"
Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a song by the
American
grunge rock band
Nirvana. It is the opening track and lead
single from the band's second album
Nevermind (1991). Written by
Kurt Cobain,
Krist Novoselic, and
Dave Grohl and produced by
Butch Vig, the song uses a
verse-chorus form where the main
four-chord
riff is used during the intro and
chorus to create an alternating loud and quiet dynamic.
The unexpected success of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" propelled
Nevermind to the top of the charts at the start of 1992,
often marked as the point where
alternative rock entered the mainstream.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was Nirvana's first and biggest hit,
reaching number six on the
Billboard Hot 100 and placing high on music industry
charts all around the world in 1991 and 1992.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" received many critical plaudits,
including topping the
Village
Voice Pazz & Jop
critics' poll and winning two
MTV
Video Music Awards for its
music
video, which was in heavy rotation on
music television. The song was dubbed an
"anthem for apathetic kids" of
Generation
X, but the band grew uncomfortable with the success and
attention it received as a result. In the years since Cobain's
death, listeners and critics have continued to praise "Smells Like
Teen Spirit" as one of the greatest rock songs of all time.
Origins and recording
In a January 1994
Rolling
Stone interview, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain revealed
that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was an attempt to write a song in
the style of the
Pixies, a band he greatly
admired. He explained:
Cobain did not begin to write "Smells Like Teen Spirit" until a few
weeks before recording started on Nirvana's second album,
Nevermind, in 1991. When he first presented the song to
his bandmates, it comprised just the main riff and the chorus vocal
melody, which
bassist Krist Novoselic
dismissed at the time as "ridiculous." In response, Cobain made the
band play the riff for "an hour and a half." In a 2001 interview,
Novoselic recalled that after playing the riff repeatedly, he
thought, "'Wait a minute. Why don't we just kind of slow this down
a bit?' So I started playing the verse part. And Dave [started]
playing a drum beat." As a result, it is the only song on
Nevermind to credit all three band members as
authors.
Cobain came up with the song's title when his friend
Kathleen Hanna, at the time the lead singer
of the
Riot Grrrl punk band
Bikini Kill, spray painted "Kurt Smells Like
Teen Spirit" on his wall. Since they had been discussing
anarchism,
punk rock, and
similar topics, Cobain interpreted the slogan as having a
revolutionary meaning. What Hanna actually meant, however, was that
Cobain smelled like the deodorant
Teen Spirit, which his
then-girlfriend
Tobi Vail wore. Cobain
later claimed that he was unaware that it was a brand of deodorant
until months after the single was released.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was, along with "
Come as You Are," one of a
few new songs that had been written since Nirvana's first recording
sessions with producer Butch Vig in 1990. Prior to the start of the
Nevermind recording sessions, the band sent Vig a rough
cassette demo of song rehearsals that included "Teen Spirit." While
the sound of the tape was wildly distorted due to the band playing
at a loud volume, Vig could pick out some of the melody and felt
the song had promise.
Nirvana recorded "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at
Sound City recording studio in Van Nuys
, California
with Vig in May 1991. Vig suggested some
arrangement changes to the song, including moving a guitar ad lib
into the chorus, and trimming down the chorus length. The band
recorded the basic track for the song in three takes, and decided
to keep the second one. Vig incorporated some sonic corrections
into the basic live band performance because Cobain had timing
difficulties when switching between his guitar effects pedals. Vig
was only able to get three vocal takes from Cobain; the producer
commented, "I was lucky to ever get Kurt to do four takes".
Composition
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" is written in the
key of
F minor, with the
main guitar riff constructed from four
power
chords (F5-B♭5-A♭5-D♭5) played in a
syncopated sixteenth
note strum by Cobain. The guitar chords were double-tracked
because the band "wanted to make it sound more powerful," according
to Vig. The chords occasionally lapse into
suspended chord voicings as a result of
Cobain playing the bottom four strings of the guitar for the
thickness of sound. Due to being neither major nor minor, the
occasional use of suspended chords also allows the
chord progression used in the riff to be
thought of as a I-IV-♭III-♭VI major chord progression. The song's
chord progression has been described as "an ambiguous, harmonically
dislocated sequence," and "it is the asymmetrical nature of
Cobain's riff [. . .] that makes it so great." Musicologist Graeme
Downes, who led the band
The
Verlaines, says that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" illustrates
developing variation. Listeners
made many comments that the song bore a passing resemblance to
Boston's 1976 hit "
More than a Feeling." Cobain himself
held similar opinions, saying that it "was such a clichéd riff. It
was so close to a Boston riff or [
The
Kingsmen's] '
Louie Louie.'"
