Rethinking the Grunge era

The killing-the-father rhetoric surrounding grunge vis a vis metal was a big mythic selling point but also trapped grunge rather when it came to reincorporating pop ideas and hooks, or rather being open about the reincorporation that had been going on all along.

I think grunge does need rethinking because the idealising of 1991 is crippling a generation of rock writers.

Did it "achieve anything"? It depends what you think was there to be achieved. It 'commodified' rebellion - was this a bad thing, though? I don't know. Smart and alive kids will find ways to think for themselves anyway, other kids maybe won't: having a how-to-punk guide in a lifestyle magazine might inspire howls of outrage among people who've already 'made it', critical-thinking wise (or think they have), but to a.n. kid it might be a start.

And you might argue that the commodification made visible what had been invisible (the codes and strata and bullshit of 'punk' as it had become), and thus moved the debate (which is never only a public debate anyway) on.

Musically, I hardly noticed. Enlighten me.

low: everybody started a band.

I have loads of thoughts on the era but no overarching impression. The main annoyance, from my point of view, was that the public (the American public, anyway) conceived of "alternative" or "indie" as being a rock phenomenon, a howling emotive beast primarily influenced by near-heavy metal and muddy guitar heroics. An entire underground was painted with this brush, despite 90% of the bands in that underground working from either a post-punk or a hardcore aesthetic. It seems almost ridiculous to say, VH1-style, that "the underground" emerged at this point, when what we got was Soundgarden and STP, and not, say, Superchunk or Fugazi. This was probably one phenomenon where one can safely say that most participants Missed the Point Entirely, and I think that's key in understanding today's beefy rockers: weirdly enough, the mainstream of culture co-opted a movement but wound up co-opting precisely those things that were anomalous to the movement.

Begin musical story. So? STP? Interstate Love Song was a great track, and teriffic video. Where's Maura? We need her to praise Superunknown. Hole, as I always discuss, was magnificent -- troubled and turgid, a whole mess of elsewhere-discussed gender issues embodied in a rock queen.

Nirvana as as band? We've done this before. Consensus: pretty tunes.

The loud/soft dynamic? GRATE at time, certainly largely faded by 1995, today not hardly evident at all in the nu-metal kidz. Transformed, I think, in the 2nd gen. bands (who were largely less good -- Better Than Ezra, anyone?) into a dull verse, amp up the power chords in the chorus type thing. But let us not forget the 2nd generation orig. "grunge" creature of Garbage. Garbage deserve props. Also that "grunge" opened the way for punk acts like Bad Religion, at least temporarily.

I can't speak for eveyone who was starting high school (aka the Hell years) when they first heard 'Nevermind', but though the grunge era produced a lot of retrospectively embarrassing mopey lyrics, those words made sense for a 13-year-old kid.

Re: Nirvana, I thought I'd share a theory that occurred to me last week. Guitar-wise, Kurt's songs were all about Frank Black's structural trick, which was to play a fairly standard chord progression but use major chords where there would normally be minor chords (and occasionally vice versa), for that off-kilter "one note in this chord is one half-step off" feel. (Those of you who play guitar surely know exactly what I mean.) What struck me, while listening to an old tape with "Pay to Play" on it, was that while the Pixies circumvented that tonal oddity with vocals that were sort of speaky-screamy, and therefore didn't need to acknowledge the unexpected sharps, Kurt's pop leanings led him to write melodies that actually worked through those off steps. I'd never noticed before, but when you think about a song like "Lithium," he's accomodating those sharps and flats in a really sophisticated way: hum over the line "but today I've found my friends," or consider the differences between the two long "Yeahs" in the chorus. I think this is the heart of what makes the band interesting -- the fact that their presentation is that of a banged-out three-chord punk rock outfit, but their songs have that note of melodic complication that makes them linger in the head much longer.

Forgive me if that's a statement of the very obvious. But even though I'm not particularly huge on the band, this seems like an unassailable retort to those who say they were essentially ripping the Pixies. (Along with "Nuh-uh, it was the Vaselines.")

