Smells Like Teen Spirit - Release, Success, and Acclaim

Release, Success, and Acclaim

Issued to radio on August 27, 1991, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was released two weeks later on September 10 as the lead single from Nevermind, the band's major label debut on DGC Records. The song did not initially chart, and it sold well only in regions of the United States with an established fanbase for the group. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was not expected to be a hit, for it was merely intended to be the base-building alternative rock cut from the album. It was anticipated that the follow-up single "Come as You Are" would be the song that could cross over to mainstream formats. However, campus radio and modern rock radio stations picked up on the track, and placed it on heavy rotation. Danny Goldberg of Nirvana's management firm Gold Mountain later admitted that "none of us heard it as a crossover song, but the public heard it and it was instantaneous They heard it on alternative radio, and then they rushed out like lemmings to buy it." The video received its world premiere on MTV's late-night alternative rock program 120 Minutes, and proved so popular that the channel began to air it during its regular daytime rotation. MTV added the video to its "Buzz Bin" selection in October, where it stayed until mid-December. By the end of the year, the song, its accompanying video, and the Nevermind album had become hits. Both the song and Nevermind became a rare cross-format phenomenon, reaching all the major rock radio formats including modern rock, hard rock, album rock, and college radio.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" became a critical and commercial success. The song topped the 1991 Village Voice "Pazz & Jop" and Melody Maker year-end polls, and reached number two on Rolling Stone's list of best singles of the year. The single peaked at number six on the Billboard singles chart the same week that Nevermind reached number one on the albums chart. "Teen Spirit" hit number one on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and has since been certified platinum (one million copies shipped) by the Recording Industry Association of America. However, many American Top 40 stations were reluctant to play the song in regular rotation due to its sound, and restricted it to night-time play. The single was also successful in other countries. In the United Kingdom, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" reached number seven and charted for 184 weeks. The song was nominated for two Grammy Awards: Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal and Best Rock Song. Entertainment Weekly would later name Nirvana's loss to Eric Clapton in the Best Rock Song category as one of the 10 biggest upsets in Grammy history.

In the wake of Nirvana's success, Michael Azerrad wrote in a 1992 Rolling Stone article, "'Smells Like Teen Spirit' is an anthem for (or is it against?) the 'Why Ask Why?' generation. Just don't call Cobain a spokesman for a generation." Nevertheless, the music press awarded the song an "anthem-of-a-generation" status, placing Cobain as a reluctant spokesman for Generation X. The New York Times observed that "'Smells Like Teen Spirit' could be this generation’s version of the Sex Pistols' 1976 single, 'Anarchy in the U.K.', if it weren’t for the bitter irony that pervades its title," and added, "As Nirvana knows only too well, teen spirit is routinely bottled, shrink-wrapped and sold." The band grew uncomfortable with the song's success, and in later concerts often pointedly excluded it from the set list. Prior to the release of the band's 1993 follow-up album In Utero, Novoselic remarked, "If it wasn't for 'Teen Spirit' I don't know how Nevermind would have done," and observed, "There are no 'Teen Spirits' on In Utero." Cobain said in 1994, "I still like playing 'Teen Spirit,' but it's almost an embarrassment to play it Everyone has focused on that song so much."

In the years following Cobain's 1994 death, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has continued to garner critical acclaim. In 2000, MTV and Rolling Stone ranked the song third on their joint list of the 100 best pop songs, trailing only The Beatles' "Yesterday" and The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". The Recording Industry Association of America's 2001 "Songs of the Century" project placed "Teen Spirit" at number 80. In 2002, NME awarded the song the number two spot on its list of "100 Greatest Singles of All Time", while in 2003 VH1 placed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" number one on its list of "100 Greatest Songs of the Past 25 Years". The song came third in a Q poll that same year. Rolling Stone ranked "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ninth in its 2004 list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and described its impact as "A shock wave of big-amp purity, wiped the lingering jive of the Eighties off the pop map overnight." In the 2006 VH1 UK poll The Nation's Favourite Lyric, the line "I feel stupid and contagious/Here we are now, entertain us" was ranked as the third-favorite song lyric among over 13,000 voters. In 2009 the song was voted number one on Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in Australia. In contrast, Time magazine proposed in its entry for Nevermind on "The All-TIME 100 Albums" from 2006 that "'Smells Like Teen Spirit' may be the album's worst song.".

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was re-released as a limited edition 7-inch vinyl single in December 2011. In an attempt to emulate a successful 2009 Facebook campaign to promote Rage Against the Machine's song "Killing in the Name", a similar online campaign has been launched to promote the Nirvana single to 2011 Christmas number one in the UK Singles Chart in protest at the dealings of The X Factor television series with the children's charity Rhythmix. A similar campaign was also launched in Ireland to get the track to 2011 Christmas number one in the Irish Singles Chart. The campaign resulted in the song reaching number 11 on the UK Singles Chart, with 30,000 copies sold.