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" utilizes a "somewhat conventional formal
structure" consisting of four-, eight-, and twelve-bar sections
that includes an eight-bar verse, an eight-bar first chorus
(pre-chorus), and a twelve-bar second chorus (main chorus).
Elements of the song's structure are marked off with shifts in
volume and dynamics, going back and forth from quiet to loud a
number of times during the length of the recording. This structure
of "quiet verses with wobbly,
chorused
guitar, followed by big, loud
hardcore-inspired choruses" became a
much-emulated template in alternative rock because of "Teen
Spirit."
The song begins with Cobain strumming the main riff, adding
distortion when the rest
of the band joins in. During the verse Cobain plays a sparse
two-note guitar line over Novoselic's
eighth
note bassline, which outlines the chord progression. In the
pre-chorus, Cobain begins to play the same two notes on every beat
of the measure and repeats the phrase "Hello, hello, hello, how
low?" Cobain then resumes the main guitar riff for the chorus,
where the band plays loudly and Cobain yells the lyrics. The first
and second choruses both end with a brief four-bar interlude where
Cobain shouts "Yeah!" twice over a new riff. After the second
chorus, Cobain plays a 16-bar guitar solo that almost completely
restates his vocal melody from the verse and pre-chorus. The band
extends the third and final verse and chorus as Cobain sings the
refrain "A denial" repeatedly. At this point Cobain's vocals become
strained and his voice is almost shot from the force of yelling.
The song ends with the feedback of the guitar.
Release, success, and acclaim
Issued to radio on August 27, 1991, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was
released two weeks later on September 10 as the lead single from
Nevermind, the band's major label debut on
DGC Records. The song did not initially chart,
and it sold well only in regions of the United States with an
established fanbase for the group. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was
not expected to be a hit, for it was merely intended to be the
base-building alternative rock cut from the album. It was
anticipated that the follow-up single "Come as You Are" would be
the song that could cross over to mainstream formats. However,
campus radio and
modern rock radio stations picked up on the
track, and placed it on heavy rotation. Danny Goldberg of Nirvana's
management firm Gold Mountain later admitted that "none of us heard
it as a crossover song, but the public heard it and it was
instantaneous [. . .] They heard it on alternative radio, and then
they rushed out like lemmings to buy it." The video received its
world premiere on
MTV's late-night alternative
rock program
120 Minutes, and
proved so popular that the channel began to air it during its
regular daytime rotation. MTV added the video to its "Buzz Bin"
selection in October, where it stayed until mid-December. By the
end of the year, the song, its accompanying video, and the
Nevermind album had become hits. Both the song and
Nevermind became a rare cross-format phenomenon, reaching
all the major rock radio formats including modern rock, hard rock,
album rock, and college radio.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" became a critical and commercial success.
The song topped the 1991
Village
Voice "
Pazz & Jop" and
Melody Maker year-end polls,
and reached number two on
Rolling Stone's list of best
singles of the year. The single peaked at number six on the
Billboard singles chart the same week that
Nevermind reached number one on the album charts. "Teen
Spirit" hit number one on the
Modern
Rock Tracks chart, and has since been
certified platinum (one million
copies shipped) by the
Recording Industry
Association of America. However, many American
Top 40 stations were reluctant to play the song in
regular rotation due to its sound, and restricted it to night-time
play. The single was also successful in other countries. In the
United Kingdom, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" reached number seven and
charted for 184 weeks. The song was nominated for two
Grammy Awards:
Best Hard Rock
Performance with Vocal and
Best Rock Song. Nirvana's
loss to Eric Clapton in the Best Song category would later be named
one of the 10 biggest upsets in Grammy history by
Entertainment Weekly.
In the wake of Nirvana's success,
Michael Azerrad wrote in a 1992
Rolling
Stone article, "'Smells Like Teen Spirit' is an anthem for (or
is it against?) the 'Why Ask Why?' generation. Just don't call
Cobain a spokesman for a generation." Nevertheless, the music press
awarded the song an "anthem-of-a-generation" status, placing Cobain
as a reluctant spokesman for Generation X.
The New York Times observed that
"'Smells Like Teen Spirit' could be this generation’s version of
the
Sex Pistols' 1976 single, '
Anarchy in the U.K.', if it weren’t for
the bitter irony that pervades its title," and added, "As Nirvana
knows only too well, teen spirit is routinely bottled,
shrink-wrapped and sold." The band grew uncomfortable with the
song's success, and in later concerts often pointedly excluded it
from the setlist. Prior to the release of the band's 1993 follow-up
album
In Utero, Novoselic
remarked, "If it wasn't for 'Teen Spirit' I don't know how
Nevermind would have done," and observed, "There are no
'Teen Spirits' on
In Utero." Cobain said in 1994, "I still
like playing 'Teen Spirit,' but it’s almost an embarrassment to
play it [. . .] Everyone has focused on that song so much."
