Smelled Like a Dud; Worked Like a Charm by Andrew McQuinn :: July 27, 2005
I first saw them on television in late 1991. The rock music scene wasn't offering a lot of substance, or anything of lasting value. Still, I didn't think they deserved to share even the mediocre stage that the times offered. Sure, Spandex, excessive amounts of hair gel and glitter were somewhat creepy, but they were all items commonly associated with rock bands. These new guys on the scene looked scruffy, unwashed and they wore common street clothes in their video--unthinkable. Where was the glam? Where was the intriguing façade? Where was the show? I wanted my rock stars to try a lot harder. "Get these twerps off my television screen!" True, I could barely tell the difference between several of the popular bands of the day. Acts like Cinderella, Warrant and Skid Row all seemed like similar attachments that were part of the same appliance, but they were "doing" rock. These new guys looked like drunken introverts and their sound seemed too raw. How could these guys not know about all of the cool studio tools that could enhance their sound and give them space-age polish? Flangers, phasers, synthesizers-where were they? I didn't know whether this new band should be the focus of my anger or my pity. What was with that song title anyway? "Smells Like Teen Spirit" suggested the use of a personal grooming product. Too weird. Too uncool. Then it happened. The video became ubiquitous. So did the disturbing album cover with the naked baby, under water, grabbing at currency. What was happening? I couldn't comprehend.
Flash forward to the present, 2005. Glam rock is long dead. A single sloppy song pierced the thriving, polished, plastic-like hard rock industry in the heart and sent it into oblivion. The void that remained filled with different sounds: acoustic sounds, rap sounds, boy bands, bubble gum girls, celebrated "voices." Once proud arena rock acts now commonly find their names on casino marquees and on invitations to corporate parties.
It's taken me several years to understand how this metamorphosis in music took place. Nirvana's hit Smells Like Teen Spirit was rock's equivalent of Fort Sumpter. It was a call to arms-an attack upon the status quo. It was a signal that change was coming. But unlike an initial volley of cannon fire, Smells Like Teen Spirit hit the scene like an atom bomb, flattening the landscape.
One of the main reasons for the success of Smells Like Teen Spirit is also one of the reasons why it might have failed: the band's appearance. For years, MTV viewers had grown accustomed to seeing bands perform on big, elaborate stages, while wearing costumes that looked like they came from a rock star specialty store. Each new rock act seemed like an extension of the last new rock act. Some of the lyrics focused on hedonistic desires or on nothing at all [examples omitted].
Rhetorical critic Kenneth Burke spoke of Identification, which "is promoted when language is used to reduce divisiveness and to bring the speaker and listener closer together in their conceptions and perceptions of the world around them." [Reading Rhetorical Texts/Andrews, Leff, Terrill/p76] While the wild displays and crazy lyrics associated with early 90s rock musicians might have been mildly entertaining to watch, most viewers couldn't relate to the only new musical rock heroes that the times offered. Burke believed that the speaker and the listener could draw close in understanding each other to achieve a psychological fusion, which he called consubstantiality. Much of the early 90s glam rock did not seem to take this fusion into consideration. Many of the artists seemed to be merely interested in putting on a spectacle. Outrageous behavior, excess and disposable music were the order of the day.
"Poison. Anthrax. Alice in Chains. Skid Row. The band names alone conjure images of mayhem, torture and death. Heavy-metal rock, with its raw lyrics, pummeling beats, banshee vocals and buzz-saw guitars, seems custom-made for leather-clad lowlifes with tattooed biceps and lobotomized brains." [Time Magazine/"Heavy Metal Goes Platinum" by Guy Garcia/October 14, 1991]
Adding further evidence to the notion that emerging talent lacked creative vision, successful bands began pointing fingers at each other:
"You know why the next album doesn't do so well, right? Everyone else burns your sound out. The album is so popular that everyone copies it. It's like other artists have done your next album for you. So Alanis puts her next album out, after Natalie Imbruglia and all these copycats have come out, and everyone goes, "I'm sick of you...I don't want to hear that anymore!" And Alanis hasn't done anything wrong, she's just doing her thing. You can overthink things, but you do have to be aware that other artists can burn your sound out. So yeah, that's what happened to us with Hysteria." [Phil Collen of Def Leppard/http://launch.yahoo.com/read/interview/12043566]
Enter Smells Like Teen Spirit. The video looked quite unlike all other rock videos being played on television. The lyrics actually seemed to denounce the status quo:
With
the lights out it's less dangerous
Here we are now Entertain us
I feel
stupid and contagious
Here we are now Entertain us
The members of Nirvana looked grungy and unkempt in their video. It's quite probable that they looked like many of the same teens who were sitting on their couches, watching the video. The accompanying images were disturbing: a dimly lit gymnasium and what appeared to be a high school pep assembly that resembled a mosh pit. It all summed up to a lack of order, a breaking of the rules and irreverence. It seemed to me that during the previous two or three decades, rock experienced a gradual evolution. New styles and sub-genres would emerge at a comfortable pace. Nirvana slammed on the brakes and made a 90-degree turn. Rock artists and fans didn't realize what hit them.
