"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Classic Or Dud?

Around 2 years ago, Mary-Ann-Hobbes on her Radio 1 Breezeblock show played Smells Like Teen Spirit (this was when it still went out fairly early and had more listeners that now), and was inundated for the remainder of the show from people desperate to find out what this tune was, and when it was coming out.

Apparently that night they had the most calls and email they have ever received.

i was a 12-year-old rock critic zeppelin/doors/hendrix fan who thought rock was dead. i mean, r.e.m. was fine and dandy in a beatles way but they didn't really *rock.* and i'd seen punk and alternative rock and commercial industrial music on citylimits, the muchmusic alternative show, but who really listened to that? (smart, arty, and unhappy college students who wore black, from what tv told me.) some of it may have grown on me with more regular exposure. (i didn't really have disposable income or parents willing to buy pop albums).

i'd already read the glowing reviews of _nevermind_ and was eager to hear it. when i heard "teen spirit" on the local rock station it seemed like rock was really renewed: something genuinely fresh was here with as much raw emotion as any classic stuff. i dubbed the album from a friend and liked it quite a bit for a while. it seemed burned-out and bummed in a way none of my dubbed albums were. guitar teachers despised them.

it didn't take too long -- soon after everyone else liked them actually -- before i turned against them for lacking musical depth (i'm still not sure how much of this was motivated by musical snobbery and how much by genuine boredom -- a bit of both, i think). i hung onto my soundgarden tape in an unfortunately reactionary move. i know i still felt something when i heard the nirvana songs on the radio.

3 years later, after i'd been listening to college radio and had got into the sex pistols and sonic youth and had turned against zeppelin for being bloated etc (and was at a more appropriately angsty age), the _unplugged_ videos started playing and seemed immediately evocative and touching. i got _in utero_ and _unplugged_ for christmas and they remained among my most played albums for at least a year.

maybe 4 years after that, i picked up a used cassette copy of _nevermind_. i liked it in a sad-pop way for a while.

now: _nevermind_ is ok. i listen to it now and then. my main issue is the production, which really weakens it. with better production, actually, it could possibly be as good or better than _in utero_. its strengths are melody and lyrics. i agree the "teen spirit" (or other) lyrics aren't that obscure. i thought the "mulatto" and "albino" bits are about not fitting in and standing out in an obvious way. "teen spirit" is a decent tune. boston stole the riff from "louie louie." _in utero_ and _unplugged_ are still powerful.

Sometimes, I believe that I'm the only person in the world that's ever hated Nirvana.....oh well. Grunge was a load of old bollocks. Oh, he's dead. That wasn't very responible!

So I think this song could be considered as a classic. but nirvana isn't.

Ludo

Otis, you lost your clothes? What the hell? Only hippies go naked.

Well, that's not true at all but I figured I'd say it anyhow.

Nevermind came out just about when I got to college, which was the first time I was ever away from home. I had developed some rather avant-garde listening tastes on my own in the way of Cowboy Junkies and Dead Kennedy's (which are pretty far out bands if you come from Church Point, Louisiana), but in college I had the chance to meet and hang out with lots of different people and get hip to lots of new and different ideas. I had been a metal head as a kid, a devout Ozzy fan, and I always ALWAYS watched Headbanger's Ball on Saturday Nights.

One night, while home on the weekend from college, I was up late as usual watching the Ball, when Nirvana's video for Smells Like Teen Spirit came on. I was utterly transfixed. I had never heard a rock song that sounded like this before.

Those that plow over the same tired row saying that Nirvana is a Pixies ripoff band weren't listening to this song with their hearts, they were listening to it with their heads. It was the perfect fusion of punk and heavy metal, and it created a whole new type of rock in an instant. The thought I had in my mind when I listened to it was "this is the last song that will ever be written" and in my mind, it was. With Nevermind, pop was dead. Everything that has been released since has simply been a recycling of old ideas in a Frankenstein monster amalgam that has a different form, but no soul.

That period of time was a great one for rock music. Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, Pearl Jam's Ten, Alice in Chains Facelift, Helmet's Meantime; never in rock history so many truly classic records come out at practically the same time. Unfortunately, the information age occured at the same time, so the normal nascent developtment time that artists of this type would have had did not happen, and they were all thrust in to the limelight of world exposure before their youthful angst could be channeled in more focused and solid efforts.

The one Seattle band that escaped this trap was the Melvins, who had already put out a respectable catalog of music, and had worked out the kinks in their sound by the time they landed their deal with Atlantic, in time for them to create their two best records Houdini and Stoner Witch.

