The song is only the second non-holiday hit from the decade to make the list so far.
At the height of the 2020 holiday season, nearly half the Billboard Global 200 chart was occupied by seasonal songs, ranging from classics by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra to new-millennium jingles by Kelly Clarkson and Ariana Grande. But at the dawn of the new year, Christmas songs cleared out to make way again for the current class of global hits, as well as, notably, a pack of familiar, older favorites on the list for the first time.
Nirvana enters with its iconic 1991 single “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which debuts at No. 181. The song, which hit No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1992, arrives on the Global 200 (which began in September) with 9.7 million streams and 1,000 sold worldwide in the week ending Jan. 7, according to MRC Data, aided by the mass exodus of holiday titles.
“Spirit” is only the sixth song released in the ‘90s to appear on the Global 200 in the chart’s brief history. That sum is especially small compared to the 17 songs from the ‘70s and 15 from the ‘80s that have charted so far.