A major piece of Nirvana memorabilia recently headed for auction. Samuel Bayer, a prolific music video and commercial director who helmed many videos, including Nirvana’s music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” has parted ways with his copy of the original master recording of the iconic grunge song’s video.
“Sold my master of Nirvana ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ to a cool auction house,” Bayer wrote in the caption of an Instagram post. “It’s been 33 years so the hell with it.” In a video shared alongside the announcement, Bayer showed off the physical master reel, and revealed that the auction house also has a “drumset from Radiohead,” a “two-million dollar guitar” once owned by Eric Clapton, and a “sound system” that was used by Jimi Hendrix, among other notable instruments.
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Nirvana was founded by Kurt Cobain (lead singer, guitar) and Krist Novoselic (bass) in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1987. The band went through a number of drummers before eventually recruiting Dave Grohl in 1990, right before recording their sophomore album,. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was the debut single from the album and very quickly became a hit.
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” has gone on to be the biggest grunge song ever, and is widely considered by many music outlets to be one of the greatest rock songs of all time. It has achieved multi-platinum selling status across the world, including going 12× Platinum in Australia.