Hmm, maybe I was/am just a sheep...

In Utero: I lost Nevermind on tape, so this was the only one I had for a while, thus the one that got played constantly. Can't really add anything that hasn't already been said.

Versus: the only PJ album that I ever liked. From the get-go, I was resolved not to like them (esp. since Kurt didn't), but then I heard 'Daughter'.

Core: back then, it wasn't a matter of STP blatantly ripping off bands left and right, it just seemed convenient for me to have everything I like in grunge in one album. I thought that AIC never made a single as good as 'Sex Type Thing' or PJ never did anything better than 'Plush', so chalk it up to innocent, uncritical ears.

Dirt: Heroin and suicide, that's what I think of when I put on this album. It was by far the most depressing shit I had.

Live Through This: I bought into the belief that Kurt basically wrote it, so by proxy, must be good, thought I. It was. Then I got Pretty on the Inside, which was shit shit shit.

Colour & Shape: This is more of a nostalgic pick, because by then, I had started to bridge out to other genres. This one brought me back to that short three-year period of my life. Kinda like a tribute to grunge for me.

OK, enough posts for me in this thread. Sorry everyone, it just struck a major (instead of minor, ha!) chord with me.

Er, well, just last weekend I moved into a house with wonderful views of the Preston Park area of Brighton, if that makes you feel any better.

* Kurt wanted to be in a Pixies cover band.

Spookily enough, Nirvana's old soundman Craig Montgomery *is* in a Pixies cover band.

I can't really explain how I started on those bands except to posit the usual channels of cooler older kids, basically. Possibly it was just my school, which had a pretty big Morrissey-fan contingent for southern Colorado. And surely Disintegration was pretty widely known to people throughout the UK, US, and Canada?

One good thing I can say for the grunge explosion: much like the web's explosion, a lot of money got tossed at bringing rock music to the kids. Most of the results were stupid, and the whole thing went bust just as quickly, but for a roughly six months, even my southern- Colorado prairie town had a decent "alternative" radio station, which was were I first heard things like Velocity Girl, Red House Painters, and the Trash Can Sinatras. Which is really quite good for commercial radio, don't you think?

Meanwhile, where's MY snowboard? How deprived I am.

I remember buying a tape of _Ten_ and a tape of _Janet_ (Ms. Jackson, if you're nasty) on the same day, at this Record Town store in a local mall. Ah, to be naive enough that I could have such alien things co-exist in the same tape drawer and same aesthetic foundation. I was fine, drifting out of his school, switching up between the Chili Peppers and the Spin Doctors and Ralph Tresvant and Pearl Jam. Granted, Pearl Jam (and then Temple of the Dog) grew to monumental stature in my mind, but that didn't mean much. It was all music, with one scratching certain types of itches that another just couldn't reach. Isn't it great that this is a world that can have all these disparate expressions co-exist peacefully?

And then I went to college, where the lines were drawn with more fervor and spite. I'd be lying if the merciless mocking I took (insecure, unsure, meek and shy) lead me to stow away those natty R&B tapes - no more Mariah, no more Boyz II Men. It's funny that all these different people in my dorm - the power-pop / AC/DC freak, the glam-rock / G&R freak, my Rush / E-Z listening neighbor, the "alternative" guy on the other side of the floor - took me to task on a constant basis. It was good-natured teasing, sure, but I (insecure, unsure, meek and shy) took to it like silk takes to rain.

Of course, wanting to know more about this type of music lead me to the magazines, which lead to the usual reference points, which lead to even BETTER music, music that was so much more about me than this bombastic would-be-classic-rock. And, after enough reading, I realized that, yes, this new music - this "indie" music - was SUPPOSED to be better than what was in power. This IS the good music, and all the other music that isn't "indie" is just crap. And this is the beginning of a new renaissance! So this is the dogma I used as my shield and my guide through the rest of my abortive college years.

