![]() "And then they went into a bridge, which seemed to be leading to something. ![]() "It started off with that chord progression, and it went into a really beautiful, almost dreamy verse," Poneman says. Jonathan Poneman, co-founder of Sub Pop Records, was there. ![]() Nirvana performed a version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in front of a small crowd at the OK Hotel in Seattle. American punk, while still vital, wasn't commercially viable. Heavy metal was loud, and the so-called alternative bands from England cranked out such earnest tunes that critics called the style New Romantic music. I was saying 'Man, this is so good, everyone should be into this music but they’re not going to be, it’s not going to get played because it’s too good.' About a week later I realised how wrong I was.At that time, rock subgenres were pretty one-dimensional. "My band Kyuss was on tour," recalled Queens Of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, "and I remember seeing the video on MTV at 3am in a hotel room. in the US Two weeks later, the video was moved into the channel's 'Buzz Bin' slot, intended to showcase new talent. On September 30, 1991, less than a week after the release of Nevermind, MTV introduced the Smells Like Teen Spirit video as a 'World Premiere' on its flagship 'alternative' show 120 Minutes. But here, at the video's violent, riotous denouement, the mischievous expression on his handsome face offered an invitation to the dance, his eyes screaming 'JOIN US!'. Throughout the video Cobain had come across as every inch the brooding, agitated misfit, his fine features masked by his lank blonde hair. Against the director's wishes, he inserted a closing sequence of his own face leering into the camera in close-up. In the edit suite, Cobain reasserted his independence by changing the ending of Bayer's cut of the video. And that riot became the last minute of the video." I'm like, 'Okay, you guy want to destroy the set? Go, destroy the set.' And the kids come down off the bleachers, and it's under my lighting, and I'm like, Oh my God, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! I was like, God is on my side. "The band was egging them on because they didn't like making the video either," Bayer told Rolling Stone in 2010. At the end of the evening, sensing that his mounting irritation was being mirrored among Nirvana fans watching the shoot, Cobain encouraged the extras to come down from the bleachers to thrash around his band as if they were at a real punk rock show. Kurt Cobain had made no secret of his desire to direct the video himself, and as he swallowed mouthfuls of Jim Beam whiskey between takes, his mood got uglier, his frustration more tangible. So it was pretty hilarious actually, seeing this man trying to control these children who just wanted to destroy."Īs the shoot dragged on, tensions on the soundstage mounted. When they got to the first chorus, the crowd was completely out of control, and the director was screaming at the top of his lungs for everyone to fucking calm down and be cool, or they'll get kicked out. Just sit in your seats and tap your foot and look, you know, distraught, whatever.' And then by the end of the song, they're supposed to be tearing the place to shreds. "The director had a loud bullhorn thing," Grohl recalled to Newsweek in 1999, "and he was trying to explain the concept to the crowd, and saying, 'Okay now, in the first verse you're supposed to look bored and complacent and unhappy.
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