It was a great time to be a kid from a little town in college, with lots of great music and great concerts to be experienced. Nirvana's SLTS was the launching pad for this music revolution. Though the candle that burned brightly burned quickly, the early nineties was a turning point in pop music. Nothing even close to the quality and character of the rock of this time has been produced since.

I think it is impossible NOT to consider SLTS a classic, if only from a purely historical standpoint. I don't like the Eagles, Bob Dylan, the Beatles or Eric Clapton, but I don't deny their vital role in shaping the sound of rock music. Simply because Nirvana didn't stick around long enough to make the rounds at state fairs when they got old and fat and bald doesn't mean that they didn't make history. They did.

Everyone has an opinion about what the defining song of the 60's is, the same goes for the 70's and the 80's. But only true snobs can deny that Smells Like Teen Spirit is the defining song of the 90's.

Love, Jeff

I remember Tom Scholz being sore about the similarities. I heard a radio interview before a Boston concert in the mid-'90s and he and/or Delp bitching about doing "The Nirvana Song" onstage.

xp (Fun fact: the tires screeching before the drum intro is sampled for the instrumental chorus of NWA's "Straight Outta Compton")

I don’t hear any fill at 2:45 in the Boston song?

Agree with Steve it totally sounds like the opening of the gap band jam and it’s used In exactly the same way

I think he meant 3:45

Yeah, sorry. Toward the end.

Dave Grohl got me reeling
When ripped off "More Than Feeling"

AMANDA

The drums definitely enter "Teen Spirit" the same sort of way they enter those Gap Band tracks, but come on, there is no way Grohl was thinking Gap Band, Cameo and Chic when he was recording "Nevermind." At, what, age 22? With his punk background? Nah. But old man Grohl now, friend to everyone, lover of all music, sure. He probably wanted to seem hip to Pharrell.

Reminds me of some making of "Murmur" thing I read years ago (I don't think it was Niimi's book) where they were talking about the supposedly "anything goes" recording, trying everything, including sliding in James Brown samples. Come on, no they weren't.

I read the early circa 2000 posts above. So much hate for this song/band!

Like, show us on the doll where the Anarchy cheerleader touched you...

my god I remember that pixies talking point it was used all the time as if it was the last word on nirvana as a band. they sound nothing alike! not even on SLTS except for some of the basic dynamics. it seems like people were just repeating something cobain said once as an excuse to flex their indie cred (and it worked in that it made me feel totally basic for liking nirvana more). the best legacy of the pixies reunion is that it totally killed the mystique that made them such a trump card in these games

anyway isn't everyone who does the quiet/loud thing just ripping off haydn?

fwiw as a 15 year old when Smells Like Teen Spirit came out, I saw the video on MTV in the school common room, knew nothing about them, and thought "I like this it sounds a bit like a heavier version of the Pixies".

I didn't have a lot of other points of reference for indie rock/punk stuff at the time mind you. I'd bought Doolittle a few months prior to this and was listening to it constantly.

I can hear it if I squint but they seem very different to me probably because my introduction to nirvana was more like "this is like a better version of nickelback". discovering the pixies later was on was like getting inducted into the cool kids gang. but nirvana was for everyone

this song is OK

there's a pretty clear line from "gigantic" to a lot of nirvana, not much else though

ok I was wrong they're not nothing alike and I guess I hear a lot of kim deal in nirvana's bass parts too (and those of so many other bands since then)

getting into 80s-90s alt/indie rock all at once after the fact makes it harder to know how the parts fit together than if you grew up with it

I have no interest in Nirvana, but this was a great song on a great album and that should be the final word, and no they don’t sound like the Pixies

nobody said they were a one-to-one match, that’s not how influence works

Besides a few of the other hallmarks - the screaming, the stark dynamics - I find it odd that the most blatant Pixies identifier is ... 8th note bass lines? That's really it, isn't it, the bass? Whether it's "Teen Spirit" or Sugar's "A Good Idea," if you want to sound like the Pixies, you play ... a straight forward bass part. But there have to be antecedents to something so simple, right?

speaking of antecedents whenever i hear that driving downbeat snare drum pattern (like in the gap band song) i think motown

The drums definitely enter "Teen Spirit" the same sort of way they enter those Gap Band tracks, but come on, there is no way Grohl was thinking Gap Band, Cameo and Chic when he was recording "Nevermind." At, what, age 22? With his punk background? Nah. But old man Grohl now, friend to everyone, lover of all music, sure. He probably wanted to seem hip to Pharrell.

