On this day…
August 17 1991, Nirvana shot the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on soundstage 6 at GMT Studios in Culver City, California.
The shoot started at noon and lasted the entire day.
Nirvana handed out flyers at their show on August 15, 1991 at The Roxy in Los Angeles and on August 16th, the day before the shoot, the LA radio station KXLU made the announcement that Nirvana was looking for punk rockers to be in the band’s video shoot the next day.
The response was so overwhelming that hundreds of heartbroken kids were turned away.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” is the opening track and lead single from the band’s second album, Nevermind (1991), released on DGC Records.
The success of this song launched album Nevermind to the top of different charts all over the world in the beginning of 1992, this is considered as the point when grunge entered the mainstream. Also, this song was nicknamed as “anthem for apathetic kids” of Generation X.
As of today, the video has 1.5B views and continues to grow.