"Smells like Teen Spirit"

Nirvana
(Sub Pop/DGC, 1991)

Probably the song of the decade, or at least the one that made the '90s as we knew them possible. Inspired by the Pixies and probably by distant radio memories of "More Than a Feeling," polished in the studio by everybody's favorite Garbageman (Butch Vig), and then delivered unto a generation hungry for meaning, direction, excitement, or maybe just a rock-and-roll classic to call their own, "Smells like Teen Spirit" turned the world upside down for a day, a week, a month, a year, if not quite a full decade; and sometimes it still does. "Here we are now, entertain us." Exactly.

-- Matt Ashare