Of course, eventually this dogma lead to me renouncing the "grunge" that brought me to this "indie" epiphany, which is pretty funny, since it was the idealized DIY punk aesthetic (which became perverted, exclusionary, didactic, and stultifying) that fueled the fires of what became "grunge". Of course, now that I'm older, and a bit more secure in myself, and I look back on all this, and my half- hearted faith in "the movement" is a bit silly.

So - "did the brief commercial success of Nirvana, Lollapalooza, & Sassy achieve anything?" If anything, it brought two worlds crashing head-first into each other. It uprooted a lot of underground bands prematurely, it gave overground bands a chance to hop trends & feign credibility. The parlance of the punk world ("selling out", "cred") is now firmly ensconced in the popular music vocabulary; meanwhile, the underground has a better idea of how the "corporate world" works, and how unidealized the underground actually is. Ideally, major labels might realize the sense in letting a band DEVELOP, instead of trying to thrust them straight into the world of multi-platinum excess - instead, when the "alternative" / "punk" scene started to peter out & prove unlucrative, they just cut bait and scampered off looking for another trend.

I don't recall who mentioned the dotcom boom in conjunction with this thread, but that's a damn fine connection to make. The Big Guys that existed at the beginning are still there; the little guys that didn't lose their pants regrouped and soldier on; a lot of other people got caught in the wake of the crashing roller-coaster, and were decimated. Everyone that can't fall back on excess amounts of capital continues on their way a little more wary, a little less trusting, realizing that the goal isn't to topple the Big Guys, but to find their own niche and survive.

Sorry for rambling on like this. (It's a bit ponderous in the last few paragraphs, too, isn't it?)

While "grunge" did open up this grand new world to me, and all the creative fervor contained therein, it also introduced me to the damaging rhetoric that was attached to this creativity, which certainly kept my ass in the dark about lots of things. Eventually, though, I realized that it's silly to just dismiss things because of "cred" and "cool"ness, which I found myself inadvertently doing (and still do, when I'm not paying attention). That's more a personal failing than anything else, though.

So now I'm done babbling. Thanks (for all you that actually read your way down to this very last period & parenthesis).

Mudhoney's first LP, too, was one of the first grungy things that seemed to be a bit of a sea change, if in a smaller way than Nirvana.

Like any empire, it rose, it fell, there was some good, and a lot of crap. I liked Nirvana, they had great pop tunes nicely twisted. Liked some Mudhoney. Not much else. The Black Sabbath influence on the more heavy metal side of grunge completely baffled me, since I didn't think much of Sabbath at the time. Still don't like metal. The worst thing about grunge was that it led to lots of bands doing that head- shaking thing with their long hair all in unison. Well, at least that part was funny.

i should also point out that if i'd never heard of sub pop records i wouldn't have been buying unrest albums in high school. well, no, maybe i would have, since 'imperial ffrr' got namechecked by spin in what was it, '91? the year that 'bandwagonesque' was its #1 album?

grunge albums that are classics: 'badmotorfinger' -- crazed, yet rooted in a pop sensibility; 'temple of the dog' -- epic, absolutely epic; 'apple' -- if andrew wood had lived, would fred durst be wearing more eyeliner now? it's worth a thought; 'sweet oblivion'; 'dirt'; that mudhoney reissue with 'touch me i'm sick.'

the era died with kurt, i'd agree with that; there were a million rocker-come-latelies in his place, and they all had no qualms about being big huge smiling-all-the-time rock stars. but 'my brother the cow' is still a pretty great record.

and hey, i had -- and still have -- tons of good times listening to my records from that era. a spin through the myriad versions of 'swallow my pride' alone (2 green river, 1 soundgarden, 1 fastbacks, and that version with eddie vedder & mark arm that's on some fan club single). it wasn't all posturing; it's not like pearl jam is effing creed, you know.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/oct/31/grunge

Twenty years ago this weekend, Nirvana released Love Buzz, the first single by the band who would ignite grunge from an interesting local scene to a global phenomenon.

