This month on Twitter, @sotachetan hosts #BrandedInSongs – which is a head-on collision of my personal world of music and my professional world of branding and advertising. The challenge is to simply pick a song with a brand name in its lyrics or title. I added one more criteria to my picks, which is this: the songs themselves must be as iconic as the brands they mention. No filler here.
Nirvana certainly suffers from that spell of commercialization that covers up just how pivotal they were as a cultural phenomenon. They were, in fact, the band that made an outsider music genre palatable for the masses. Their album covers – especially Nevermind – were the stuff of college dorm posters. And the smiley face t-shirt is ubiquitous. With the resurgence of 90’s rock music, it is kinda cool seeing kids latch on to bands like Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. Just this week at my daughter’s concert, a three-piece band (hello Kurt, David and Krist) played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and I felt like I died and went to heaven.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” suffers from being probably the band’s most overplayed song. This has diminished the genius of the song. It rocks – and every element is absolutely iconic, the drums, the bass, and every single guitar hook. But it’s the lyrics that put the song in a whole separate class. This was my soundtrack – or at least a decent portion of it – to my freshman year in college. It was fun, rebellious and angry – and everyone from metalheads to alt rock fans got into it. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the great equalizer.
“With the lights out, it's less dangerous. Here we are now, entertain us. I feel stupid, and contagious. Here we are now, entertain us.”