Curated for jbonamassa.comIssue: Week of Sep 11, 2026

Rock News Today

Three stories · No ads · No clutter Nirvana · Mötley Crüe · Lynyrd Skynyrd Filed 09.11.26

A single nobody expected to sell, a debut album pressed 900 times, and a hits record that refuses to leave the charts.

Source American Songwriter Filed 09.10.26 On this day 1991

Play

Nirvana — “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (DGC, 1991)

On this day · September 10, 1991

DGC put out “Teen Spirit” to warm up radio for a different single

Thirty-five years on, the throwaway lead single is still the loudest thing in the room.

No. 6Peak position on the Hot 100 — the biggest chart single of Nirvana’s career

On September 10, 1991, DGC released “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as the lead single from Nevermind. The plan was modest. The song was there to soften up radio for “Come As You Are,” which the label figured was the actual hit.

Rock radio had it two weeks early, from late August. College and rock stations put it into heavy rotation before the single reached shops, and by the time it did, people were going out to buy it. MTV first ran the video in its late-night alternative block, then moved it into regular rotation, then into the Buzz Bin.

It became Nirvana’s biggest Hot 100 single at No. 6 and topped Alternative Airplay in the US. It went top 10 in the UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Norway, the Netherlands, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Canada and Australia, and No. 1 in Austria, Belgium, France, New Zealand and Spain. It has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide. The RIAA certified it platinum in April 1992 and diamond in December 2024, and the Grammys nominated it for Best Rock Song and Best Hard Rock Performance in 1992.

Worth remembering that grunge was most of a decade old by then. The Melvins, Skin Yard, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden and Green River had been building the Seattle sound since the early 1980s. Nirvana and Alice in Chains formed at the end of it, Pearl Jam after that. “Teen Spirit” invented none of that. It kicked the door in, and everyone behind it walked through: Ten in August 1991, Badmotorfinger in October, Dirt the following September.

Read it at American Songwriter

Source Loudwire Filed 09.10.26 Out Oct. 30

Reissues · Box sets

Mötley Crüe open the 1981 vault for Too Fast for Love at 45

The band have announced a 45th-anniversary box set for Too Fast for Love, due October 30, and put out the first thing from it: a previously unreleased March 1981 demo of “Nobody Knows What It’s Like to Be Lonely.”

The original is a genuinely scarce record. The LA quartet self-released it in November 1981 on their own Leathür Records and pressed 900 copies. That was the run. Their live reputation did the rest: Elektra signed them in early 1982 and reissued Too Fast for Love that August, remixed and remastered with a new track order. It went platinum, and the wave of LA metal bands behind them spent the next few years running MTV and the charts.

The box holds five LPs plus a single, a cassette, a CD and more. Both versions of the album are in there, the 1981 Leathür sequence and the 1982 Elektra one, which are different enough that people still argue about which is the real record. Two LPs of live material come from the 1982 Perkins Palace shows and include songs that would not reach a studio album until Shout at the Devil the following year.

The March 1981 demo session is there in full: “Nobody Knows What It’s Like to Be Lonely,” “Public Enemy #1,” “Stick to Your Guns,” “Take Me to the Top” and “Tonight.” Add a replica demo cassette, a “Stick to Your Guns” / “Toast of the Town” 7-inch, a 100-page hardcover photo book and a poster. The Leathür version, the Perkins Palace set, the demos, the cassette and the 7-inch are box-only.

Read it at Loudwire

Play

Mötley Crüe — “Nobody Knows What It’s Like to Be Lonely” (March 1981 demo)

900Copies in the original Leathür Records pressing, November 1981

Source Parade Filed 09.10.26 Chart Top Rock Albums

Charts · Billboard

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s hits record has now spent 1,055 weeks on the charts

All Time Greatest Hits has re-entered Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart at No. 24. That one week pushes the compilation past a mark almost nothing reaches: 1,055 total weeks across Billboard rankings.

The breakdown, since its release in 2000: 370 weeks on the Billboard 200, 287 on Top Rock Albums, 382 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums, 10 on Top Album Sales, four on Billboard Canadian Albums and two on Top Streaming Albums. Its best positions are No. 38 on the 200 and No. 8 on Top Rock Albums. The RIAA certified it platinum in 2005.

Part of why it keeps working is the sequencing. Fourteen tracks, reaching back to the 1973 debut for “Gimme Three Steps” and “Simple Man,” pulling “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Swamp Music,” “The Ballad of Curtis Loew” and “Call Me the Breeze” from 1974’s Second Helping, then “Saturday Night Special,” “Gimme Back My Bullets,” “What’s Your Name,” “You Got That Right” and “That Smell.” It closes on “Free Bird,” and not the studio take: the sprawling live version cut at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta in July 1976 for One More from the Road. Ending a hits collection on a live track is a strange call that turned out to be the right one.

They became one of the greatest rock & roll bands in history.

Al Kooper, writing the band’s Rolling Stone entry

Kooper discovered the band and produced their first three albums, and wrote their No. 95 entry in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists. The first run ended with the plane crash of October 20, 1977, which killed Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines. Johnny Van Zant took the microphone for the 1987 reunion. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted them in 2006, and Gary Rossington, the last original member, died in 2023.

Read it at Parade

Play

Lynyrd Skynyrd — “Simple Man” (audio)

1,055Combined weeks across six Billboard charts since 2000