Smells Like Teen Spirit

Disagree. Hair Metal was alive and thriving in 1991. It's just that the dominant Hair acts were between albums that year so IMO you are mistaking that for a decline in Hair.

IMO, the narrative that Nirvana and Grunge killed hair is accurate. Again, we'll just have to agree to disagree about that.

 

Agreed. It's a fun discussion, regardless.

 

Answer #1: Yes, it did hit like an atom bomb. MTV aa well. Huge hit and changed the landscape along with Pearl Jam , STP, Alice and Chains, Janes Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. It was for sure a new hard rock, a big change, a big overnight shift.

Answer #2: For me, not too much. Yes is was pervasive around the college scene where I was at, but didn’t change my musical preferences and I didn’t fall into that genre much at all, outside of a few favorites (Alice in Chains Facelift im looking at you).

 

Ratcat are a band that has been unfairly left out Australian music history. If you follow the lazy guide to Australian alternative music - its the 1980's alt. rock bands (Triffards, Go-Betweens etc.) then a massive jump to Silverchair.

 

I don't honestly remember the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit but I do know it took awhile before I came around to liking it. I've always felt that Grunge was some sort of contrived genre that elevated some pretty mediocre bands. And I'm not sure how much influence Nirvana had on acts like Alice in Chains, Jane's Addiction, Smashing Pumpkins or Soundgarden since all of them had defining albums before Nevermind was released. "Grunge" was a thing well before Nirvana made it cool / mainstream.

Nevermind may have been a groundbreaking album to some but it was only the #1 billboard album for 2 (non-consecutive) weeks in 1992 and quickly replaced by Garth Brooks (who ended up with the #1 album for 17 weeks of 1992)... It was liked well enough at the time but The Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, U2's Achtung Baby, and Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion I & II were much more popular in the circles I hung out in...

 

I was about 8 when I first saw the video. I remember thinking Kurt looked and sounded deranged. And I had this intense feeling like I needed to take a shower after watching it.

 

1991 is most germane to this discussion because that's when you said that glam metal was dominating the landscape and when Nirvana initiated a hostile takeover. It was obvious by 1991 that glam metal was in steep decline, commercially.

The most notable examples of the genre becoming passe:

• Europe: their 1991 album didn't chart in the US after their 1986 and 1988 albums charted at #8 (triple platinum) and #19 (platinum) respectively
• Great White: their 1991 album charted at #18 and only certified gold after their 1987 and 1989 albums had charted at #23 (platinum) and #9 (double platinum)
• White Lion: their 1991 album charted at #61 after their 1987 and 1989 albums had charted at #11 (double platinum) and #19 (gold)
• Bulletboys: their 1991 album charted at #69 after their 1988 album had charted at #34 (platinum)
• Bad English: their 1991 album charted at #72 after their 1989 album had charted at #21 (platinum)

The writing was already on the wall by the time Nirvana released "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

 

Totally disagree. Those were acts that had one big album and then their next one wasn't as big. That happens in any genre of music. We could look at the 1970s and see lots of acts that had a hit, platinum LP then the next one didn't sell as well. That doesn't mean the rock genre was fading in any way. Within Hair, two of the Founding Fathers, Ratt and Quiet Riot, had faded out by 1988, well within the peak era of Hair as a genre.

Hair Metal was a dominant form of music ... until Nirvana took it out. There wasn't any inkling before Nirvana that this was happening. A few prescient sorts might have figured it out, that Hair was ripe for overthrow, but at a cultural level, it was still running the youth rock show.

 

Don't forget The Proton Energy Pills. They were basically Australia's version of Nirvana, but broke up before Nevermind came out.
"Victims" (1990)

 

Feel free to describe glam metal any way that you want to and overlook its obvious commercial decline in 1991. It's obvious that by 1991 it couldn't compete with other more popular genres, like non-glam varieties of heavy metal, the main gateways for new Nirvana fans. In 1991, glam metal's commercial appeal couldn't compete with non-glam heavy metal albums from the following artists:

• Metallica, 1991 album charted at #1 (has since sold 31 million units)
• Ozzy Osbourne, 1991 album charted at #7 (4x platinum)
• Guns 'n Roses, 1991 albums charted at #1 and #2 (18x platinum for each)
• Skid Row, 1991 album charted at #1 (2x platinum)

We can look back at May-July 1991 and see the upward direction the sales and attention for non-glam heavy metal were heading. Skid Row was the first out of the gate with "Monkey Business" (#13 mainstream rock) in May. Then Ozzy and GNR issued their own singles in June with "No More Tears" (#5 mainstream rock) and "You Could Be Mine" (#29 pop). In July, Metallica brought the noise with "Enter Sandman" (#16 pop). Nirvana couldn't have asked for a better setup throughout the summer for the success of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the fall.

