Nirvana's music video for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' is a lot like the song. Showcasing elements of darkness, dirtiness and uncontrollable teens. The video won an award for the Best Music Video from the MTV Music Awards.
The clip opens with a kid tapping his foot to the song, which is exactly what i do every time i hear the song begin to play. The clips proceeds in sepia tones highlighting the dirty tone of both the song and the grunge rock band.
One of the main elements of the clip is a group of cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are one of the most recognised symbols of teen spirit ever...
As the song continues the teenage audience in the clip begin to lose their composure, jumping, crowd surfing, bashing guitars and tormenting an older man of authority.
The video ends with an old man cleaning up the mess the teens have made, with not a single kid around. The song and the video critique the attitudes of teenagers during the 90s, by highlighting the teen motto of 'who cares'.
The clip really captures the essence of the song, addressing the carefree nature of teens during the 90s, not caring about anything, apathetic and unaware of the things going on around them.
To see the video go to this address:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXO3OMGKPpw
Also of note, the cheerleaders' uniforms have the Anarchy symbol on them, emphasising the "who cares" attitude and giving the video a political undercurrent (if you're into that kinda thing).
ReplyDeleteThe video was directed by Samuel Bayer, who's done many famous videos, my favourite of which is "Until It Sleeps" by Metallica.
I recently saw the video talked about on a documentary about the Nevermind album. It mentioned that they simply filmed the video with everyday teen extras so that they could get capture the real spirit, and that Bayer was hired deliberately because his test reel looked 'punk' and un-corporate.
ReplyDeleteAlso the extras smashing the set at the end was in fact real because they were angry at having to be sat there all afternoon listening to the song over again. Now that's the spirit.