Reminds me of some making of "Murmur" thing I read years ago (I don't think it was Niimi's book) where they were talking about the supposedly "anything goes" recording, trying everything, including sliding in James Brown samples. Come on, no they weren't.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 13, 2023 7:48 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Why is there “no way”? That stuff was on radio. It was a big sound at the time. He may have even done it subconsciously and looked back and been like oh damn that’s where I got that. Idk, the Boston thing is similar but it’s *kurt* who was inspired by Boston

yeah I don't see why Gap Band, etc. wouldn't have been on Grohl's musical diet. I still remember 30 years ago when it astounded some people to learn that "More Than a Feeling" inspired (in part) SLTS -- was he too punk for it or something?

IME drummers have always been drum nerds who like weird drum music, so the Grohl/Gap connection sounds v plausible

I mean, nothing is impossible. "Nevermind" was recorded in, what, 1991? When "Early in the Morning" was a hit he was 13, and by his own account a full-on punk rocker. So sure, it's *possible*, he just seems like a dude that listened to Boston on purpose but maybe only heard the Gap Band in passing; definitely he and Kurt heard the Boston song a million times whether they wanted to or not. I do think he might have heard "(Not Just) Knee Deep" by way of De La, though; it has a similar drum intro. But none of these funky examples feature the bass drum syncopation that the Boston and Nirvana songs have, and "Teen Spirt" already sounds a bit like "More Than a Feeling."

Here's a clip of Grohl playing a vintage TCB/Junkyard Band-style bounce-beat on RDGLDGRN studio sessions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FuatudrCjA

(time stamp 1m28s)

Definitely Grohl, like a lot of DC punk dudes (like MacKaye and Rollins), was apparently into go-go:

"As I was walking down the street, a car drives by, and go-go's blaring out of it. That's how you know that you're in Washington, D.C., because it doesn't even really stretch to Baltimore, or Richmond. It is Washington, D.C. Now, New Orleans has jazz, right? Chicago's got the blues. D.C. (has) go-go music, which is like a funk-based music that was started in the early '70s, pioneered by this guy Chuck Brown. It sort of evolved into this huge local scene. When I was a kid, growing up (in Washington, D.C.), you'd get three or four go-go bands to play together: Trouble Funk, Junk Yard, Rare Essence — put 'em all together, you had a good, like, 30,000 people. You know, that doesn't happen anywhere else. I was always really proud that wherever — when I started touring as a young musician, I'd go to Europe and I'd say to people, 'have you heard go-go?' They'd say, 'what's go-go music?' And I'd play 'em Trouble Funk."

Tbf, the clip of him talking about the Gap Band, it's not really laid out as an influence on "Teen Spirit" specifically, just the album generally, which is more plausible (to me). He calls it the "disco flam." The doc does insert a clip of "Teen Spirit," but those big snare flams are all over the record, for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZCrdSC2-1I

Most of these references rested somewhere within their collective patchwork after 15+ years of active and passive listening. At the very least these "unusual" choices were indirectly influencing the arrangements. Seems weird that Grohl would be bullshitting even if he just meant it was something he realized later. Just the same, Cobain did not actively cite Boston. In fact he probably would have thrown away the song pretty quickly if he was aware early enough.

I could believe that Grohl only realized later where those influences came from, that makes the most sense.

Wasn't the story that Cobain almost tossed the song because it sounded too close to the Pixies? That may have been BS as well, just like Bob Mould claiming he didn't notice the similarities between "A Good Idea" and "Debaser" until much later. Sure, Bob; the song works better as an homage than it does as a false modesty stumble into brilliance.

For sure Cobain knew "More Than a Feeling," so it would be surprising to me if he didn't notice the (admittedly fleeting) resemblance. "Teen Spirit" bears more of a resemblance to the Pixies than it does Boston, but it only barely sounds like Pixies, either.

This is my fave "Teen Spirit" clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeb5LdAyLC8

My college radio station was chosen to debut SLTS to the world and while the 12" was delivered in a white label, Kurt drew what the proposed artwork concept for Nevermind would be on a mailer:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzKB3pjysa2/

Glad they didn’t go w the “H!tl3r Baby” concept.

For sure Cobain knew "More Than a Feeling," so it would be surprising to me if he didn't notice the (admittedly fleeting) resemblance. "Teen Spirit" bears more of a resemblance to the Pixies than it does Boston, but it only barely sounds like Pixies, either.

they lampshaded the resemblance at reading '92

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3XIGon2RjY