 

IMO quoting Ozzy Osbourne sales in late 1991 and a couple hit singles by Hair acts in 1992 is like someone noting that Frank Sinatra still had hit albums after Elvis blew up pop music culture. Does nothing to change the fact that in 1955 - 1956, rock and roll took over from big band music as the popular music of youth. Similarly, grunge/alternative blew up Hair Metal in late 1991.

As for the tack about "non-glam" heavy metal in 1991 selling, it doesn't resonate with me. Skid Row is a Hair Metal band. The fact that they tried to go in a harder direction on "Slave to the Grind" doesn't change that at all, and it explains why despite that effort, they never sold another record after that mid-1991 album came out. They got it in just under the wire. GnR had a few toes in the Hair camp but yes, they were regarded as a breed apart during the Hair era, while Metallica was never regarded as Hair. Still, both of their huge albums (regarding GnR as one release) were released just before Nirvana hit it big, and neither of them, even Metallica, never released a record anywhere near as big afterward. Ozzy as well - from 1986 on he had copped some of the stylings of Hair metal, but yes, as a Godfather he was always a breed apart as well. Still, he too got his 1991 LP in just before Nirvana hit, and like all other 'commercial metal' acts he never had a big hit record anywhere near as big as his biggest Hair-era hits after Nirvana either.

Heck, by the time Metallica followed up the Black Album in 1996, they had cropped off their hair to cop a grunge look. And in 1993, GnR tried to establish punk/grunge credentials by releasing the "Spaghetti" album which displayed their punk influences. Both bended a knee to what Nirvana had wrought, namely the extinction of Hair and a complete upheaval in rock culture.

Look i get it - you disagree. That's fine, that's what "agreeing to disagree" is all about. But I lived through it, and no amount of chart-quoting in 2018 is going to change that memory.

 

The great thing about YouTube is that we can go back in time and see and hear the popular heavy metal from 1991. We can see how similar songs resonated with each other in intensity, like "Monkey Business" resonating with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in intensity of guitar power. We don't have to agree with the opinion of Seattlesound4eva or Cobainlover91 if the sonic evidence betrays their opinions.

Here is "Monkey Business" from May 1991 (#13 Billboard mainstream rock, #19 UK pop).

 

"Smells Like Teen Spirit"- Nirvana: August 1991

 

I think it's kind of funny, that for all the "groundbreaking" and "scene changing" SLTS was supposed to have done to the music world, grunge as a musical force is dead... It was about a two year blip on the radar and that was it... No real longevity...

 

at the time, I was heavy into the hard rock bands of the day, still am, ha. sure, teen spirit was a good song, but I never got the revolutionary aspect of it. they were a good band, but not earth shattering in the least. I was 21 at the time, so I was into stuff that I could escape with. the grunge scene never appealed to me personally. all these songs about being depressed and stuff. I just didn't identify with it, sorry for having a good life. no dysfunction here, well nothing earth shattering. the only grunge cd I ever bought was pearl jam's ten, cause of evenflow.

chad

 

Not really. At the time I was more overwhelmed hearing Jeremy and Alive by Pearl Jam.

 

Thanks for the YT clips, though not needed, as I very well recall "Monkey Business". At the time, Skid Row was regarded as a pure Hair band, their 1989 debut was a flagship Hair debut. I liked it, BTW, still do. When STTG came out in mid-91, I and others regarded it as an effort to move away from the hammiest aspects of Hair and go more of a heavier direction. But there was a goofiness about it, with Sebastian Bach, kind of the personification of the Hair pretty boy, trying to wear black leather and beat something up with a stick as he did in the video. Kind of like Vanilla Ice trying to pose as a gangsta a couple years later.

