Music Video
The music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the first for director Samuel Bayer. 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." The video was based on the concept of a school concert which ends in anarchy and riot. Inspiration was taken from Jonathan Kaplan's 1979 movie Over the Edge, as well as the Ramones' film Rock 'n' Roll High School. Filmed on a soundstage in Culver City, the video featured the band playing at a pep rally in a high school gym to an audience of apathetic students on bleachers, and cheerleaders wearing black dresses with the Circle-A anarchist symbol. The video ends with the assembled students destroying the set and the band's gear. 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. Cobain disliked Bayer's final edit and personally oversaw a re-edit of the video that resulted in the version finally aired. One of Cobain's major additions was the next-to-last shot of the video, which was a close-up of his own face after it had been obscured for most of the video. Bayer noted that unlike subsequent artists he worked with, Cobain did not care about vanity, rather that "the video had something that was truly about what they were about." The video had an estimated budget between $30,000 and $50,000.
Like the song itself, the music video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was well received by critics. Rolling Stone writer David Fricke described the video as looking like "the greatest gig you could ever imagine." 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 subsequent years Amy Finnerty, formerly of MTV's Programming department, claimed the video "changed the entire look of MTV" by giving them "a whole new generation to sell to." VH1 placed the debut of the "Teen Spirit" video at number eighteen on its list of "100 Greatest Rock & Roll Moments on TV", noting that "the video in alternative rock as a commercial and pop culture force." In 2001, VH1 ranked the video fourth on its "100 Greatest Videos" list. The video has been parodied at least twice: in "Weird Al" Yankovic's music video for "Smells Like Nirvana" and in Bob Sinclar's 2006 music video for "Rock This Party (Everybody Dance Now)".
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Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“Music, ho, music such as charmeth sleep!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)