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Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Smells Like Christmas Spirit, Part 1
00:29:35
This month, Chris Molanphy examines the chart dynamics that not only ushered in the grunge era but also invented a new music sales strategy, the post-Christmas album
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You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Hey there Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is Part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It's just $35 for the first year and it supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go slate.com hitparadeplus you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge, our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hitparadeplus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number one Series on today's show. Happy holidays from all of us at Hit Parade. In this pandemic plagued holiday, I hope you are finding ways to celebrate with your bubble of loved ones. Even in 2020, this holiday can still be about togetherness. Of course, given what a garbage fire of a year this has been, perhaps it's more apropos to celebrate 1991 style, when this was the way thousands of American teenagers were saying Merry Christmas. Nirvana's landmark 1991 album, Nevermind might not sound like a holiday album, and this is not going to be one of those conversations where I try to convince you Nevermind is secretly a Christmas album the way some folks insist Die Hard is a Christmas movie. But speaking just for myself, 29 years later, I still think of the 1991 holiday season when I think of Nirvana's breakthrough. It wasn't just because I was home from college and playing the album to death that December. It's because of what happened less than a week after New Year's Day. 1992. The hottest new rock band in the country right now, Nirvana. The latest export from the thriving Seattle music scene, NIRVANA and their second album, Nevermind, becoming number one just after Christmas 1991, Nevermind did the improbable. It topped the Billboard 200 album chart. What made it especially unlikely was the music biz megastar that this new band knocked off the perch.
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Thinking about my baby, it don't matter if you're black or white.
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Michael Jackson and his blockbuster album Dangerous in The three decades since this upset, much has been made of its David and Goliath qualities. But I rarely hear anyone talk about the holiday factor in Nirvana's chart feat. There's a subtle way that Christmas and the more accurate billboard charts of 1991 and 92 made Nevermind's triumph possible. Having more accurate data gave the music business a window into which discs sold best during the holidays. It even upended old ideas about how late in the year was too late to release a new album. Musicians from the worlds of country and rock took advantage of this information. But by the end of the 90s, the acts taking the most advantage of the new Christmas sales patterns were from the world of rap. By the dawn of the 21st century, the holiday season had effectively been divided into pre Christmas and post Christmas. There were the albums you bought for others. And the ones you bought for yourself. And when music went digital in the new millennium, Post Christmas not only created improbable hit albums, but some even more improbable hit songs. The December gambit even set the stage for a new way of releasing albums in the digital era, a tactic we now call pulling a Beyonce. Today on Hit Parade, we will talk about how the holiday season shapes the way we consume music, and not just Christmas music. The final weeks of the year have always been important to the recording industry, but while the albums that have wound up under the tree are often fairly predictable, the hits that come out of Christmas are not always so merry. And that's where your hit parade marches today. The week Nirvana's Nevermind first topped the Billboard 200 album chart and its lead single, Smells Like Teen Spirit, shot into the Hot 100's top 10. This happened on a chart dated January 11, 1992, but as I'll explain, that date is a little misleading. Kurt Cobain's lyrics about a mulatto, an albino, a mosquito and his libido might not sound like a Christmas carol, but it's how a generation of teens home for the holidays said, here we are now. Entertain us. This, of course, is the duo of Paul Simon and art Garfunkel with Mrs. Robinson, their 1968 number one smash taken from the movie the Graduate. And I'm playing Simon and Garfunkel to illustrate a point about Billboard magazine's chart dates and a concept that I call the data lag. Buckle in, because this is gonna get nerdy. If you're into pop music, you've probably looked up the song that was number one the day you were born, and Mrs. Robinson happens to be my best friend's birthday song. It was on top of the Hot 100 the week that Ed, my buddy from high school, was born. By the way, Merry Christmas, Ed. Liz and I send socially distanced hugs to you and Cedric. Anyway, my pal ed was born June 13, 1968 and Mrs. Robinson was the Hot 100's number one song for the week ending June 15, 1968.
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This.
