Nirvana Smells Like Weird Al

I’ve told you all about my first time experiencing Nirvana’s breakthrough hit:

On Sunday, September 29th, 1991, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit premiered on MTV’s 120 Minutes, and I shuddered as I heard and saw what this band represented. For the first time in my life, I heard someone really speaking my language, giving art and voice and music to the fiery core of resistance and agency living inside of me.

Besides the sound and lyrics, there were the visuals. I loved that the video pointed out how ridiculous high school was, and—wouldn’t you know it—I was in high school at the time. A dreamy, surrealist gymnasium surrounds the band as they’re flanked by cheerleaders, in front of a pep rally audience.

Is it "here we are now, entertain us”, as the album sleeve records it, or is it really “here we are, now entertain us”? Either way, kids are expecting everything to be spoon-fed to them. Passive entertainment culture seemed to be at an apex during the late 80s, and here was Kurt Cobain making fun of it all.

This song would eventually be parodied by Weird Al, who was by now the all-time king of parodies:

In the same way that Monty Python questioned the status quo by way of humor during the 1970s, along came Weird Al Yankovic doing something similar during the 80s, but with his own particular style. Some heroes wear capes; Al wore trademark Hawaiian shirts and played the accordion.

Al’s version of Teen Spirit is called Smells Like Nirvana, and you can see the video here if you’ve never watched it:

When Weird Al decided it was time to cover this song, he reached out to Kurt Cobain directly through a mutual connection (Victoria Jackson from SNL). The conversation seems to have gone really well for both parties, with Kurt asking if Al’s song was going to be about food.

When Al told him that the song was going to be about how nobody could understand their lyrics, Kurt reportedly laughed and said that was fine. In fact, he famously quipped that this was the moment when he knew he had “made it.”

It’s hard to bargle nardle zauss with all these marbles in my mouth.

Game recognizes game.

Nirvana’s entire existence revolved around pop culture, but they were also a reaction to mainstream music that purported to be rebellious. Hair metal was dying and grunge—whatever that really meant—was replacing it. The one thing everyone could agree with was that the hair band ship had sailed after Nevermind.

Similarly, Weird Al’s parodies were meta critiques of the industry he was part of. Besides parodies like I Want a New Duck and Another One Rides the Bus, Al wrote dozens of original songs. Here’s Dare to be Stupid, another fantastic critique of consumer culture:

Kurt Cobain’s joy in hearing that Al was going to poke fun of Nirvana’s song tells me that they were both in on the joke, and I love that so much. Both Nirvana and Weird Al encouraged me to continue being myself, and to continue questioning things everyone else just accepted without thinking much.

A big part of the ridiculous nature of celebrity is how serious some celebs take themselves, and both of these titanic influences poked fun at this tendency.