FEATURE:
Even In Its Youth
PHOTO CREDIT: Everett
Is Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit the Most Important Song of the ‘90s?
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TO be fair…
one can say that Nirvana’s track, Smells Like Teen Spirit, is one of the most important tracks ever. Released on 10th September, 1991, its thirtieth anniversary is very close. With B-sides like Drain You and Even in His Youth, it is an amazing single that not only took Nirvana closer to the mainstream. It also became a Generation X anthem that is among the most instant and powerful songs of a magnificent decade. I am going to end with information about the reaction to the song and its legacy. I think it is important to know more about its story. I listen to a lot of music from the 1990s, as it is the decade where I was a child and going into my teen years. Most of the music I listened to as a child was Pop or what was in the charts. I also liked Dance and Rock. I am not sure whether Grunge was a massive part of my life. Nirvana definitely helped me open the door to the genre. Their second studio album, Nevermind (where Smells Like Teen Spirit was taken from), is one of the best of the 1990s. If Kurt Cobain – the band’s lead songwriter and frontman – felt that Nevermind was too commercial or not the band’s true sound, I wonder whether he would feel differently were he alive today (he sadly took his own life at the age of twenty-seven in 1994). There are great albums and songs that helped define the 1990s. I reckon Oasis and Blur were pivotal. I also feel Pulp, with Common People, penned an anthem!
To me, Smells Like Teen Spirit is the most important track of the decade. Not only did it give a voice to so many people. It is a song that contains some iconic lines – “I feel stupid and contagious/Here we are now, entertain us!” among them. If Smells Like Teen Spirit was on an album that was average, then people might have called it a one-off. As it is, it was the lead single from Nirvana’s 1991 masterpiece. The album contains so many other wonderful tracks. Written by Cobain, Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl – one of only a couple of songs on Nevermind not solely written by Cobain -, it is a statement of intent that few other artists have equalled! Ahead of its thirtieth anniversary, I wanted to dive deeper into one of the greatest songs ever. Before thinking about its enduring impact and popularity, I want to bring in an article from KERRANG! They wrote about the story behind Smells Like Teen Spirit:
“Kurt Cobain said that when he sat down to pen Smells Like Teen Spirit, the track that secured Nirvana their unexpected crossover into the mainstream, he was trying to write “the ultimate pop song”.
Kurt’s main influence had been The Pixies, telling Rolling Stone, “I connected with that band so heavily… We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.” Indeed, Krist Novoselic worried that the song was too Pixies-ish, telling Kurt, “People are really going to nail us for it.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Frans Schellekens/Redferns
Lyrically, Teen Spirit painted an ambivalent portrait of the indie-rock revolutionaries he’d lived alongside in Olympia, its title drawing upon memories of a night of uncivil disobedience with his friend Kathleen Hanna, who fronted Bikini Kill, her insurrectionary and brilliant riot grrl band with Tobi Vail.
Kathleen later recalled that, in August of 1990, fuelled by a bottle of Canadian Club whisky, the “angry young feminists… decided we’d do a little public service” and graffitied the exterior of a ‘Teen Pregnancy Centre’ which had just opened in town, and was, in fact, “a front for a right-wing operation telling teenage girls they’d go to hell if they had abortions”.
She wrote ‘Fake abortion clinic, everyone’ on the walls, while Kurt added, in six-foot-high red letters, ‘God is gay.’ Mission accomplished, they continued drinking, and ended up at Kurt’s apartment, where Kathleen scrawled lots of graffiti on his walls, including the words, ‘Kurt smells like teen spirit [a deodorant brand].’
“Kurt called me up six months later,” she added, “and he said, ‘Hey, do you remember that night? There’s a thing you wrote on my wall… it’s actually quite cool, and I want to use it.’”
Smells Like Teen Spirit was one of the last songs written before Nirvana travelled to California to record Nevermind, Kurt sending producer Butch Vig a cassette of its demo a week ahead of the sessions.
“It was a boombox recording of a rehearsal,” Butch remembered to Kerrang!. “Kurt introduced it by saying, ‘Hey Butch, we got some new songs for you, and we also got Dave Grohl – he’s the best drummer in the world!’ Then they clicked into Teen Spirit, with the scratchy guitar at the start. It was so fucking distorted, I could barely hear anything. But underneath the fuzz, I could hear ‘Hello, Hello’, melodies and chord structures. And even though the recording was terrible, I was super excited.”
Just before the recording session, Nirvana played through their songs at a nearby rehearsal space. “It blew me away,” Butch remembers. “It was the first time I heard Dave Grohl play live, and it sounded so amazing. I was floored when I heard it. I remember pacing around thinking, ‘Oh my God, this sounds crazy intense.’”
To give Teen Spirit proper emphasis, Butch wanted to use some studio trickery, though Kurt was typically reluctant. “I said, ‘Kurt, I want you to double-track the guitars and vocals, to really make this jump out of the speakers.’ He thought it was ‘cheating’, especially with his vocals. So I had him do multiple vocal takes, and he sang them so consistently I could run them at the same time as a double track, and it really made the song sound powerful”.
Why did Smells Like Teen Spirit captivate a generation and become so popular? There are many reasons why a song like that ignited the imagination and wider consciousness. In 2000, NPR discussed how the song became an anthem:
“Nevermind, the album that included "Smells Like Teen Spirit," reached the top of the charts. Most ironic is that the very demographic "Smells Like Teen Spirit" appeals to, the so-called slacker generation, is the subject of ridicule in the song. Singer Kurt Cobain observes his generation as "over-bored, self-assured." The refrain shouts, "Here we are now, entertain us."
Nirvana crafted a cynical video to accompany the track that showed the band playing background music for a truly spirited high-school cheerleading squad.
Almost instantly, the song was embraced as a crossover anthem. It appealed to the football players and cheerleaders just as much as it did to the angst-ridden teenage punks. You could interpret it as a generation's call to arms or a simple loud rock song. And despite massive commercial success, Nirvana managed to maintain its credibility by posing as anti-rock stars. The first time the band was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, Kurt Cobain wore a shirt that read, "Corporate rock mags still suck."
"There have been a lot of great and popular guitar-rock bands, but there was always a feeling or a suspicion that their careers were somehow manufactured," Poneman says. "Nirvana was the real deal.
"I mean, in a very short period of time, they went from playing for eight people at a small tavern in the Pioneer Square district of Seattle to playing the Coliseum, and they did it on their own terms."
And their own terms were simple: Nirvana was part of a movement that believed anyone could produce music. Neither money nor connections nor even talent were prerequisites. But for all the band's anti-corporate rock credentials, Nirvana's legacy would have a very corporate impact on alternative rock. With its success, record companies turned grunge into one of the most profitable and best-selling rock sub-genres. Years later, the acts that dominate the charts pose as anti-rock stars — and, at the same time, make a lot of money doing it”.
In 2019, American Songwriter wrote how Smells Like Teen Spirit is influencing young people who were not alive when the song was originally released:
“The YouTube music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” has definitely stood up over time. As of today, the video has 988 million views, just short of one billion. Set in a dark and smoky high school auditorium, the music video features Nirvana bandmates, a janitor, cheerleaders and other students. It’s possible that Nirvana wanted the video to be as mysterious as the song, since there are a lot of scenes that aren’t easily interpreted.
Young people are dancing, playing air guitar, and being unconfined as Cobain and his band play and sing on the gym floor. The janitor at one point also lets loose and begins to dance, which could symbolize individuality and non conformance. The last scene in the video shows a man in the background wearing a dunce cap and suspenders while the janitor continues to sweep the floor.
Ultimately, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” set the foundation for Nirvana’s overall success and provided unity for young people who needed an outlet. Nirvana started a movement with this one song, and provided a voice for an angst-filled generation. It still remains one of the most notable rock songs in history, due not only to its lyrics, music video, guitar riffs, and drums, but to the influence it brought. Perhaps their producer Butch Vig said it best when he told The Daily Beast in a 2017 interview, “It was a zeitgeist moment, you know? It turned people’s heads. Those records don’t come along very often”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Nirvana in London in 1991/PHOTO CREDIT: Richard Bellia
For the reason that a new generation have adopting this song means Smells Like Teen Spirit is more potent and influential than nearly any other song from the 1990s. Although it was released in 1991, it was not a song merely capturing a moment; something temporary that sounds dated and lacks punch and relevance now. This Wikipedia article details how Smells Like Teen Spirit has been celebrated through the years:
“Dubbed an "anthem for apathetic kids" of Generation X, in the years following Cobain's 1994 suicide and Nirvana's breakup "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has continued to garner critical acclaim, and is often listed as one of the greatest songs of all time. It was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "The Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll" in 1997. In 2000, VH1 rated the song at number forty-one on its "100 Greatest Rock Songs" list, while MTV and Rolling Stone ranked it third on their joint list of the "100 Greatest Pop Songs". The Recording Industry Association of America placed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at number eighty on their 2001 "Songs of the Century" list. In 2002, NME awarded the song the number two spot on its list of "100 Greatest Singles of All Time", with Kerrang! ranking it at number one on its own list of the "100 Greatest Singles of All Time". VH1 placed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at number one on its list of "100 Greatest Songs of the Past 25 Years" in 2003, while that same year, the song came third in a Q poll of the "1001 Best Songs Ever". In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ninth on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and described its impact as "a shock wave of big-amp purity", noting that "[it] wiped the lingering jive of the Eighties off the pop map overnight." The song was placed at number six in NME's "Global Best Song Ever Poll" in 2005.
In the 2006 VH1 UK poll The Nation's Favourite Lric, the line "I feel stupid and contagious / Here we are now, entertain us" was ranked the third-favorite lyric by over 13,000 voters. VH1 placed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at number one on its list of the "100 Greatest Songs Of The '90s" in 2007, while Rolling Stone ranked it number ten on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". In 2009, the song was voted number one for the third time in a row on the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in Australia[(it was first place previously in 1991 and 1998). That year, VH1 ranked the song seventh on its list of the "100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs". Despite previously proposing in its 2006 entry for Nevermind on "The All-TIME 100 Albums" that "'Smells Like Teen Spirit' ... may be the album's worst song," Time magazine later included it on its list of "The All-TIME 100 Songs" in 2011. That same year, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" kept its number nine ranking on Rolling Stone's updated list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", while in 2019, the magazine ranked it at number one in its list of "50 Best Songs of the Nineties". NME placed the song at number two on its list of the "100 Best Tracks Of The '90s" in 2012, and at number one on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2014. In 2015, the song was also named the most iconic song of all time according to a study by Goldsmith's College, which analysed various songs featured in numerous 'all-time best' lists, using analytical software to compare their key, BPM, chord variety, lyrical content, timbral variety, and sonic variance – the result of which designated the title to this song In 2017, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame”.
Ahead of its thirtieth anniversary, Smells Like Teen Spirit has lost none of its potent scent. It is a track that, once heard by anyone, can elicit so many emotions. The song will resonate for generations to come! Although Kurt Cobain is not around to see how such an important song has been taken to heart, he would have known in 1991 what an anthem Smells Like Teen Spirit was. From the indelible and instantly recognisable scratchy intro riff to the powerhouse band performance and the huge chorus, Smells Like Teen Spirit is the most important song from the 1990s. A song that defined the decade. It is clear that this track will cause ripples…
FOR the rest of time.