Nirvana‘s signature hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit” has surpassed a huge one billion streams on Spotify, only months before the Seattle band’s game-changing 1991 album Nevermind celebrates its 30th anniversary.
The iconic track appeared on Nirvana’s second album and helped usher in a new wave of grunge and alternative rock dominance.
It now joins more than 150 tracks that make up Spotify’s Billions Club, which is largely comprised of landmark hits such as Queen‘s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Another One Bites The Dust” and “Don’t Stop Me Now”.
They’re closely followed by the likes of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, with roughly 975 million plays) and AC/DC’s “Back In Black”, which boasts more than 800 million plays.
The track’s impressive Spotify ranking comes after the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video scored over a billion views on YouTube in 2019.
Earlier this month, Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic teased a potential reissue of Nevermind to celebrate its 30th anniversary later this year.
Novoselic was speaking alongside drummer Dave Grohl in a new interview with Uncut as part of their look back at Nevermind, which will celebrate 30 years in September.
“We’re going to have the 30-year Nevermind, but we’re still putting it together,” Novoselic teased of the forthcoming reissue, which he hinted will feature rare material. “It’s kind of late! What’s on it? You’ll see, I don’t want to spoil the surprise!”
The bassist added: “The anniversary is really for the fans and what the album means to them. If it helps people make some sense of the world, that’s great. You have to figure it out for yourself, though.”
In the same interview, Grohl reflected on how he and his Nirvana bandmates didn’t expect Nevermind to become such a roaring success following its release.
We would go, ‘What? What are you talking about?’” the drummer continued. “Donita [Sparks] from L7 came by and said we were going to be f_king huge. My old friend Barrett Jones, who I had grown up with in Virginia, who was a musician and a producer himself, heard “Lithium” and said we were going to be f_king huge. He thought “Lithium” should be the first single.
“Everyone had these lofty opinions and I thought, ‘Well, it’s nice of you to say so, but there is no f_king way that is ever going to happen.’”
Grohl also recently revealed that the surviving members of Nirvana still regularly meet up and jam together, which has led to some “really cool” recording sessions.