Remembering when Kurt Cobain sang ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in the style of Morrissey, 1991

Remembering when Kurt Cobain sang "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the style of Morrissey, 1991 - Far Out Magazine
LEE THOMAS-MASON
NOVEMBER 11, 2017

Excerpt:

In a biography about Kurt Cobain written by Charles Cross, titled Heavier than Heaven, the journalist confirmed Cobain’s ploy”

“Kurt hatched a plan with Novoselic and Grohl to make a mockery of their performance. As the backing track played, Kurt sang the vocals in a slowed-down, almost Vegas-like lounge version; he was attempting, he later claimed, to sound like Morrissey.”

 
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If he was still alive he and Courtney could do a reality show/sitcom called "That Darn Kurt!"
 
Watch the movie last days by steven van zant. It will change your mind on kurt cobain.
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Watch the movie last days by steven van zant. It will change your mind on kurt cobain.

Steven Van Zant is often known as "Gus Van Sant". :confused:
Since you are replying to Old Matthew, who stated that Albert Cobain is an idiot... Last Days is quite fictional, however it's simply a movie that purposefully shows a Cobain-like character who is completely stupefied by drugs and is almost unable to talk, most of the time also unable to walk or perform any action.
I guess that the idea of Van Sant was the challenge of filming a movie in which the main character is almost unable to articulate words, almost unable to perform simple actions and almost unable to have any kind of interaction with any of the other characters. It's a fiction loosely based on Frank Cobain, but if that's the redeeming reference, then he is clearly portrayed as an idiot.

Other than that, he may have stated that he wanted to make a mockery of his performance by imitating the singing style of Morrissey... but it doesn't even sound like a parody of Morrissey.
 
í assume that it would sound like the perfect Morrissey parody if you were on the finest heroin Geffen could buy :straightface:

.
 
Everyone was so damned greasy and edgy back then. Honestly I can nearly smell the cigarettes, BO, and unwashed hair. He looks like he'd have at least one item of that outfit that got peed on by the cat, and yet he wore it anyway. Still, it's kind of a funny way to mess with TOTP.
 
a Nice pop history moment. A very “we just did he Ed Sullivan show” moment with them promoting there hit song on a pop tv show and keepin there cred at the same time. They were great at straddling that line which amusingly enough reflects the sentiment of the song itself
 
I guess I can kind of hear the parody of Morrissey ... probably would not have come to that conclusion without knowing it ahead of time.
 
Anonymous said:
As the backing track played, Kurt sang the vocals in a slowed-down, almost Vegas-like lounge version; he was attempting, he later claimed, to sound like Morrissey.

He's clearly singing to an instrumental version of the single. How can that be "slowed down". It's scandalous the sorts of idiots they get to write books.
 
I don't know if I'd go that far. He was smarter than his peers...which, admittedly, isn't saying much. Was he overrated? Yes. But who isn't?

He loved Suede and Teenage Fanclub. I think that says a great deal.

Also a fan of joy division I believe
 
To be fair in Montage of Heck he comes across as a bit of a f***ing idiot. He was off his face all the way through, like in that video.
Is that not just emblematic of the times, though? It was like a low calorie punk-lite sort of movement around here (I live not too far away from the places he grew up and am familiar with many of the cities/locations) and the prevailing attitude was a bit of the f*** you from punk, an apathy that was nearly completely affected and completely contrary to a flailing, public persona of social awareness and a nihilism that led many (but not most) to try harder drugs than were sensible.

We were coming off of the 80's, and entering into an era where gay rights was a huge issue in the media, yet a guy didn't want to seen as "a fag" by being vulnerable or sensitive, so they would dumb themselves down in public and pursue artistic avenues in private. Other people, and I'd like to include myself, didn't care, and gravitated toward music like Morrissey, The Cure, New Order, etc. But we took hell for it constantly. The Pacific NW wasn't always Portlandia and cool Seattle. There was a lot of backward thinking in the mainstream and it showed.

Not to go terribly off topic or read into it too much, but I just grew up seeing bands like Mudhoney, or The Melvins for 5 bucks as the whole grunge thing was taking off.
 
Back in the 90s the whole town of Aberdeen was on drugs. Probably still is.
 
This passed me by at the time..... think the band have a big future :thumb:

On a serious note, throw in a few chugging chords and it could be the next b-side.
 
Is that not just emblematic of the times, though? It was like a low calorie punk-lite sort of movement around here (I live not too far away from the places he grew up and am familiar with many of the cities/locations) and the prevailing attitude was a bit of the f*** you from punk, an apathy that was nearly completely affected and completely contrary to a flailing, public persona of social awareness and a nihilism that led many (but not most) to try harder drugs than were sensible.

We were coming off of the 80's, and entering into an era where gay rights was a huge issue in the media, yet a guy didn't want to seen as "a fag" by being vulnerable or sensitive, so they would dumb themselves down in public and pursue artistic avenues in private. Other people, and I'd like to include myself, didn't care, and gravitated toward music like Morrissey, The Cure, New Order, etc. But we took hell for it constantly. The Pacific NW wasn't always Portlandia and cool Seattle. There was a lot of backward thinking in the mainstream and it showed.

Not to go terribly off topic or read into it too much, but I just grew up seeing bands like Mudhoney, or The Melvins for 5 bucks as the whole grunge thing was taking off.

Interesting, the common drugs here were E's and speed really, turns you into a different kind of idiot. I only met one person on heroin and he was pretty much the most boring person I ever met, his only subject matter for five hours was 'the brown'. Drugs are fun to take but to other people you tend to come across as a f***ing idiot when you're on 'em.
 
I can’t help but like Kurt. I always felt at the time that he’d done the impression affectionately. It shows the massive cultural reach of Morrissey at a time when he could have been redundant. This is still old news though...
 

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