The early 90s, when American guitar bands discovered irony. And then post-irony, whatever that means. They mixed this with a self worth of authenticity and knowing cool.
The best and most obvious example of this is when Nirvana ‘performed’ their breakthrough hit Smells Like Teen Spirit on Top of the Pops.
Maybe the band were annoyed that they were only allowed to perform the vocal live so they thought they would properly take the piss. Jumping about with no relation to the music and Kurt Cobain’s comedy vocal. Its all done with a smugness of ‘this is so beneath us.’ and ‘we don’t even like this hit song anyway.’
Now I really like Nirvana but I can’t stand this performance. Not at the time and twenty two years on it looks even worse.
Its not like they had to go on the show. It wasn’t like someone was holding a shotgun to Kurt Cobain’s mouth. Oh bad choice of words.
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