The studio recording of Smells Like Teen Spirit is around 15-25 cents sharper than normal standard tuning
So I’m a huge Nirvana nerd and have been listening to them for MANY years. Only within the last year or two have I gotten really interested in recreating their songs as accurately as possible. I’ve even trained myself to sing somewhat similarly to Kurt, which I’m honestly really proud of because it took months and months of vocal practice, technique work, and expanding my vocal range to pull off.
Part of the reason I did this is because it’s been a dream of mine to perform Smells Like Teen Spirit live at my school prom with my band and let people experience some of the magic of Nirvana.
Anyways, I practice singing the song pretty often to keep my voice fresh and exercised. Last night while listening to Teen Spirit, I noticed something weird: the song sounded slightly... sharp in pitch. At first I thought I was imagining it. I convinced myself I was just excited and that my perception was off because of it. But then today after warming up my voice, I sang the song again and noticed the same thing. I was actually singing really well too. Good pitch, hitting the high notes easily, I was locked tf in. But the recording STILL sounded sharp to me.
So I decided to test it. First, I recorded myself singing it while playing guitar. Then I recorded myself singing acapella with the song playing through headphones. After that, I downloaded an isolated Kurt vocal track to compare everything directly. And lo and behold, my suspicion was right. The studio version of Teen Spirit actually sounds around 20 cents sharp compared to standard tuning. Now that I’ve noticed it, I genuinely can’t unhear it. When I listen to the song on YouTube now, I use a pitch/transposing extension to lower it by around 20 cents and suddenly everything sounds “correct” again.
Has anyone else noticed this before? And are there any other Nirvana songs that are slightly off pitch like this?
TL;DR: After years of listening to and practicing Smells Like Teen Spirit, I realized the studio recording sounds about 20 cents sharp compared to standard tuning. I tested it with recordings, guitar, and isolated vocals, and now I can’t unhear it. Does anyone else notice this, and are there other Nirvana songs like this?