A very good but overplayed song by
Nirvana that Kurt Cobain claimed was his attempt at making "the ultimate pop song." Inspired heavily by The Pixies, according to Cobain, in fact he called the song a "Pixies
rip-off", though the now extremely famous riff is often compared to Boston's "More Than a Feeling". Title was inspired by a
friend of his telling him he "smelled like teen spirit." Kurt had no clue that there was a deoderant of that name and took it as though he was teenage-like. Basically the song that killed hair metal music such as Van Halen, Gusn N Roses, Poison, Whitesnake etc. I personally like the song a lot though I must admit the radio stations have killed it by now. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was chosen by Rolling Stone as the 9th greatest
rock song of all time. I suppose influencially, it was up there, virtually inspiring every hard rock band after them, though there are better
Nirvana songs. In my opinion, what the song is
isa very good part punk, part 70s style hard
rock, part Pixies soft-hard effort piece of music that is a lot better than the other
trash that was out at the time.
"Smells Like Teen
Spirit" destroyed the trash music known as hair metal though unfortunetely ended up influencing tons of bands that
sound nothing like
Nirvana, such as nu metal and pop punk shitbands.