone feeling alone or disenfranchised and includes them as part of a larger group. As to the argument that they were unintelligible (I only found out what they were when I started researching the song) I think it's largely irrelevant: the words were widely available in print and were in fact released in the liner notes for the Lithium single. Besides, it's the mode of delivery that conveys more meaning than the words themselves. As Butch Vig has pointed out in a number of interviews: you're not quite sure what he's saying, but you know he's saying something, and it's as intense as hell.

I doubt any of those involved in the discussion about the actual chords are still reading this thread, but anyway, my belief is that the chords themselves are largely irrelevant - it's the voiceleading of the melodic lines that outline key and carry the momentum. The basic riff essentially outlines an f-minor chord with embellishments leading from scale degree 1 (F), then falling chromatically from 4 to the minor 3rd (Bb - A - Ab), up to the minor 6th (Db) which then falls briefly (although not always) onto the 5th (C) which automatically wants to resolve back to the F (dominant to tonic). The vocal melody of the verse stays within the range of an octave and outlines the aeolian mode in F (also known as a natural minor, which means the leading note is flattened, making it sound a bit more tonally ambiguous) and the chorus also emphasises F, strengthening this supposition of F as the key area.

The reason the break (after the verse) sounds so different is because it brings in the flattened 2nd degree (Gb), thus changing the mode to phrygian - very commonly used by metal bands to evoke instability and drama.

As for the "Anthem for Generation X" moniker, if you look at the literature about that generation prior to the release of the song, you will see that it fit pretty much precisely everything that was said to be missing for that generation. They were still finding their voice and trying to define themselves in the enormous shadow of the baby-boomers and the cultural upheaval of the 60s-70s. Very little of mainstream culture was made for or about them and they felt frustrated by the hypocrisy they saw all around them. If anything, it was a backlash against the crass commercialism of the 80s and if you look at the rest of the music in the charts at the time and the film clips being played on MTV at the time, it really was a breath of fresh air. It was never intended to become the monster it did, but Cobain did write the songs on that album wanting to reach a large audience. He just underestimated his own communicative power.

My personal feeling is this song will always be relevant for any person who feels frustrated and impotent in their life. It obviously still has some social currency if you look at how it is still used today to evoke certain associations - Seth Cohen has a Nirvana poster on his wall in The O.C.; the opening riff is still used as an indicator of teen rebellion and unity; it is sampled sardonically by many DJs (such as Soulwax) to question the very ideas of meaning, creativity and authenticity prevelant in the rock aesthetic. In this way it is still very much alive.

according to several biographies and personal "diaries" we can assume that kurt cobain was a big poser. he tattooed the k record logo on his arm to fit in with the olympia crowd. then when he failed to live up to sonic youth bolstering, he ripped off the perenial college radio favorites (the easy pick outside of r.e.m. "kings of resignation") the pixies and turned it into a one hit wonder. unfortunately for us there was some sort of "movement" behind that fluke. sonic youth had toured for years, american college radio had begun to flourish with expectional distribution from homestead, sst, and birth of sub pop + matatdor etc, and tons of credible (though some argue typically) english groups had been creeping into the lower depths of american charts for most of the 80s. so suddenly a cluster of half-wits from nowheresville, washington state come strutting up the pop music runways pretending not to care. an easy score for a+r, booking agents, unscrupulous managers, and people looking to cash in on thermal underwear. and true to form of a post morton downey, jr world (that was the early 90s) we got our first taste of random and seemingly credible bullshit on the charts. not the first to come of course, but a really leftfield yet appropriate pick for a position as vacant as such.

now suddenly we have a generation of people who, unlike the previous, are unable to renounce a youthful indulgence on par with "growing up with the grateful dead". perhaps even worse if you ask me.

nirvana is simply shit. grow up and listen to the records. i liked 'em as a kid and even stood by that pile of bullshit into my early 20s. but now i can say in hindsight that it's a lot of overblown, mind-numbing crap.

the first hint should've been bush and seven mary three, but it took me way too long to realize that it's simply fucking garbage (the band, too).

maybe you need to be on the I Hate Music site, will post url later...

hahahahahahahaha.

Heard this song the other day. Still great.

Retuned to a major key...

https://vimeo.com/249694026

lol

Sounds like Better Than Ezra :)

It sounds even more like Boston this way.

The bounce underneath the verses sounds like No Doubt

i thought this been done before, found this which definitely doesn't sound like it's been sprinkled with magic catchy dust. Any passing music theorists care to explain?

https://youtu.be/g_TEOuyPDNo

that rabbit hole took an interesting turn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSAp9sBzPbc

oh hell yeah i love that subgenre of pitchshifted pop songs where all the notes are the same

my coworkers have nowhere near the appreciation for this subgenre than I do. (speaker privileges have just been revoked)

haha

Drop that Rick Astley track down to A and you'd have Joy Division.

Finally watched "Teen Sprite" today. Smiled from start to finish--loved it. I don't know enough about chords and stuff to know if it is indeed a transposition or if it's a wholesale remake and not really what it claims to be. But it's close enough to get me thinking the obvious, how different history would been if that had been put out instead. (And I realize some people will consider that notion silly, and will say that history would have proceeded no differently at all.)

alternative reality William S. Burroughs: "There's something wrong with that boy. He smiles for no reason."

teen sprite gets an A

in some weird way, it finally sounds as the ultimate pixies rip off song he was trying to write

I might be stepping in it but I'm pretty sure it's mostly a careful recreation, not pitchshifting

Yup definitely not a simple major chords transposition but the result is really fun/good!

Yeah parts of it sound recreated but the vocal seems genuine

Albeit pitchshifted

I have to imagine a ton of practicing / rehearsing has to go into something like that, when you’re confounding your own expectations at almost every interval