In the years following Cobain's 1994 death, "Smells Like Teen
Spirit" has continued to garner critical acclaim. In 2000, MTV and
Rolling Stone ranked the song third on their joint list of
the 100 best pop songs, trailing only
The
Beatles' "
Yesterday" and
The Rolling Stones' "
Satisfaction." The Recording
Industry Association of America's 2001 "Songs of the Century"
project placed "Teen Spirit" at number 80. In 2002,
NME awarded the song the number two spot on its
list of "100 Greatest Singles of All Time," while in 2003
VH1 placed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" number one on its
list of "100 Greatest Songs of the Past 25 Years." The song came
third in a
Q poll that same
year.
Rolling Stone ranked "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ninth
in its 2004 list of
The 500 Greatest Songs of All
Time, and described its impact as "A shock wave of big-amp
purity, [it] wiped the lingering jive of the Eighties off the pop
map overnight." In the 2006
VH1 UK poll
The Nation's Favourite Lyric, the line "I feel stupid and
contagious/here we are now, entertain us" was ranked as the
third-favorite song lyric among over 13,000 voters. In contrast,
Time magazine proposed in
its entry for
Nevermind on "The All-TIME 100 Albums" from
2006 that "'Smells Like Teen Spirit' [. . .] may be the album's
worst song."
Lyrics and interpretation
The lyrics to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" were often difficult for
listeners to decipher, both due to their nonsensicality and because
of Cobain's slurred, guttural singing voice. This problem was
compounded by the fact that the
Nevermind album liner
notes did not include any lyrics for the songs aside from selected
lyrical fragments. This incomprehensibility contributed to the
early resistance from radio stations towards adding the song to
their playlists; one Geffen promoter recalled that people from rock
radio told her, "We can't play this. I can't understand what the
guy is saying." MTV went as far as to prepare a version of the
video that included the lyrics running across the bottom of the
screen, which they aired when the video was added to their heavy
rotation schedule. The lyrics for the album—and some from earlier
or alternate versions of the songs—were later released with the
liner notes of the "
Lithium"
single in 1992. American rock critic
Dave
Marsh noted comments by
disc jockeys
of the time that the song was "the 'Louie Louie' of the nineties"
and wrote, "Like 'Louie,' only more so, 'Teen Spirit' reveals its
secrets reluctantly and then often incoherently." Marsh, trying to
decipher the lyrics of the song, felt after reading the correct
lyrics from the song's sheet music that "what I imagined was quite
a bit better (at least, more gratifying) than what Nirvana actually
sang," and added, "Worst of all, I'm not sure that I know more
about [the meaning of] 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' now than before I
plunked down for the official version of the facts."
"Teen Spirit" is widely interpreted to be a
teen revolution anthem, an interpretation
reinforced by the song's music video. In an interview conducted the
day
Nevermind was released, Cobain stated the song was
about his friends, explaining, "We still feel as if we're teenagers
because we don't follow the guidelines of what's expected of us to
be adults [. . .] It also has kind of a teen revolutionary theme".
As Cobain did more interviews, he changed his explanation of the
song and rarely gave specifics about the song's meaning. When
discussing the song in Michael Azerrad's biography
Come as You Are: The Story
of Nirvana, Cobain revealed that he felt a duty "to
describe what I felt about my surroundings and my generation and
people my age."
The book
Teen Spirit: The Stories Behind Every Nirvana
Song describes "Teen Spirit" as "a typically murky Cobain
exploration of meaning and meaninglessness." Azerrad plays upon the
juxtaposition of Cobain's contradictory lyrics (such as "It's fun
to lose and to pretend") and states "the point that emerges isn't
just the conflict of two opposing ideas, but the confusion and
anger that the conflict produces in the narrator—he's angry that
he's confused." Azerrad's conclusion is that the song is
"alternately a sarcastic reaction to the idea of actually having a
revolution, yet it also embraces the idea." In
Heavier Than Heaven,
Charles R. Cross' biography of Kurt Cobain, the author
argues that the song is a reference to Cobain's relationship with
ex-girlfriend Tobi Vail. Cross cites the line "She's over-bored and
self-assured" and states the song "could not have been about anyone
else." Cross backs up his argument with lyrics which were present
in earlier drafts, such as "Who will be the King & Queen of the
outcasted [sic] teens."
Cobain has said, "The entire song is made up of contradictory ideas
[. . .] It's just making fun of the thought of having a revolution.