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This by the way, is what I say at the start of every hit parade when I introduce the episode's key Billboard hit. That's where your hit parade marches today. The Week Ending Some Date Billboard magazine issue dates are Saturdays and their charts have week ending dates following me so far. Here's why this is a bit misleading and why, if you want to get really technical about it, Mrs. Robinson is not my friend Ed's real world birth week number one song as you have probably noticed, if you've ever bought a paper magazine on a newsstand, magazine issues are always dated ahead. For example, the famed September issue of Vogue magazine always hits newsstands and subscribers mailboxes in August. The September issue is Vogue's yearly fashion Bible hits newsstands Aug. 25. The same applies to Billboard. An issue of billboard that's dated June 15th was actually printed the week before and it would hit newsstands anywhere from five to eight days before the 15th. Moreover, and this is the part that really matters if you're a chart geek, the data that Billboard used to put together that chart was collected even earlier, like almost three weeks before the issue date printed on the magazine. So what that means for my buddy Ed is in a way, this might be Ed's Birth week number one song. Herb Alpert's this Guy's in Love with youh didn't go to number one on the Hot 100. Again, officially going by the chart date until the week ending June 22, 1968. It stayed there the next four weeks through mid July. Now, June 22 is more than a week after my friend Ed was born, but the data Billboard collected, the actual singles, sales figures and radio playlist reports that made Herb Alpert one. Those sales and spins actually happened in the real world around when Ed was born. So on paper at that time, the number one song in the USA was Simon and Garfunkel's song. But in reality, when Mrs. Robinson was in its final week of selling the most records and and getting the most airplay around late May, Ed was still being carried by his mom hi Eileen. The Day Ed Came into the world Whatever the Billboard chart on Newsstand said the song that was really dominating the airwaves and the stores on that day was this guy's in love with you. Now, by the way, this is a little too nerdy even for me. You can drive yourself crazy overthinking this. When I'm looking up a friend's birthday number one song, I just go to the Billboard issue date for the week they were born. I don't try to triangulate what song was selling the most and getting the most radio spins the day their mom was giving birth. Also, honestly, as pleasant as that Herb Alpert song is, I'm pretty sure my buddy Ed would rather his birth date be associated with a song as classic as Mrs. Robinson.
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Hiding in a hiding place where no one ever goes.
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Also, this technicality doesn't matter. If a song spends months on top of the chart, then on the day you were born, the song was probably number one both on paper and in the real world. If she's listening right now, I'd like to reassure my niece Samantha, who really loves the birth week number one song game, that no matter how you slice it, her birthday song is still Beyonce's irreplaceable Happy Birthday, Samantha. The reason the reason I walked you through all this geekiness was to explain the real world effects of the data lag on Billboard's charts. The music listening you're doing right now, whether on the radio, Spotify, or a download you just bought from itunes, it's getting tracked by Billboard, but it won't be counted on the Hot 100 until a chart dated as much as two weeks from now. So since it's December, let's talk about how this data lag skews the chart performance of Christmas music. Last December, I devoted a Hit Parade episode to one of the most improbable chart feats of all time, how Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is yous Finally reached number one on the Hot 100 a full 25 years after it was released last holiday season, Carrie's Christmas Chestnut spent a total of three weeks at one. It was on top of the Hot 100. That was dated December 21, 2019, December 28, 2019 and January 4, 2020. But hang on a minute. That third week, Mariah's Christmas record was still dominating the airwaves in early January. That seems improbable, right? We all know how Christmas music works. You hear it everywhere through December 25th or 26th. But then within a couple of days, it's yanked from our car stereos and Spotify playlists, and it doesn't come back until the next November Was All I Want for Christmas Is yous Really Number one a week and a half after Christmas Day and four days after New Year's? Well, yes and no. There's that data lag again. For the chart week that was dated January 4th, Billboard collected streaming and sales that actually happened from December 20th through 26th, the peak of Christmas. By the way, radio data collection is on a slightly different weekly cycle from streams and sales. But airplay wise, Mariah's big third week also started a couple of days before Christmas. So in the Billboard history books, Mariah was reportedly number one through January 4th. But in reality she was dominating the airwaves and Spotify only through Boxing Day. This has happened a lot with Christmas music on the charts. Billboard history shows that Bobby Helms's 1957 song Jingle Bell Rock peaked at number six the second week of January 1958.
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Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bells Diamond, Jingle Bell and Band Aids.
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Do they Know It's Christmas? A 1984 release, peaked on the Hot 100 at number 13 the third weekend of January 1985. Again, the seminal charity mega singles. Actual airplay and sales were concentrated into the final days of 84. So let's finally go back to 1991, including that year's holiday season. My long explainer on the Billboard data lag helps us understand exactly what happened on the charts that year. Now a disclaimer. I am a Generation Xer who was in College in 1991, but I want to convey one main thing about Nirvana's Nevermind. And this applies whether you worship the album or think it's overrated, bands like Nirvana really, truly were not supposed to top the charts in 1991. Three decades later, there's now a school of critics who think Nevermind has been so overhyped that its breakthrough was not seminal, not momentous, not that big of a deal. Trust me, it was a big deal. No one from my generation had ever seen a band quite like Nirvana top the charts. None of the American punk or post punk predecessors that laid the groundwork for Nirvana had had actual chart hits. Not Black Flag. Or Husker do. Or sonic youth. Or even Boston Pixies, whose sound Kurt Cobain himself later confessed to ripping off when he wrote Smells Like Teen Spirit. No hit for the Pixies either. Also, at a time when grunge was not yet a genre name or a scene or even a media hype yet Nirvana were a pretty Quirky band even when they were catchy. And they were catchy. Formed in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987 by guitarist and vocalist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic, Nirvana were signed to Seattle based independent label sub pop in November 1988 on their 1989 debut album Bleach. Indie rock fans noticed that Nirvana frontman and primary songwriter Cobain had a way with a tune. Songs like About a Girl had Beatlesque melodies underneath the grungy guitars. Between Nirvana's first and second albums, after a series of drummers came and went, Cobain and Novoselic were joined by Washington D.C. based drummer D. Dave Grohl. It was like Ringo Starr belatedly joining the Beatles. The band's sound was complete. Grohl gave Nirvana a serious kick. Produced by Butch Vig, a Madison, Wisconsin based sonic craftsman who made recording sound both raw and sleek, Nevermind came out in September 1991. And largely by accident, the stage had been set for Nirvana's unlikely chart breakthrough. For starters, Seattle based rock was already starting to break on the charts before Nirvana. Alice in Chains broke over the summer of 1991. There, man in the Box made the top 20 on Billboard's album rock chart in July. And by the early fall, fellow Seattle band Soundgarden would issue their third album and eventual breakthrough. Bad Motor Finger.
