Apr 12

Apr 12 Smells Like Teen Spirit, by Nirvana

More than just a deodorant?

Now, the story goes that Kathleen Hanna, lead singer of punk band Bikini Kill left some graffiti on a wall in Kurt Cobain’s apartment - “smells like teen spirit” - and he, thinking that it sounded like an anti-establishment call to action, decided to use it as a song lyric. Only later did he find out that Teen Spirit was the name of a deodorant for young women and apparently wasn’t too happy about it. Whatever the origin, the lyric and the song came to epitomise grunge music and helped bring Nirvana more popularity than Cobain was prepared to cope with. I loved the song when it was released in 1991 and still consider it to be the perfect headbanger - you can go wild during the chorus, but then take a cool, calm, even elegant sip of a beverage during the verse, before going all out crazy in the chorus again, exploring one’s inner split personality! :-)

How do they do that?

So what makes this music quintessentially grunge?

Grunge music developed in the mid 1980s as a combination of heavy metal and punk styles. In this piece, we hear the heavy metal influence in the screeching/scraping metal guitars, in the big chorus and in some of the thickness of the instrumental sound. But we also have the rhythmic, fast-paced repetitive drive of punk coming from the rhythmic four note riff. The riff gives the harmonic and rhythmic structure, grounding the piece and joining the different sections together. In the vocals, the style in the chorus is typical of both heavy metal and punk, shouted more than sung, and sounding like vocal chords being ripped through the throat. What I call ‘voice violence!’ In contrast, the verse is more melodic and drawling and strangely soothing.

The instrumentation is what you would expect from grunge - it is pared back with just a couple of guitars, bass and drums, yet the sound they make by overlayering is immense. The rhythmic four note riff begins with the guitars, is joined by the bass (and drums) and is maintained by the bass throughout. The guitars and drums play the same notes/rhythm in the louder sections increasing the density of the texture and the intensity of the force and momentum driving the piece. It’s repetitiveness helps make the piece so immediate, but the clever (teenage?) mood swings means it never gets boring. This dynamic contrast (quiet sections and loud sections) is also borrowed from punk, in particular the band, Pixies, who Kurt Cobain cites as a major influence on his music. The grunge sound growls and howls in the guitars, supported by the incredible drumming of Dave Grohl, which produces so much of the energy and dynamic contrast, but which also cuts crisply through the otherwise muddiness of the sound with clarity and precision.

The continuity of the rhythmic four note riff in the bass means that, whilst we have the stark contrast between the loud, frenetic chorus and the quieter, somewhat “spaced-out” verse, there is never any doubt that those sections belong to the same piece of music.

The piece epitomises the grunge sound, but through the sophistication of its musicality has also rightly claimed its place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Hope you enjoy it or feel inspired to listen to something new today.

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