But it's a nice thought." Drummer Dave Grohl has stated he does not
believe the song has any message, and said, "Just seeing Kurt write
the lyrics to a song five minutes before he first sings them, you
just kind of find it a little bit hard to believe that the song has
a lot to say about something. You need syllables to fill up this
space or you need something that rhymes."
Music video
The music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the first for
director
Samuel Bayer. Bayer believes
he was hired because his test reel was so poor the band anticipated
his production would be "punk" and "not corporate." The video was
based on the concept of a school concert which ends in
anarchy and riot. Inspiration was taken from
Jonathan Kaplan's 1979 movie
Over the Edge, as well
as the
Ramones film
Rock 'n' Roll High School.
Filmed on
a soundstage in Culver
City
, the video featured the band playing at a pep rally in a high school gym to an audience of
apathetic students on bleachers, and cheerleaders wearing black
dresses with the Circle-A anarchist
symbol. The video ends with the assembled students
destroying the set and the band's gear. The demolition of the set
captured in the video's conclusion was the result of genuine
discontent. The extras that filled the bleachers had been forced to
stay seated through numerous replays of the song for an entire
afternoon of filming. Cobain convinced Bayer to allow the extras to
mosh, and the set became a scene of chaos.
"Once the kids came out dancing they just said 'fuck you,' because
they were so tired of this shit throughout the day," Cobain said.
Cobain disliked Bayer's final edit and personally oversaw a re-edit
of the video that resulted in the version finally aired. One of
Cobain's major additions was the next-to-last shot of the video,
which was a close-up of his own face after it had been obscured for
most of the video. Bayer noted that unlike subsequent artists he
worked with, Cobain did not care about vanity, rather that "the
video had something that was truly about what they were
about."
Like the song itself, the music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
was well received by critics.
Rolling Stone writer
David Fricke described the video as
looking like "the greatest gig you could ever imagine." In addition
to a number one placing in the singles category, "Teen Spirit" also
topped the music video category in the
Village Voice's
1991 "Pazz & Jop" poll. The video won Nirvana the
Best New Artist
and
Best
Alternative Group awards at the 1992
MTV Video Music Awards, and in 2000
the
Guinness World
Records named "Teen Spirit" the Most Played Video on
MTV Europe. In subsequent years Amy
Finnerty, formerly of MTV's Programming department, claimed the
video "changed the entire look of MTV" by giving them "a whole new
generation to sell to." VH1 placed the debut of the "Teen Spirit"
video at number eighteen on its list of "100 Greatest Rock &
Roll Moments on TV," noting that "the video [ushered] in
alternative rock as a commercial and pop culture force." In 2001,
VH1 ranked the video fourth on its "100 Greatest Videos" list. The
video has been parodied at least twice: in
"Weird Al" Yankovic's music video for "
Smells Like Nirvana" and in
Bob Sinclar's 2006 music video for "
Rock This Party
."
Live performances
"Smells
Like Teen Spirit" was first performed live on April 17, 1991 at the
OK Hotel in Seattle, Washington
. The performance is featured on the DVD of
the 2004 boxset
With the Lights
Out, while shorter clips are included on the
Nevermind Classic
Albums DVD, as well as the documentary film
Hype!. As the song's lyrics had not yet been
entirely written, there are notable differences between it and the
final version. For example, the first performance started with
"Come out and play, make up the rules" instead of the eventual
opening of "Load up on guns, bring your friends." A recording of
the earlier version appears on
With the Lights Out and
again on
Sliver: The
Best of the Box. A similar early live performance of the
song is found in the documentary
1991: The Year Punk Broke,
filmed during a 1991 summer tour in Europe with
Sonic Youth.
Nirvana often altered the song's lyrics and
tempo for live performances. Some live performances of
the song had the line "our little group has always been" changed to
"our little tribe has always been," which can be heard on the 1996
live album
From
the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah.
Rolling Stone
remarked that the
Wishkah version of "Teen Spirit"
"[found] Cobain's guitar reeling outside the song's melodic
boundaries and sparking new life in that nearly played-out hit." A
notable alternate performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" occurred
on
BBC's
Top of
the Pops in 1991, during which the band refused to mime to
the prerecorded backing track and Cobain sang in a deliberately low
voice and altered numerous lyrics in the song (for example, "Load
up on guns, bring your friends" became "Load up on drugs, kill your
friends"). Cobain later said he was trying to sound like former
Smiths frontman
Morrissey.
