Is this the best cover of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit ever?

A mocked-up image of Kurt Cobain with The Floppotron
The Floppotron

A computer expert has created a unique cover version of Nirvana’s Smell Like Teen Spirit using old floppy drives, hard discs and scanners.

Self-proclaimed nerd Pawel Zadrozniak used 64 floppy drives, eight hard disks and two scanner to build a hardware orchestra he calls The Floppotron.

Watch as the device performs the hit single from Nirvana’s second album Nevermind in the video below. Zadrozniak calls his version Smells Like Nerd Spirit.

Zadrozniak says: “Every device with an electric motor is able to generate a sound. Scanners and floppy drives use stepper motors to move the head with sensors which scans the image or performs read/write operations on a magnetic disk.

“The sound generated by a motor depends on driving speed. The higher the frequency, the greater the pitch. Hard disks use a magnet and a coil to tilt the head. When voltage is supplied for long enough, the head speeds up and hits the bound making the ‘drum hit’ sound.”

The Floppotron has also produced versions of the Hawaii Five-O theme tune and the Imperial March from Star Wars.

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Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.