And this is significant why? Because grunge wasn't just another musical or youth trend - it was the ultimate expression and fusion of most of the defining cultural, ideological and social threads of the modern western world. Feminism, liberalism, irony, apathy, cynicism/idealism (those opposite sides of one frustrated coin), anti-authoritarianism, wry post-modernism, and not least a love of dirty, abrasive music; grunge reconciled all these into a seminal whole.

For Generation X-ers, male grungers represented all that is good in men. They were the fabled "New Man" with the volume turned up to 10, gentle-natured but discordant and angry. The women were intelligent, non-conformist, cool. Each took the best aspects of their opposite gender and retained the best of their own. Grunge took back loud music from poodle-rock and gave it a heart, soul and brain. It married a love of noise with thoughtfulness and sensitivity, putting a trash soundtrack to lofty principles and uncommon erudition. It turned old paradigms on their head, like the one that said rock music was made by "real men" and feminism was for ball-busting harpies and emasculated weirdoes.

Grunge wasn't nihilist or moany - they really did want a better world for everyone. It was misrepresented as being self-absorbed, but actually addressed big themes, things outside the artists' private concerns - a rare thing in popular music.

These bands weren't restricted by the limits and ideologies of genres like punk, which insist that you write certain kinds of music and lyrics. They didn't recycle banal cliches but tackled weighty subjects - one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

So Pearl Jam wrote about domestic abuse, illiteracy, the maltreatment of the mentally ill. Nirvana looked at alienation, rape, stultifying conformity. Alice in Chains dug deeply into the black hole of addiction. Soundgarden pondered the search for meaning in an indifferent universe. Courtney Love wrote ferocious lyrics about misogyny, eating disorders, sexual predators.

Aesthetically, they eschewed babes, booze and fast cars for cropped hair, college degrees and ever-present frowns. And they lived out their principles in concrete, courageous ways.

Most grunge bands were politically active. Lollapalooza combined music with information stalls on everything from organic food to voter registration. Pearl Jam fought a ruinous battle with Ticketmaster and refused to make promos; Nirvana constantly antagonised their new, macho audience.

It was a long way from Axl Rose thrusting his crotch in your face on MTV, and of course it couldn't last. Grunge was replaced by frat-boy rock, pimp-wannabe gangsta rappers and hyper-sexualised Britney/Barbie dolls. Plus ça change ...

For my generation, grunge was more than just music: it was subterfuge, knowledge, philosophy, empathy, wit, courage, love, desire and anger, and it saddens me that nothing has truly replaced it. Sure, there will always be musicians who are politically aware, socially concerned, risk-taking; not everyone is Fred Durst. But the days when gender constructs became virtually meaningless, when brains and coolness and sex appeal weren't incompatible, when mass popular culture transcended humble origins to become something profound, subversive and greater than itself … those days are gone. They're in the grave with Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley and Kristen Pfaff.

*rolls eyes*

good lord

what a boring and misleading and stupid narrative.

which is even worse because that type of stuff covers up what could be much more interesting story, of that weird time when the remnants of 80s metal, thrash, and nascent "alternative" rock all coexisted in sort of strange and cool ways...

i graduated in 1993, so i was of the age, but i remember just weird juxtapositions of taste in me and all my friends...like listening to jane's addiction's "nothing's shocking" while waiting to buy "use your illusion" at a midnight opening for musicland....or being excited that soundgarden was opening for metallica....and all those forgotten "intelligent" metal bands that sort of straddled the era like mind funk and warriorsoul and even queensryche....

the beauty of grunge is in the palm of your hand.

These bands weren't restricted by the limits and ideologies of genres like punk, which insist that you write certain kinds of music and lyrics. They didn't recycle banal cliches but tackled weighty subjects - one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

So Pearl Jam wrote about domestic abuse, illiteracy, the maltreatment of the mentally ill. Nirvana looked at alienation, rape, stultifying conformity. Alice in Chains dug deeply into the black hole of addiction. Soundgarden pondered the search for meaning in an indifferent universe. Courtney Love wrote ferocious lyrics about misogyny, eating disorders, sexual predators.