The
Observer stated Nirvana's performance was responsible for
"Teen Spirit" entering the UK top ten the following week; when
Top of the Pops was cancelled in 2006,
The
Observer listed Nirvana's performance of "Smells Like Teen
Spirit" as the third greatest in the show's history. This
performance can be found on the 1994 home video
Live! Tonight! Sold Out!!.
Cover versions
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" has been covered by numerous artists. One
of the first cover recordings was an
acoustic piano version
by
Tori Amos on her 1992
Crucify EP, which Cobain referred to as
"a great breakfast cereal version.". The jazz trio
The Bad Plus recorded the track for its CD
These Are the Vistas,
while the
Melvins as well as the
industrial act
Xorcist have also released tributes.
The Moog Cookbook put out a
synthesizer-based cover version on
The Moog Cookbook and the
Japanese Beatboxer
Dokaka has recorded a
beatboxed cover version. British group
The Flying Pickets released an
a cappella version of the song on their album
The
Original Flying Pickets: Volume 1 - 1994. Covers of the
song on tribute albums include
Blanks 77
on
Smells Like Bleach: A Punk Tribute to Nirvana, and
Beki Bondage on
Smells Like
Nirvana; both released in 2000. In 2005, "Teen Spirit" was
covered as a
swing song by 1950s star
Paul Anka. In 2006, the band
Flyleaf covered the song for
Yahoo's LAUNCHcast service.
In 2007,
Patti Smith included a cover
version, which incorporated a piece of her poetry, on her album of
cover songs
Twelve.
The song has been adapted into other forms over the years.
Germany's
Atari Teenage Riot
sampled "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the song "Atari Teenage Riot"
from their 1997 album,
Burn,
Berlin, Burn!.
DJ Balloon, a
German techno DJ, also used the sample in his song "Monstersound".
An instrumental cover version (slightly altered and named "Self
High-Five" to avoid legal complications) was produced by
World Championship Wrestling as
the
entrance music
for wrestler
Diamond Dallas Page, with
clips of Page's voice dubbed in from time to time. A snippet of the
song was also performed in a
cabaret style
in the 2001 movie
Moulin
Rouge!.
In addition to cover versions, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has also
inspired a few
parodies. "Weird Al" Yankovic
parodied the song in 1992 with "Smells Like Nirvana", a song about
Nirvana itself. Yankovic parodied the difficulty in understanding
Cobain's singing as well as the lyrics and their meaning. Yankovic
has said Kurt Cobain told him he realized that Nirvana had "made
it" when he heard the parody. In 1995, the
queercore band
Pansy
Division recorded a parody of the song called "Smells Like
Queer Spirit" for its
Pile Up
album. Pansy Division guitarist
Jon
Ginoli insisted that his band's version of the song was not a
parody but "an affectionate tribute".
Formats and track listing
- UK 7" single (DGC 5)
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) –
4:30
- "Drain You" (Cobain) – 3:43
- UK 12" single (DGCT 5)
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) –
5:01
- "Drain You" (Cobain) – 3:43
- "Even in His Youth" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) – 3:03
- Features album version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
- UK CD single (DGCTD 5)
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) –
4:30
- "Drain You" (Cobain) – 3:43
- "Even in His Youth" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) – 3:03
- "Aneurysm" (Cobain, Grohl,
Novoselic) – 4:44
- UK picture disc 12" single (DGCTP 5)
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) –
5:01
- "Even in His Youth" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) – 3:03
- "Aneurysm" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) – 4:44
- Features album version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
- US 7" single (DGCS7-19050)
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) –
4:30
- "Even in His Youth" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) – 3:03
- US CD single (DGCDS-21673)
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic)– 4:30
- "Even in His Youth" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) – 3:03
- "Aneurysm" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) – 4:44
- US cassette single (DGCCS-19050)
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) –
4:30
- "Even in His Youth" (Cobain, Grohl, Novoselic) – 3:03
Chart positions
References
- Azerrad, Michael. Come as You Are: The Story of
Nirvana. Doubleday, 1994. ISBN 0-385-47199-8
- Classic Albums—Nirvana: Nevermind [DVD]. Isis
Productions, 2004.
- Berkenstadt, Jim; Cross, Charles. Classic Rock Albums:
Nevermind. Schirmer, 1998. ISBN 0-02-864775-0
- Crisafulli, Chuck. Teen Spirit: The Stories Behind Every
Nirvana Song. Carlton, 1996. ISBN 0-684-83356-5
- Cross, Charles R. Heavier Than Heaven. Hyperion, 2001.
ISBN 0-7868-6505-9
- Marsh, Dave. Louie Louie. Hyperion, 1993. ISBN
1-56282-865-7
- Starr, Larry; Waterman, Christopher. American Popular
Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003. ISBN 0-19-510854-X
Notes
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search