“Aren’t positive at all”: The song Kurt Cobain thought had a bad impact on the world
Any artist is going to want to use their craft to help change the world for the better. Even if they manage to make the times course correct by only an inch during their lifetime, they would have done their job in making an impact on the world for the better. Although Kurt Cobain never claimed to want to be one of the biggest bands in the world, he admitted that one of Nirvana’s classics actively hurt rock and roll as a result.
Then again, rock and roll needed to get scarred a little bit by the time that Nirvana hit the big time. The entire concept of the genre had become neutered thanks to every single big name on MTV donning massive haircuts and looking like they had been drafted from a modelling agency, so seeing a band in Doc Martens and flannel shirts was a breath of fresh air compared to the neon-coloured sounds of the 1980s.
And the best part about it was that Nirvana managed to sound angry. The whole concept of rage-filled music seemed to exist only on the fringes of the mainstream, like with Metallica and Nine Inch Nails, but the minute that Cobain opened his mouth, people found it impossible to sing along and start moving whenever tracks like ‘In Bloom’ or ‘Come As You Are’ came on the radio.
Outside of their pop hits, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ belonged in a class unto itself. The entire premise of the song was about getting tired of seeing all of the lacklustre bands on MTV, and from the minute that Cobain said that he wanted to be entertained beyond the surface level, there wasn’t a single member of the audience who didn’t feel like that whenever they saw the video.
And for the first time, Cobain seemed immensely proud of his lyrics. He had developed a reputation for writing everything down at the last minute and making utter nonsense on every song, but Krist Novoselic remembered the frontman asking him to read over the lyrics so he truly understood what the song was about before playing anything. Once it became the biggest anthem in rock history, though, Cobain felt that what he said was actively harmful to the world.
When talking about the influence of the tune, Cobain remembered feeling a bit jaded about it becoming such a big hit, saying, “I got caught up in pointing the finger at this generation. The results aren’t very positive at all. All it does is alienate people and make them feel the same feeling you get from an evil stepdad. I don’t mean to do that because I know that throughout the 1980s, my generation was fucking helpless.”
Despite the message still resonating today, it’s important to see the song through Cobain’s eyes. Here was a tune about getting all of the angst and aggression off his chest about the state of rock and roll, but when it suddenly became one of the next big trends of the genre, the tune went from being a massive underground song to the kind of track that shared the same screentime with artists like Guns N’ Roses and Warrant.
Still, Cobain may not have known what he had on his hands when he wrote it in the first place. There was still some of that brow-beating that he had talked about, but the public only reacts when they hear something genuine, and from the minute that it starts, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is still as intimidating as a lion’s roar.