Aesthetically, they eschewed babes, booze and fast cars for cropped hair, college degrees and ever-present frowns. And they lived out their principles in concrete, courageous ways.

banquet of rong

far far better was the mojo article re sub pop a few months ago.

the biggest mistake is thinking grunge was the beginning of the 90s when it was really the end of the 80s

This dude's other Guardian pieces included an Ironic Review "John Peel was bad not good like you think aaaaaahhhhhh" one, and, I will quote the headline of it in full for you here, "The time is right for intellectual reality TV"

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

one could almost describe Soundgarden, for instance, as existential.

ALMOST.

That's right. So I guess that means that actually, one couldn't.

the biggest mistake is thinking grunge was the beginning of the 90s when it was really the end of the 80s

Grunge was the middle of the 90s. The 90s began around 1986-87 with the synthpop bands losing popularity while Run DMC discovered guitars and house music got massive. They haven't ended yet.

(and will not end until hip-hop becomes roughly as relevant as prog rock was in 1985)

grunge was the finale of 80s US underground rock culture something you know less about than most things, which is saying something

so wrong, even more than usual for you. I was 32 in '88 and Mudhoney/Soundgarden/Seattle were all the rage.

(xpost to dumbass)

grunge was the finale of 80s US underground rock culture

There is always an underground, but the decade is defined by the mainstream.

decades are actually defined by calendars and shit you funny little norwegian.

Anyway, the 80s started in late 1979 with "Video Killed The Radio Star" and two Gary Numan UK chart toppers. And it lasted until acts like Howard Jones, Thompson Twins, Culture Club and even Duran Duran failed to sell as much as they used to. Which was around 1986.

(About the same time, synthpop acts started using guitars to an increasing extent, and sampling and FM synthesis had started to completely dominate synth based music while analog synths were nowhere to be heard. Obviously, the 80s had ended)

Yeah, but that's when hair metal started to get really popular, and... you know what? Madness this way lies.

Hair metal=not synth music=not 80s music. Thus hair metal=beginning of the 90s.

It was a great time to be poor. I could buy shirts from army and navy for £2.00 a shot and still look cool.

The music was mostly wretched though.

...

Musically, For the most part, american minstrels and angst-merchants who were mostly at least 10 years older than their target audience. Terminal students on a route to the loot. No wonder Cobain killed himself. The one true talent of that pathetic genre saw through nthe whole shallow process.

I was 32 in '88 and Mudhoney/Soundgarden/Seattle were all the rage

WTF???? Maybe to like 100 people.

Thus hair metal=beginning of the 90s.

― Geir Hongro, Saturday, November 1, 2008 1:02 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

lolololololololololololololololololololllolololololol

Grunge replacing hair metal was merely one set of circus performers replacing another.

Grunge was all the rage, and I was too busy buying every Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin album I could get my hands on to notice. When Kurt died I was like, "Who?"

I do like Alice in Chains, though. Especially Jar of Flies.

grunge inspired post-grunge. lock thread.

post-grunge inspired neu-wave. lock thread.

mr snrub = longest-running sockpuppet?

Nirvana was my favorite band in '89-'91. Whenever I saw them live as an opener (main support to Sonic Youth, Dinosaur...), they were untouchable. Especially when Crover was drumming. So fucking good.

I saw them once ever as a headliner in Fall of '91 shortly after the release of Nevermind. They were awful, the stage show was ironic (bubble machines?, go-go dancers?!). I flipped them off and cursed them between every song. (Mudhoney's opening set absolutely killed, though)

Hard to say what my perception would have been if I wasn't an 18 year old boy at that time. A year later, I saw Danzig at the same venue and loved it.

Green River is playing here in Portland soon. They were the first and the best.

Is it true British people love Mudhoney?

i just saw a nirvana cover band on halloween and goddamn if there isn't a band that rocks quite like nirvana.

