Is ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ better as a bubblegum pop song?

By Casey McNerthney, KIRO 7

What happens when Austin’s “Summertime Dream pop” meets Seattle’s grunge? “Teen Sprite.”

A five-member Texas band called Sleep Good auto-tuned “Smells Like Teen Spirit” into a major key. That band posted the remixed anthem on Vimeo, where some commenters called it brilliant and others said it’s something you can’t unhear.

Watch below or here.

Nirvana first played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” almost 26 years ago. It’s the song that would help launch the Seattle band and grunge rock to international audience.

The show, that took place on April 17, 1991, was performed at the OK Hotel near the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Nirvana – composed of vocalist Kurt Cobain, drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic – played with two other bands that Wednesday night: Fits of Depression and Bikini Kill.

The show was only the second in Seattle that the band played with Grohl, who is now the lead singer and guitarist for the Foo Fighters. The other show was at the Off Ramp Café, which is now El Corazón at 109 Eastlake Ave. E.

The performance was recorded by a three-camera film crew, and part of the show footage was later used in the documentary “Hype!” about the Seattle-area grunge scene in the early and mid-1990s.

A recording of the performance has been posted to YouTube. Watch it below.

According to historian Peter Blecha, the backstory of how and why Nirvana did the show is that, reportedly, the band “needed gas money to drive down to L.A. to record [their next album], so they played a last-minute show at the OK Hotel … [and the] band walked away with a few hundred bucks, drove down to L.A.. The rest is history. Read more about their show here.