"Grunge killed metal. Instead of being angry, we just stopped caring. And the slacker generation was born. But there are so many of us out there that are still angry! That still wanna ROCK! Actually, from a sociological standpoint, the death of 80s metal makes sense...the 1980's were a time of gluttony and decadence, and the metal of the time typified the era. Reaganomics, the "Just Say No' campaign, and the PMRC made many of us angry and metal was a great way to fight back and have fun." [From Kate's 80's Metal Page/http://www.angelfire.com/or/my80s/80smetal.html]
"We had a tremendous run of success in the 1980s, especially in the late 1980s. But because of that, you create an environment where a particular sound becomes very much copied. And the whole thing went over the top, everyone started to sound very similar. That was not the fault of Def Leppard, it was the sound of the music that we had created. It was inevitable that at some point, someone would come up and do the total opposite of what we were doing. And that is when the grunge thing kicked in. And that was good because everything got stale. The bands that came out of the grunge thing were absolutely everything that Def Leppard was not. Because of that, we suffered from it. But we did that when we came out, with the so-called New Wave of British Metal, to bands like Journey and Foreigner. They pretty much disappeared. It comes around and goes around. You have to believe in what you do, make albums that you want, be selfish about it, and ride out of the storm. Eventually, you come back and the music speaks for itself." [Rick Savage, bassist, Def Leppard/http://www.askmen.com/toys/interview/48_def_leppard_interview.html]
"The fact remains that many of the old hair rockers blame Seattle and the grunge rock explosion as the death blow to the L.A. Glam Metal scene. The truth is, the music just got old. Nirvana was young, while all the hair rockers turned 40." [Sprawl Magazine /"Blame it on Cobain: Grunge Rock is as Dead as Disco" by Tom Turpel/ http://www.sprawlmagazine.com/articles/4-08-04kurt.html]
The song Smells Like Teen Spirit is catchy and irritating, perfect and messy, novel and primeval. The bass pulsates a steady rhythm that is almost apart from the other instruments. The drums seem to be played with too much intensity. At certain points the vocals are unintelligible. It seems that all of the flaws added up to become an exquisite musical monument to social detachment. Some of the song's lyrics seem nonsensical: "a mosquito, my libido." Other portions of the song seem like a mockery of the media. Kenneth Burke suggested that "motive is never not an issue in rhetoric, in that all situations prompt the question: What is this person trying to do to me?" [Modern Rhetorical Criticism/Roderick P. Hart, Suzanne Daughton, p214] According to reports, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was trying to send a message with Smells Like Teen Spirit:
"With "Teen Spirit," Cobain managed to put his finger on something that was lingering -- at least subconsciously -- in the minds of many who listened: a general, angry disenchantment with (take your pick) the music industry, '80s greed that turned into '90s recession, TV-news patriotism, Republican politics, baby boomers and their self-centered view of their lives and history, etc." [Salon.com/"Smells Like Teen Spirit"/ http://www.salon.com/ent/masterpiece/2002/04/15/teen_spirit/index2.html]
The song became an anthem for a generation, and ironically, it became the type of sensation that Cobain detested.
"Lost in all the hype was the message of the song. As Cobain himself once derisively predicted, people were marching to the stores to buy the record because the marketing machine told them to. The flock of sheep had not found a spokesperson; they simply found another bellwether." [Salon.com/"Smells Like Teen Spirit"]
