Kill your popularity or kill yourself, part 2: Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

In the previous articles I showed you videos of two artists struggling with their enormous popularity. Both of them decided at one point to stop showing themselves in music videos, in order to save their sanity. And here is an artist, who chose a different path. This artist is Kurt Cobain, the lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter of the band Nirvana. After the hell broke loose over the song you are just about to hear (and see) they tried to bring the Nirvana-mania to manageable levels by making the next record rougher and less accessible. But at the same time they kept the big budget videos coming. Of course I don't say that not having stopped making videos was a major factor leading to Cobain's suicide. There were many more things wrong in his life apart from the insane popularity - from heroin addiction to marital problems. But I am sure that fame played some role too and good videos always had great potential for inducing popularity. Nevertheless, the theme of dealing with one's popularity is only a pretext to tie this article to the previous ones. The true reason this music video just had to find its way to this blog is that it is without a question the most important music video created at least from the beginning of the nineties. And maybe even the most important music video ever created. And why is it so? The short answer is: because it single-handedly killed the infamous sound of eighties. Those dark ages in popular music, when this thing was called metal and that thing was dubbed rock. Don't get me wrong - both these songs are great. Great pop songs. The idea that such overproduced keyboard-infested plastic tunes played over inevitable primitive disco beats (what's the difference if played on real drums?) can be called "rock" or "metal" is repulsive on its own. And the fact that the whole generation of teens has been brain fucked by the music industry into thinking this is rock music is the crime for which the responsible motherfuckers should burn in heaven for at least half of the eternity. But one day in late 1991 the world as the kids knew it - ended. They turned on MTV to feed on their daily dose of hair "metal" and synthpop only to find this:

Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

It was fresh. It was infinitely different from the omnipresent pop. But most importantly, it sounded honest. The famous line: I feel stupid and contagious Here we are now, entertain us immediately found its way into these kids' minds, to that day tube-fed with pop. Entertained to death. The fact that Cobain wrote the lyrics for this song right before the recording session, just to fill the space, is quite irrelevant. It's not the first time that the work of art starts a life of its own, regardless of the creator's intentions (or lack of - like in this case). Unintentionally and quite reluctantly Cobain overnight became the voice of the generation. The video is not less impressive than the catchy song itself. It is brilliant in visualizing - or rather predicting - the impact the song would have on the world. In the beginning we see dull and bored teen public, barely listening to the band. But as the song progresses, something strange happens. Those apathetic brainwashed kids gradually start to wake up, open their ears and minds. The video ends in a regular riot. The teens simply cannot control themselves, having felt for the first time in their life the power of rock music. The power so great that even the school janitor starts to dance with his mop. We realize we have just watched the beginning of the musical revolution that within two years would cause the total and so well-deserved extinction of hair "metal", as it would send plastic keyboards and disco beats back where they belong - to the pop genre. The video was directed by Samuel Bayer and it was his first one. Bayer stated he believed he was hired because his test-reel was so poor the band anticipated his production would be "punk" and "not corporate." Inspiration for the video was taken from Jonathan Kaplan's 1979 movie Over the Edge, as well as the Ramones' film Rock 'n' Roll High School. 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. Like the song itself, the music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was well received. 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 2001, VH1 ranked the video fourth on its "100 Greatest Videos" list. But enough with figures. What really counts is that the video brought music back into the "music business", showing moronic executives that millions of people want something more than bland plastic pop disguised as rock or metal. And as for Cobain himself... In the previous episode I described the story of a boy, who blew his head off to get revenge on the cruel world only to end up as a short paragraph in a newspaper. Cobain did better. A suicide committed at that particular moment in time granted him immortality. It would not have happened if some day in the past he had not smelled like "Teen Spirit". And if MTV had not decided to show a certain video on some cold October evening. Disclaimer: No Wikipedia articles were hurt in making of this post, but some of them were extensively used.