I’ve had more than a few people tell me they considered Nirvana‘s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as the “LOUIE LOUIE of the 90’s.” Both songs use a catchy 3-chord riff, and became an iconic Northwest musical export. As Dick Peterson of the Kingsmen pointed out in his new LOUIE LOUIE book, the Kingsmen got their band name from an after-shave lotion, and Nirvana came up with the title of their catchy song from a deodorant. It wasn’t the first time that toiletry items took a prominent role in the LOUIE universe, and it probably won’t be the last.
Thanks to a somewhat random browsing of the highly entertaining Neatorama blog, I stumbled upon a very cool video clip of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain peforming “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
If you don’t see the embedded video clip, click here.
I have no problem with the Nirvana song being compared to LL. I’ve got a big problem with people insisting Nirvana was the group that spoke for my generation. They got lucky, but their songs are no more important than Lennon.McCartney, Dylan, Paul Simon, etc. They are however, much louder.