In that sense, it was clear the band had an inkling of a change coming, but career-wise it proved to be too little, too late to shrug off their Hair image. STTG shot up to #1 immediately, but was gone from the charts quickly, swept away by the Nirvana tidal wave that was literally around the corner.

 

I was like 5 when it came out so my first experience was years later at age 12 or 13 when I heard my buddy play it in his bedroom. The energy and dynamics of that drum fill at the beginning pretty much changed my life. Couldn't stop listening to Nevermind for years after that. Still one of my top three favorite albums. Love that combination of raw songs with top-of-the-line production.

 

I’m with you on this. Those two were great, great bands when I was at school - I was mad for the Pixies (saw them at Crystal Palace). When Nirvana came along it just seemed like Pixies Lite - lacking the nuance, depth or art for me but maybe I missed the point.

 

It was just another song to me. I do remember it being pervasive.

I worked part-time at a local tavern. One of my co-workers was a big burly jock with little interest in music. One day he started asking me if I liked that new band Nirvana. He proceeded to tell me how awesome they were. I thought it was funny that a rock band could capture THAT guys attention.

I was also taking guitar lessons and had my teacher show me how to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit." His response took me by surprise. Something to the effect of, "What's the deal with this song? EVERYONE keeps asking me to teach it."

To me it was just another band. To others, it was ground-breaking. That song turned a lot kids onto rock music.

 

I prefer this one...........

 

For me, Smells Like Teen Spirit represented a sea change of sorts to me. I had been expanding my musical palette for the past few years at that time and had been exposed to some of the Seattle scene with Alice In Chains Facelift & Temple of the Dog, but it was Nevermind that encouraged the deep dive. The ethos behind grunge spoke to me on a level that little had before or since. In my lifetime, no other band or song has made me stand up and take notice quite as much as SLTS did (close seconds to The Cure, NWA and Kiss at the age of 7).

 

I was 13 when Teen Spirit was released and while I liked it, I thought other songs off the album were much better. Regardless, I listened to "hair metal" before it came out and after. I was huge into Guns N Roses (which I never considered hair metal) and the grunge thing didn't change that, also into Skid Row, Motley Crue, Metallica, Slayer, Nuclear Assault as well other bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers. I always dug Alice In Chains and Soundgarden more than Nirvana though.

 

I've said this in many other threads and I guess I'm saying it here. I just hope this isn't yet another thread where people who weren't even born yet are telling the people who were actually there, in the trenches night after night, what it was "really" like.

It was massive and it's influence was massive. I would hit the clubs at least three times a week in those days, and if you weren't there, you just wouldn't understand.

Never before or since, would I hear bands playing the SLTS riff pretty much every week either during a live set or sound check, or tuning up. This would be bands like L7 or the F-Boys. Legit Indie bands (not cover bands) would play Nirvana songs too. While they were on the charts! Unheard of. Usually bands were "too cool" to cover anything in the top 10.

The Nirvana influence wasn't just on bands. It was on record labels too. I wrote for a fanzine. Pre-1991, the major labels didn't even know you existed, let alone help you get any bands to interview (not that our zine really wanted many major label bands). After 1991? All of a sudden, they knew you existed and were calling non-stop to get you to promote their bands.

"Indie" or alternative bands were getting signed left and right! Never would you expect a band like the Melvins or Mudhoney to be on major labels. Yet there they were!

 

Yeah, whatever happened to Dave Grohl? That guy completely disappeared.....

The repercussions of Nirvana cannonballing into the mainstream charts between Michael Jackson and Garth Brooks, gave rise to the theory that you didnt have to go to NYC or LA to get your music heard. It was the beginning of the end for major labels and their influence in deciding what you heard. Alternative sounds pushed mainstream MTV bands out of the limelight, or forced them to re-calibrate the act (U2)

It also inspired a lot of young women to pick up instruments and get into bands. Something in the 70s and 80s that was a fairly rare commodity.

It completely opened the possibility that music on the fringe, the local scene no matter what type of music it was, could not only find an audience, but a fairly substantial size one at that, and succeed moving forward.