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Tell Me the Power of Child, I Like to say that I'm down on My Knees Today.
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And Pearl Jam, a new band formed out of members from the former Mother Love Bone, issued their eventual blockbuster debut 10. Moreover, 1991 had already produced another unexpected, though long earned chart topper from the world of alternative music. Athens, Georgia band R.E.M. who had already scored gold and platinum albums in the 80s, but never a number one album. Their out of time LP, powered by the number four hit Losing My Religion, changed that.
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That's me in the Story spot. Like Loose in My Religion, the pop.
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Charts were also starting to reflect the sounds of British rave, indie dance and baggy music, such as the number one smash Unbelievable by UK band emf. By the fall, even the established multi platinum Irish rockers U2 were adopting Manchester style rave beats on their acclaimed album Achtum Baby. Still, as good of a musical environment as this was for Nirvana to drop their new album, it didn't hurt that they came packed with an irresistible single, one that would prove indelible. Smells Like Teen Spirit, the song Kurt Cobain wrote as a deliberate Pixies homage and named after a brand of deodorant aimed at teenagers, was not only track one on Nevermind it was the album's rallying cry in September 1991. It sounded different, generationally specific, even catchy. But it didn't behave like a pop song at first. The same week Nevermind landed in record stores and debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart at number 144, Smells Like Teen Spirit broke into the lower rungs of Billboard's Modern Rock chart. That was the only chart it was on for the better part part of two months, as it climbed into the modern rock top 20 by October, the top five by November, mainstream rock stations began playing it too. Around the same time, MTV took its iconic video of the band playing an anarchistic, thrashy high school pep rally and moved it from their late night alternative rock show 120 minutes into daytime power rotation. This was already somewhat unprecedented. As Nevermind rose on the album chart, it was possible to think that all this was just a happy fluke. The album broke into the Billboard 200's top 40 in early November, the top 10 just before Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, on the Hot 100, Smells Like Teen Spirit finally cracked the chart by early December. Remarkably for a band that had never appeared on a pop chart before, it debuted all the way up at number 40, fueled by unusual strong single sales. Billboard reported by mid December that the song ranked only 73rd in pop radio airplay, but it was already ranked seventh in singles sales. Music buyers were pushing the song up the Hot 100. If the Nirvana phenomenon had gone no further than this, it still would have been exceptional. Don't forget that all of this was happening in 1991, the year the Billboard charts had been converted to SoundScan. As we've discussed in several Hit Parade episodes, including last month's show on Garth brooks and the 90s chart Breakthrough of country music, SoundScan finally told the music business which albums and singles were truly selling the best. Mostly that helped the genres of rap and country chart better, but SoundScan helped a lot of formerly underrated music get its due in Billboard. A left field rock band like Nirvana, with a song as edgy as Smells Like Teen Spirit would be accurately captured on the charts too. Even so, Nirvana's chart performance in the closing weeks of 91 was exceptional. Nevermind was lodged in the top 10 for all of December 1991, but now it was the thick of holiday shopping season and the competition was getting much tougher.
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It don't matter if you're black or.
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White when we come back, the album chart duel that would come to be called generational. And it was. But it might have been about parents versus kids more than Boomers versus Gen X. And it was all somehow spurred by Santa Claus.
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You better watch out, you better not find, you better not count I'm telling you why Santa Claus is coming to town Santa Claus is coming to town.
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Non Slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfy. That's me. My producer for this episode episode is Benjamin Frisch, and we also had help from Rosemary Belson. June Thomas is the senior Managing producer and Gabriel Roth, the Editorial Director of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed each if you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanfen.