"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Classic Or Dud?

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

So basically what Cobain said was= we are alienated from society. Big fucking deal! Isn't this Kurt guy so insightful blah blah...

Ha! "U Stink But I Love U" VS "Smells Like Teen Spirit" FITE!

Ill put on some big names on it but im sure other persons know way more than i do: Air, Alex Gopher, Cassius, Daft Punk, Dimitri From Paris, Etienne de Crecy, Laurent Garnier, St Germain

-matt

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