No, it's not true that British people love Mudhoney.

Whatever exactly hair metal was, it was not the beginning of the 1990s.

It is OK to invent elastic decades the way Hongro is doing, but I am not terribly convinced by his attempts above.

Cobain was talented - he could produce melodies, structures, songs. That was the central great fact about grunge, I think, and the reason the Nirvana records all have at least something good on them. Of any other bands I would be a lot more doubtful.

everyone should love mudhoney they pwn and rule

i love how geir spends his time in a grunge thread talking about thompson twins and howard jones

also: dude at work bought the new mudhoney...it sounds just like mudhoney! crazy!

"For my generation, grunge was more than just music: it was subterfuge, knowledge, philosophy, empathy, wit, courage, love, desire and anger..."

poll?

GEIR UNLESS YOU HAVE GOTTEN BAKEd AS A FUCKIN CAKE AND LISTENED TO DINO JR YOU CANT TELL ME JACK S HIT ABOUT GRUNGE

20 years ago tomorrow. Still funny, lamestains.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/15/style/grunge-a-success-story.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

That's right. I totally forgot that it was People magazine what broke grunge.

was looking at a big book of 90's alt rock concert posters and it was so terrible. it was like a zoot suit riot of horrible color and design. raygun magazine looks subtle in comparison. every single poster looked like this:

http://blog.humuhumu.com/wp-images/gig-poster-from-coop.jpg

Loved all that shit.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/uponsun/flyer-90s-lollapalloza.jpg

http://media-cache-lt0.pinterest.com/upload/287245282453532098_A6XSB7fB_b.jpg

god, I forgot that was Kozik. First thing that comes to my mind when I think of that guy are those damn rabbit toys.

was gonna say unmistakably kozik

Enjoyed this article about the guy who was kicked out of both Nirvana and Soundgarden and then went on to be Special Forces in Afghanistan and then a Columbia philosophy undergrad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/magazine/evermans-war.html?hpw

yeah that was great

Aren't we due for a grunge revival per the 20 year cycle theory?

The main annoyance, from my point of view, was that the public (the American public, anyway) conceived of "alternative" or "indie" as being a rock phenomenon, a howling emotive beast primarily influenced by near-heavy metal and muddy guitar heroics. An entire underground was painted with this brush, despite 90% of the bands in that underground working from either a post-punk or a hardcore aesthetic. It seems almost ridiculous to say, VH1-style, that "the underground" emerged at this point, when what we got was Soundgarden and STP, and not, say, Superchunk or Fugazi. This was probably one phenomenon where one can safely say that most participants Missed the Point Entirely, and I think that's key in understanding today's beefy rockers: weirdly enough, the mainstream of culture co-opted a movement but wound up co-opting precisely those things that were anomalous to the movement.

I wonder what nabisco thinks of this 12 years on. From my perspective, with this distance, it seems like a curious view. American post-punk and post-hc pretty much always had a strong influence from classic hard rock styles, with plenty of guitar heroics, starting with Bad Brains and Black Flag, through Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr, the Meat Puppets, Minutemen/fIREHOSE, Sonic Youth doing an epic double album with four symbols on the sleeve, Saint Vitus, ... If anything, I'd sooner look to most of these bands for 'guitar heroics' than to Bon Jovi or Def Leppard. Even Superchunk had plenty of anthemic AOR to them.

I think some indie people in the 90s did adopt this view, though, maybe to distinguish themselves from the 80s rockers?

OK, that article about Everman IS great.

Aren't we due for a grunge revival per the 20 year cycle theory?

It's gurgling under the radar, and has been for a few years, but nothing's really come out of it yet.

if anything grunge has the least mainstream cultural currency it's had IN the last 20 years now -- Nickelback, Shinedown, etc. finally no longer making crossover hits and dwindling in influence on rock radio, perfunctory reception of new Alice In Chains With Rome and Soundgarden albums. i suppose you could make an argument for Roomrunner or whoever reviving the sound on an underground level.

