"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Classic Or Dud?

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

cliff notes on mypost: thumbs up

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.

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.

this song was created by pynchon you know

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.

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

More on Kurt's diaries: Newsweek, Observer

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.

This is a criminally stupid thing to say.