17 SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT NIRVANA

GPunk angst in a radio-rock disguise defines an era

earing up to record Nevermind, Kurt picked a rig of a MESA/ Boogie Studio Preamp, a solid-state Crown Power Base 2 power amp, and a wall of Marshall cabinets. It was the humble Boss DS-1 Distortion, though, that Kurt considered the core of his sound. The moment he stomps on it, eight seconds into Teen Spirit, encapsulates Nirvina’s whiplash dynamics and their ability to summon a tornado. The sudden volume shifts came via the Pixies, but the riff has been called More Than A Feeling for alienated Gen X-ers. The chords are different, but Nirvana’s and Boston’s biggest hits both use progressions with four chords and similar rhythmic accents. Where /More Than a Feeling/ is pure feelgood, Teen Spirit radiates teenage

Bb5-ab5-db5) frustration. Kurt’s chord choices (F5- are standard, all coming from the key of F minor, but there weren’t a lot of pre-nirvana rock songs to feature those chords in that order. More importantly, he employs the guitarist’s trick of briefly strumming the open strings to smooth the transition between chords. That’s normally unremarkable because in typical guitar keys like E or A minor all the notes are in tune.

Because Teen Spirit is in F minor, those notes are completely discordant, adding a blast of conflict to every bar. Cobain took three guitars into the studio to make Nevermind: a Jaguar, a Mustang, and a Strat, all modified with humbuckers. He usually chose the Strat for contemporary live performances of this song, so that’s the best guess at what he used to record it. Kurt’s vision for Nevermind was a raw, punky album and he later described the final production as “far too slick”. To achieve the massive tones on record, producer Butch Vig sometimes tricked Cobain into double-tracking parts by pretending earlier takes were lost or not good enough. Nirvana reportedly chose mix engineer Andy Wallace in part because his name appeared bottom of the record company’s suggested list. The band assumed this meant he was less corporate than the others, but it was Wallace’s earthshaking sonics that made Teen Spirit a radio smash. Kurt moaned that the result was closer to Mötley Crüe than punk rock. While rock history records that Nirvana slayed hair metal, in 1991 Teen Spirit sat comfortably on MTV alongside the Crüe’s current single Primal Scream. Kurt may have felt conflicted, but he had undoubtedly created the defining guitar riff of the 90s.

KURT MAY HAVE FELT CONFLICTED ABOUT TEENSPIRIT, BUT HE HAD UNDOUBTEDLY CREATED THE DEFINING RIFF OF THE 90S...