Spotify Gives Nirvana Recognition Plaque For 1 Billion Streams Of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Spotify, the streaming music company, yesterday awarded the plaque of recognition for one billion reproductions to the band Nirvana, for their song “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. This, as published by the band itself through its social networks.

Accompanied by the message “So this happened a while ago…” (so this happened a while ago), Nirvana released a photograph of the recognition plaque awarded by Spotify. In this way, the band enters the so-called “billion club” of the streaming company, which includes artists such as BTS, Ed Sheeran and Ariana Grande.

In recent weeks, the band has seen a significant increase in streaming views, particularly of the song “Something In The Way,” part of the soundtrack of the movie “The Batman” released last month.

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“Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the first single from Nirvana’s second album, never mind. The single was published on September 10, 1991 and became a worldwide success over the months, reaching number 1 in the US, France, Norway, Germany, Spain among other countries.

Last year, during the commemoration events for the thirty years of the song’s release, Dave Grohlformer drummer of the band, recalled that the subject came up during a rehearsal.

“We were children. I think I was 21 when we wrote that song. It was during a rehearsal that we did in a space that was a converted barn, and we just wanted to go in and work,” she stated in an interview on USAToday.

More than twenty years earlier, in 1994, Nirvana’s frontman and vocalist, Kurt Cobaindeclared to the magazine “Rolling Stones” that the subject “did not like him so much”.

“Everyone has been very focused on that song […] The reason it gets such a big reaction is that people have seen it on MTV a million times. But I think there are so many other songs that I’ve written that are just as good, if not better, than that song, like Drain You,” he claimed at the time.

On the meaning of the lyrics of the song, Cobain also spoke in many interviews. While some fans and critics attributed a cryptic and profound symbology to it, the lead singer of the Seattle band told mtv that it was only made of “pieces of poetry and garbage”.

“I realize that people expect a more thematic angle with our music. […] But, what I did was put in bits of poetry and just crap and stuff that I loved back then. And a lot of times I write lyrics only at the last minute because I’m so lazy. So, I don’t understand why people try to find some meaning for it,” he said.

About the title of the song, it would translate as “smells like teenage spirit” and, according to the documentary “Seven Ages of Rock” 2007, Cobain took the name after Kathleen Hannapunk band singer Bikini Kill and girlfriend of drummer Dave Grohl at the time, spray-painted “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Cobain thought it was a good name for the song, although he didn’t know at the time that she was referring to deodorant and was trying to say that he smelled like an immature puberty.