News Ticker: The Clash, Ray Charles, Amy Winehouse, Metallica

• The Clash's Mick Jones and Paul Simonon both play on Gorillaz's new Plastic Beach, and Spinner reports the pair might be considering joining Damon Albarn's outfit on a brief tour. If true, it would mark the first time the former bandmates have shared a stage in public since 1983.

   

   

• Unchain My Heart, a musical about Ray Charles, will make its Broadway debut November 7th, the AP reports. Ray producer Stuart Benjamin is working on the project.

   

   

• Amy Winehouse is getting into the fashion business. launching a new line for Fred Perry. The singer's Website announces that her 17-piece black and pink-dominated collection features polo shirts and pencil skirts and is due in October.

   

   

• TIcketless Metallica fans rioted in Colombia earlier this week, leading to more than 100 arrests and eight injuries outside the band's show at Bogota's Simón Bolívar Park. Pollstar reports.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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