Smells Like Teen Spirit

Cobain’s quote impacted a variety of people, from outcasts and misfits, to accepted and popular people. His quote allowed people to be able to except

Kurt Cobain had a troubled youth, especially in his adolescent years. Born Kurt Donald Cobain on February 20, 1967, in Aberdeen Washington. “Growing up in a small logging town, Cobain showed an interest in art and music, he excelled in drawing and he enjoyed playing with a kiddie drum set” (Kurt Cobain’s Biography). Starting in kindergarten his parents and teachers could tell that Kurt had excelled far more in arts and music rather than anything else. Cobain learned to play the piano by himself, additionally he enjoyed spending his time learning how to play the drums with the kiddie drum

The impact music had on teenagers was significant. Teenager’s developed a new style of music called Rock ‘n’ Roll, because the lyrics reflected and embraced their lives. High school sweethearts, fast-cars, and rebellion against authority resembled what teenagers craved the most. Parents disliked the message and influence behind the lyrics of Rock ‘n’ Roll, because they believed it caused juvenile delinquency. Parents hated the sexuality of the songs, the performers,

Gay musicians felt this John song was a message to Brian Epstein, featuring a Dylan influenced folk rock sound. It is...

From the day we’re in our mother's stomachs, to the day we die, we have always been listening to music. For me, listening to music all my life helped me develop a passion for it. When I was around the age of 6 my dad introduced me into the world of Rock. The very first band I remember listening to was System of a Down and ever since then, I fell in love with rock music and all its possible variations; for a long time this was all I listened to. It wasn’t until high school that I started listening to all sorts of genres and realized that I wanted to have a career in the music industry. That's when I learned about producing music.

The extraordinary performances, recording, and lyrics of James Marshall Hendrix have made him impossible to forget. This American rock music guitarist made a legendary mark not only in the history of rock 'n' roll but also on the pop culture as a whole (Ross 32). With unique techniques never seen before and blatant sex-related performances on stage, he became one of the most influential music figures of the 60s (Kamin).

The grunge music of the 90’s might be a product of the times and changing of opinions, it still has a strong presence and legacy in the modern age. Music critics can argue about whether grunge music’s effects on rock music were positive or negative but the main point is that it did affect the music, fashion, and cultural world in a huge way. The grunge movement affected not only the music world and but the overall society of the 90’s and every decade that followed. Grunge emerged from Seattle in the late 1980s. This genre of rock and roll helped create a bridge between mainstream 1980s heavy metal–hard rock and post-punk alternative rock. Eventually, grunge faded—partly because of the death in 1994 of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who had become a generational spokesman. Some people say that “grunge music ruined rock and roll” when in reality it gave way to new forms of the genre and helped bring harder rock songs to the mainstream audiences of the time.

When creating music, there must be something that appeals to the audience. Music in this age must now be more original than ever. New genres of music are being born at a rapid pace, which makes being original a difficult task. “Re-Tuning the Music Industry—Can They Re-Attain Business Resonance?” by Sudip Bhattacharjee, et al, writers for Communication of the ACM, makes the following statement: “Each song is unique. Artists strive to be distinctive and constantly adapt and innovate their offering. Consequently, music consumers face non-trivial search and evaluation tasks prior to each music purchase.” (Bhattacharjee 136). The willingness for consumers to buy music, whether it is an album or just one single song, increases when the music is something they have never heard of before. A band such as Nirvana was able to do just that. In the

It was messy, careless, and loud. Thankfully, all of the rebellious teens learned to love it. With this, Nirvana made their most famous album, Nevermind. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” made it big, and is still considered a grunge anthem. By this time, grunge and underground rock was huge. People began wearing the ripped jeans and tattered flannels with Doctor Martins and chokers. Cobain was still doing a significant amount of drugs. He was addicted to heroin and often performed and/or interviewed high. In fact, he showed up to his last show (Live at Reading 1992) in a hospital gown and wheelchair as a joke because of the comments he was getting on his drug addiction. This show went down in rock history as one of the most legendary shows. “We’d rehearsed once, the night before, and it wasn’t good,” (Goodman, Dave Grohl on Nirvana’s “Disastrous” Reading Gig) said Grohl in a later interview. The show was a sensory overload with lights, a random person dancing on the stage, and the stage presence only true performers can accomplish for almost two hours straight. Kurt Cobain is the revolutionary of grunge music because he made grunge music and underground rock more prominent in the music scene, defined a generation with his songwriting alone,

One band some may know that was a popular grunge band in the 90’s was Nirvana, which consisted of lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain, drummer Dave Grohl, and bassist Krist Novoselic. This band was most popular for their hit album “Nevermind”. “One of their most popular songs on this album, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, has been and always will be a rebellion anthem for adolescents, empowering them. This message and it’s meaning make this one of the most popular songs by this band to date.”

Questioning the correlation of commercial success and true artistry began in the light of mainstream music. Mainstream music has been given a negative connotation due to the supposed lack of originality of the artists. Repetitive chord progressions and meaningless lyrics compose the majority of “mainstream music,” making each song sound like the next . Despite these patterns in music, artists still ventured outside of what was societally normal and created music that was unheard of. Despite the potential risks in being an individual in the music industry, several groups achieved high success and maintain the popularity in the present. Creativity and commercial success can definitely exist alongside one another, and this paper will prove that through the music of the Beatles, the performance styles of David Bowie, and the grunge movement in Seattle which was fueled by Nirvana.

Music has more of an influence on the people in the twenty-first century than it ever has before. Teens, especially, are surrounded by some sort of it in everything they are around or do. Many disagree on how music impacts one’s mental state and behavior; however, all agree that the impact depends on how the listener feels before and how they allow it to influence them.

The fact that replicating a seventeen-years-old song can still become a hit in 2017, demonstrates that there is a pre-designed pattern for popular music in which changing a few characteristics to make a new songs sound “unique” can still result in success. For this reason, Adorno argues that the music industry produces music in an “industrial” way--popular music is centralized in its pattern and modifies some characteristics to seem “individualistic.” Though Shape of You and No Scrubs contain different keys, tempo, and of course, lyrics, they both rely on a chord progression of i-ic-VI-VII in a common time (MusicNotes, 1 & FindSongTempo, 1). Shape of you takes advantage that the audience is accustomed to listening to the same pattern and it is modified to fit the current era and thus, result in a significant monetary income.

Nothing is more enjoyable than listening to your favorite song. All over the world, people listen to music on a daily basis. Music plays a major part in a tremendous number of people’s lives. While they are enjoying the music, they do not think about how the song came about. Music is not just the sound you hear or the voices in the background. People do not think about what is behind the scenes of where music comes from. Before the song is completed, someone has to make it happen. In music, there are different careers which are the song writer, the manager, the marketing executive, and the produced. Each of these careers play a huge role in how music is brought to the public.

As a child, Cobain’s main influence was Evel Knievel, and he was determined to be reckless and fearless like his hero. As Cobain grew older, however, his influences became primarily musical, and included Neil Young, nicknamed the “Godfather of Grunge,” the Beatles, and various alternative bands (DeRogatis, para. 8). His major accomplishments were his recordings, as Cobain was known as a lyricist more than a musician, despite his short-lived career.