This is the Tori Amos cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. Based on the comments on the Youtube video, opinions are very much divided on this one. Some people are mostly struck by the sheer beauty of her voice and her piano-playing. Others see an arrogance and a narcissism in the way she takes this raw grunge song and turns it into a vehicle for her own virtuoso performance.

Some consider it to be a tribute to the original version, while others feel that Kurt Cobain must be “rolling in his grave.” I'm not sure I follow the logic of that one, as it seems to be based on the assumption that Cobain would only have been able to appreciate loud, fast music. Don't project your own limitations onto others!

One comment struck me as being particularly perceptive. If the original song is seen as an expression of the raw anger so typical of young masculinity, then the Tori Amos interpretation could be seen as an attempt to show the sorrow that lies beneath all such expressions of rage. If you feel like the world is full of threats to your emotional and psychological survival, you might take the hurt that causes you and project it back out on the world as defensive hostility. That's exactly what a lot of young men do all the time. Tori Amos, according to this interpretation, has simply inverted that process, showing the emotions behind the song for what they really are.