Nirv
ana"Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Nevermind (1991)
It was a call to revolution. It was the spark that lit the fire. When "Smells Like Teen Spirit" hit the radio in 1991, everyone seemed to understand that this time it was going to be different, this w
as the new era where young people would no longer suffer in silence. There was now a battle cry. A signpost to rally around. And over night, those opening power chords that introduced the world to Nirvana, aslo sounded a whistle that put hair bands, and the decade they so self-indulgently defined, out to pasture.
And by the early 90's divorce had become a pandemic that was ravaging middle-class homes across America, leaving suburban kids to slip quietly through the cracks to nowhere. But with Nirvana, with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - youthful frustration was finally being echoed by rock stars who had a platform, and a microphone, and who for
the first time looked like the middle-American youth they were voicing. This band finally got it. They said it, sometimes with a whisper and sometimes with a scream - but the message was unmistakable: Young people were tired. They were tired of being glanced over by their elders, and their leaders, and the establishment that was supposed to be as much theirs as their parents. They were tired of the trickle that never trickled. Simply...being he silent majority was no longer going to work for them.
Almost twenty years later, it's hard to remember the first time you heard a song like "Smells Like Teen Spirit". It's etched so deeply in your bones that you feel like it had always been playing somewhere in the world before it came to you. And now you've long lost the ability to remember actually existing in a time before that song co-existed with you. It's yours. There's some twisted, co-dependent ownership you take of a song that needs you to listen as much as you need to hear.
Granted, it doesn't really sound like Nirvana. It's more polished than it should be - it sounds sleek, crisp, clean - all the things that Nirvana never was as a band - but maybe that was the point. Perhaps, that was producer Butch Vig's diabolical plan, to slip three lower-middle-class boys from Seattle into the mainstream through the backdoor, and by doing so, changing the world in ways that no rock band had done since The Beatles.
as the new era where young people would no longer suffer in silence. There was now a battle cry. A signpost to rally around. And over night, those opening power chords that introduced the world to Nirvana, aslo sounded a whistle that put hair bands, and the decade they so self-indulgently defined, out to pasture.And by the early 90's divorce had become a pandemic that was ravaging middle-class homes across America, leaving suburban kids to slip quietly through the cracks to nowhere. But with Nirvana, with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - youthful frustration was finally being echoed by rock stars who had a platform, and a microphone, and who for
the first time looked like the middle-American youth they were voicing. This band finally got it. They said it, sometimes with a whisper and sometimes with a scream - but the message was unmistakable: Young people were tired. They were tired of being glanced over by their elders, and their leaders, and the establishment that was supposed to be as much theirs as their parents. They were tired of the trickle that never trickled. Simply...being he silent majority was no longer going to work for them. Almost twenty years later, it's hard to remember the first time you heard a song like "Smells Like Teen Spirit". It's etched so deeply in your bones that you feel like it had always been playing somewhere in the world before it came to you. And now you've long lost the ability to remember actually existing in a time before that song co-existed with you. It's yours. There's some twisted, co-dependent ownership you take of a song that needs you to listen as much as you need to hear.
Granted, it doesn't really sound like Nirvana. It's more polished than it should be - it sounds sleek, crisp, clean - all the things that Nirvana never was as a band - but maybe that was the point. Perhaps, that was producer Butch Vig's diabolical plan, to slip three lower-middle-class boys from Seattle into the mainstream through the backdoor, and by doing so, changing the world in ways that no rock band had done since The Beatles.
No comments:
Post a Comment