10 Amazing Hard Rock Music Videos

There's an entire generation of rock fans who could probably tell you where they were the first time they heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit." As Nirvana's first breakout single, this ode to teen angst became the unofficial anthem of grunge and changed the rock landscape overnight. The song remains untouchable in music history, but the grim taste of reality sets in once you see the video for "Heart Shaped Box."

Coming off of the band's visceral album In Utero, the entire video is an acid trip from Hell, complete with an old man crucifying himself, a girl clad in a KKK uniform, and a woman with no skin walking on a treadmill in the middle of a field. Judging by those disquieting images, it's a little on the bizarre side, but the focus shifts once you see Kurt Cobain in action.

Once Nirvana is brought out, Cobain approaches the camera with a renewed energy, as if he is being driven slightly insane every time the camera turns his way. Instead of the careless rocker from the "Teen Spirit" video, this is a man with no inhibitions, which eventually ended in tragedy when Cobain was found dead by his own hand just a year later. "Teen Spirit" may have been Nirvana at their most innocent, but the video for "Heart Shaped Box" almost acts as a premature suicide note from the man who helped set the stage for alternative rock.