Retired Site PBS Programs. Oops Youve reached a retired site page. PBS no longer has the rights to distribute the content that had been provided on this page. Marc Romanelli. Smells Like Teen Spirit WikipediaSmells Like Teen Spirit is a song by American rock band Nirvana. It is the opening track and lead single from the bands second album, Nevermind 1. DGC Records. The unexpected success of Smells Like Teen Spirit in late 1. Nevermind to the top of the charts at the start of 1. Smells Like Teen Spirit was Nirvanas biggest hit, reaching number six on the Billboard. Hot 1. 00 and placing high on music industry charts all around the world in 1. 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,23 but the band grew uncomfortable with the success and attention it received as a result. In the years since Cobains death, listeners and critics have continued to praise Smells Like Teen Spirit as one of the greatest songs in the history of rock music. Origins and recordingeditIn a January 1. 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 I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that bandor at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard. 4Cobain did not begin to write Smells Like Teen Spirit until a few weeks before recording started on Nirvanas second album, Nevermind, in 1. When he first presented the song to his bandmates, it comprised just the main riff and the chorus vocal melody,6 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. 4 In a 2. Novoselic recalled that after playing the riff repeatedly, he thought, Wait a minute. Why dont we just kind of slow this down a bit So I started playing the verse part. And Dave started playing a drum beat. 8 As a result, it is the only song on Nevermind to credit all three band members as authors. 9Cobain came up with the songs title when his friend Kathleen Hanna, at the time the lead singer of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill, wrote Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit on his wall. 1. Hanna meant that Cobain smelled like the deodorant Teen Spirit, which his then girlfriend Tobi Vail wore. Get the latest Rolling Stone new music news, song and album reviews, free music downloads, artist videos pictures, playlists and more. Cobain claimed he was unaware that it was a brand of deodorant until months after the single was released, and had interpreted the slogan as having revolutionary meaning, as they had been discussing anarchism, punk rock, and similar topics. 1. Smells Like Teen Spirit was, along with Come as You Are, one of a few new songs that had been written since Nirvanas first recording sessions with producer Butch Vig in 1. The latest news articles from Billboard Magazine, including reviews, business, pop, hiphop, rock, dance, country and more. The Hollywood Reporter is your source for breaking news about Hollywood and entertainment, including movies, TV, reviews and industry blogs. Programs AZ. Find program websites, online videos and more for your favorite PBS shows. 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. 1. Nirvana recorded Smells Like Teen Spirit at Sound City recording studio in Van Nuys, California with Vig in May 1. Vig suggested some arrangement changes to the song, including moving a guitar ad lib into the chorus, and trimming down the chorus length. 1. 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. 1. CompositioneditSample of Smells Like Teen Spirit from Nirvanas 1. Nevermind. The sample illustrates the change in dynamics from verse to pre chorus and chorus. The band maintains the F B A D chord progression throughout, relying on the changes in dynamics and the reintroduction of the main guitar riff at the end to indicate the shifts between sections. Problems playing this file See media help. Smells Like Teen Spirit follows a FBAD chord progression,1. Cobain. 1. 8 The guitar chords were double tracked because the band wanted to make it sound more powerful, according to Vig. 1. 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. 1. Listeners made many comments that the song bore a passing resemblance to Bostons 1. More Than a Feeling. 6 Cobain himself held similar opinions, saying that it was such a clichd riff. It was so close to a Boston riff or The Kingsmens Louie Louie. 4 However, Rikky Rooksby points out that Smells Like Teen Spirit and More Than a Feeling follow different chord progressions. 1. The rhythm of Cobains chords is the factor that most closely links the song with More Than a Feeling. Another more contemporary influence may have been Take 5 by Northside released January 1. Smells Like Teen Spirit uses 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. 2. Musicologist Graeme Downes, who led the band The Verlaines, says that Smells Like Teen Spirit illustrates developing variation. 2. Elements of the songs 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, Small Clone chorused guitar, followed by big, loud hardcore inspired choruses became a much emulated template in alternative rock because of Teen Spirit. 2. During the verses the band maintains the same chord progression as the chorus. Cobain plays a two note guitar line over Novoselics root note eighth note bassline, which outlines the chord progression. As the song moves closer to the choruses, Cobain begins to play the same two notes on every beat of the measure and repeats the word Hello. 1. Following the first and second choruses, Cobain simultaneously sings the word Yay and performs a unison bend on his guitar. 2. After the second chorus, Cobain plays a 1. During the closing refrain, Cobain sings A denial repeatedly his voice becomes strained and is almost shot from the force of yelling. 1. Release and receptioneditIssued to radio on August 2. Smells Like Teen Spirit was released two weeks later on September 1. Nevermind, the bands 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. 2. 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 Nirvanas 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. 2. The video received its world premiere on MTVs late night alternative rock program 1. Minutes, and proved so popular that the channel began to air it during its regular daytime rotation. 2. 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. 2. Smells Like Teen Spirit became a critical and commercial success. The song topped the 1.
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