"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Guitarra Isolada

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Isolated Guitars

With Nevermind's lead single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Nirvana entered the mainstream, popularizing a subgenre of alternative rock called "grunge". Since their debut, Nirvana has sold over 25 million albums in the United States (U.S.) alone, and over 75 million worldwide.

The Fender Mustang Lake Placid Blue guitars played by Kurt Cobain during the filming of the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit", shown at the Seattle Experience Music Project













Apparently Cobain developed a taste for Fender guitars just prior to recording Nevermind. "I like guitars in the Fender style because they have skinny necks," said Cobain in a late 1991 interview. "I've resorted to Japanese-made Fender Stratocasters because they're the most available left-handed guitars." During this period, he also acquired a left-handed '65 Jaguar that had a DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker in the bridge position and a DiMarzio PAF in the neck position in place of the guitar's stock single-coil pickups. These modifications were made before Cobain purchased the guitar. Cobain also bought a left-handed, Lake Placid Blue '69 Fender Competition Mustang around then.

"Kurt had a Mesa/Boogie, but we also used a Fender Bassman a lot and a Vox AC30 on Nevermind," Vig recalls. "I prefer getting the amp to sound distorted instead of using special effects or pedals, which lose body and the fullness of the bottom end."

Still, Vig allowed Cobain to use a few pedals on the album, especially since the guitarist felt that the DS-1 was the main factor in his tone. Cobain also used the Small Clone liberally. "That's making the watery guitar sound you hear on the pre-chorus build-up of `Smells Like Teen Spirit' and also `Come As You Are,'" says Vig. "We used an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz box through a Fender Bassman on `Lithium' to get that thumpier, darker sound."