In a new chat with NME, John Robb discussed how Nirvana reached Beatles-like status after ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’
In a previous question, the musician said just like Oasis came out of nowhere, a new band could explode onto the scene and take over culture. Back then, people thought only London bands could make it big, but Oasis proved them wrong. When the interviewer asked whether it was the same thing with Nirvana, Robb replied:
“Yes. For two years, they were playing to about 20 or 30 people everywhere. Then ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ came out as one of the greatest rock songs ever, up there with The Beatles as a game-changer. No one predicted Nirvana becoming the biggest band in the world, but then it was just a completely natural evolution.”
Nirvana’s Songwriting Process For ‘Teen Spirit’
Nirvana’s 1991 song ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ became one of the most popular songs from the band’s catalog. In a 2021 conversation with NME, Dave Grohl shared how they wrote the song:
“I remember writing ‘Teen Spirit’ in our rehearsal space, and I liked the riff that Kurt came up with because it’s percussive. Those muted, stabbing strums in between the chords really leaned to the pattern of the drum riff. To be honest, at that point, we were listening to a lot of Pixies – it was ‘Bossa Nova.’ And we were just having fun, really. We were just coming up with new song after new song every day.”
The rocker talked about how he noticed the power of the track:
“I didn’t know what the lyrics were; Kurt’s melody pattern changed every other time we played it and it wasn’t really until we got into the studio to record it that I realized the power of the song. And not just lyrically or musically, but the groove of the song – it was really powerful. I think everyone was more focused on songs like ‘In Bloom’ or ‘Lithium’ or ‘Breed’; nobody really paid too much attention to ‘Teen Spirit’ while we were recording it. We just thought it was another cool song for the record.”
Still, Kurt Cobain thought people paid too much attention to ‘Teen Spirit’ just because it’s been on MTV a lot. He believed he had written songs just as good, or even better, like ‘Drain You.’
