1991 Rock Anthem Ranked 'Greatest Song of the 90s' Wasn't Supposed to Be a Hit

When most people think of the band Nirvana, the first song that probably comes to mind is the band’s smash hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the lead single off of their best-selling album Nevermind. However, when the song was written, Dave Grohl didn’t exactly expect it to be the hit that it turned out to be.

During a recent interview, Grohl admitted that he “really didn’t think much” of the song when they first wrote it, as he thought some other songs on the record were better. Now, it’s gone down as one of the greatest songs of all time.

‘The song that blew up the world’

Nirvana released “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as their lead single for their album Nevermind, and it did not take time for it to explode in popularity.

The single quickly became a massive commercial success, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending weeks in heavy rotation on MTV. The iconic music video cemented its status as a cultural phenomenon, and the track’s success propelled Nevermind to multi-platinum status, proving that alternative rock could also dominate commercial radio.

The song has left quite a legacy, as it was even named the best song of the 1990s by Rolling Stone.

“The song that blew up the world. The song that defied all rules about how music worked and how much raw emotion you could cram into four cheap chords and a crummy guitar solo. The song that kicked the future in the teeth. The song that shattered all your complacency about settling for the politics of the inevitable. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was Kurt Cobain’s challenge to the audience – and after all these years, the challenge still stands,” Rolling Stone wrote of the iconic grunge anthem.

However, Grohl admits that he never saw that sort of success coming.

‘The audience went nuts’

While “Smells Like Teen Spirit” has gone down as one of the greatest rock songs of all time, Grohl initially had no idea it would be so successful. In a recent interview with Mojo, he admitted that he thought it was just another one of the band’s jams.

“I didn’t really think much of ‘Teen Spirit’ at first,” Grohl said. “I thought it was just another one of the jams that we were doing… But ‘Teen Spirit’ was one we kept coming back to because the simple guitar lines were so memorable.”

However, that changed when they played the song live for the first time and “the audience went nuts.”

“We played a show in Seattle to get gas money to go down to Los Angeles to record the record. We set it up at the last minute; it was an afternoon gig and we played that song for the first time, and the audience went nuts. I don’t know if it was the rhythm or the melody, but people got caught on it pretty quick,” Grohl said.

Grohl said he thought other songs were going to be the hits from that album over “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“I thought ‘In Bloom’ was going to be the smash hit off the record, or ‘Lithium.’ I thought ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was just another album cut,” Grohl said. “It soon became pretty clear that it would be the special song on the record. But, of course, at that point we didn’t think anything was going to happen with the record.”

Clearly, Grohl was wrong, and the song has gone on to be one of the most iconic and influential songs in rock history.

source https://www.mensjournal.com/news/1991-rock-anthem-ranked-greatest-song-of-the-90s-wasnt-supposed-to-be-a-hit