{"id":315956,"date":"2025-11-29T07:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T07:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/315956\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T07:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T07:02:10","slug":"why-nirvanas-1991-top-of-the-pops-performance-sounded-so-different-and-who-kurt-cobain-was-actually-imitating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/315956\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Nirvana\u2019s 1991 Top of the Pops Performance Sounded so Different (And Who Kurt Cobain Was Actually Imitating)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The weekly BBC program Top of the Pops showcased popular talent from 1964 until 2006, and was known for its strict control over production. Artists often lip-synched through their biggest hits in an effort to curb unwanted language or behavior on the air. <\/p>\n

Nirvana was scheduled to perform on the show in November 1991, but the rising Seattle grunge stars didn\u2019t appreciate the miming rules. For all that they were becoming commercially successful<\/a> after the release of Nevermind, the band still held fast to the anti-capitalist ideals of grunge. Some network executives telling them to fake their performance must have felt like an insult. <\/p>\n

Eventually, the producers agreed to let Kurt Cobain sing live, but only over a backing track. The instrumentals would be played from the studio recording. This was a strategy Top of the Pops had used with other artists in order to keep them happy while still maintaining some form of control. However, Cobain wasn\u2019t all that pleased, and he later said the band was \u201cuncomfortable\u201d with the rules. But the BBC allowed him to perform on their show, and Kurt Cobain was going to make it everyone\u2019s problem.<\/p>\n

How Nirvana Intentionally \u2018Sabotaged\u2019 Their \u2018Top of the Pops\u2019 Performance<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

Nirvana performed their biggest hit, \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit,\u201d on the program, but the energy was immediately way off. Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl made it abundantly clear that they were performing over a backing track. They barely put in the effort to make it look like they were actually using their instruments. <\/p>\n

Cobain strums robotically at his guitar before ceasing the charade altogether, while Grohl bangs away at the drums haphazardly. Meanwhile, Novoselic wildly swings his bass guitar around his head and behind his back. The crowd of mostly teenagers is jumping around excitedly anyway. They look for all the world like they\u2019re at a real Nirvana gig. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s when Cobain starts singing that things really go downhill. His vocals go into a strange lower range, turning his annunciation into a sort of lazy drawl. Later, Cobain admitted he was imitating The Smiths frontman Morrissey, though many reports claimed he had a cold. In the 2021 BBC documentary When Nirvana Came To Britain<\/a>, Grohl said that \u201c[Top of the Pops] were just asking for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the Chaos, This Became a Memorable \u2018Top of the Pops\u2019 Moment<\/p>\n

Nirvana already felt that they didn\u2019t belong on Top of the Pops. \u201cThat was reserved for pop bands \u2013 we don\u2019t belong there,\u201d said Grohl. Asking them to mime their performance added insult to injury. At one point, Cobain puts the microphone in his mouth, smothering the only live aspect of the song.<\/p>\n

In hindsight, many U.K. fans who witnessed the offbeat performance actually thought it was pretty cool. But, for the BBC, Top of the Pops, and Nirvana\u2019s U.K. press, this was a disaster. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe sang in this ridiculous voice, we were all there with our mouths held open going \u2018what the hell is this?\u2019\u201d said Alex Weston, the band\u2019s U.K. tour promoter, to the BBC. \u201cThis was their big, big moment\u2014and he completely sabotaged it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the odd performance did a bit of the opposite for Nirvana. It earned them new U.K. fans and cemented them in Top of the Pops legend. The chaotic and mythical performance remains one of the program\u2019s most memorable.<\/p>\n

Photo by Goedefroit Music\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The weekly BBC program Top of the Pops showcased popular talent from 1964 until 2006, and was known…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,8151,136,8153,8154,178526],"class_list":{"0":"post-315956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-grunge","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-nirvana","14":"tag-noisey","15":"tag-top-of-the-pops"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}