The cycle is actually running behind a little bit. Baggy/Madchester is just now starting to be revived in a tangible way, so grunge will be along any moment. ("Lo-fi" type indie never went away, but the 90s style of it came back a few years ago.)

"It's gurgling under the radar, and has been for a few years, but nothing's really come out of it yet."

To me, quite a bit of what has been called stoner rock or stoner metal over the past 10-12 years is pretty much the carry on of the musical aesthetic of the West Coast groups that got labeled as grunge, in the same way it taps into punk and the origins of hard rock/metal from the early 70s.

While anything could happen, I'm not really feeling that type of hard guitar rock will get popular again as a mass popular music like it was on and off from the 70s through the 90s. Certain bands might get fairly popular, but there isn't anything to tie all together anymore in the same way other forms of pop music have.

I know I trot this horse out every once in a while, but Kristin Hersh has been making some great grunge over the last 10 years with 50 Foot Wave. Better than it was done the first time around, imo. I don't know if they get recognized enough for this.

Probably 90% of anyone under 45 into doom metal got into it via grunge. Melvins influence is still being felt now. Who would have predicted that?

Speaking of grunge, I just saw that today is the anniversary of Mia Zapata's death. :(

The most genius thing The Melvins did was just keep on keepin' on and just from the map of where they had gone the line in-between the dots showed up. Then again, there was always some overlap in where that came out with how St. Vitus, The Obsessed, Kyuss and Fu Manchu among others had direct ties into the SST/DC punk scene.

There are all sorts of weird ties, you think about Jason Everman up there with that article you also can keep in mind that Reed St. Mark played drums in the band Mindfunk with him and also was one of the drummers in Celtic Frost. That's easily just as weird as Brian Baker of Minor Threat and Chris Gates of the Big Boys going L.A. trash glam with Junkyard.

I remember in early interviews a whole bunch of people from Kurt Cobain to Billy Corgan denying they were metal or into metal then later it turned out they were all massive metalheads. The 90s were a weird time with all these kids into metal yet denying it.

Metal was in a weird place, as at that time all that poodle metal was pretty damn uncool in punk circles by many. What's kind of hilarious in some ways was the next generation of kids kind of said fuk it, I like Iron Maiden and thrash what have you then got all a lot of those 90s Revelation hard core bands becoming obsessed with the mosh part and eventually even bringing back the solos, then just becoming "metal" and not even bothering with it having to be hardcore.

if anything grunge has the least mainstream cultural currency it's had IN the last 20 years now -- Nickelback, Shinedown, etc. finally no longer making crossover hits and dwindling in influence on rock radio, perfunctory reception of new Alice In Chains With Rome and Soundgarden albums.

― some dude, Sunday, July 7, 2013 3:08 PM (1 hour ago)

otm. grunge broke through 20 years ago, but hung around well into the new century with nickleback, puddle of mudd and the like. earlnash also otm that grunge flavors persist in doom and stoner rock, ascendant since the final days of hard rock indie. so there isn't much to revive. maybe in 5-10 years.

I never quite got how some people heard nickleback et al as an actual part of the grunge era rather than just collective soul-influenced late-90s alt rock. The difference is instantly apparent to me.

grunge, like a toothpaste tube, slowly had everything worthwhile squeezed out of it. started out as noisy, greasy punk. became arena-bound pop metal. by the turn of the century, it was a just a vocal style, an emphasis on wounded pathos, and some fuzzy guitars. that's how i read it anyway.

Is it because on American radio grunge-lite never went away? Whereas here in the UK with no rock radio it was never as popular? Like R1 played grunge for a few years til britpop but commercial radio wouldn't touch it (no not even nirvana or pearl jam, infact on chart run downs they used to skip the songs)

Weirdly, possibly thanks to Offspring, No Doubt, Limp Bizkit etc having proper genuine hit singles with actual airplay they then played Nickelback.

Why anyone likes Nickelback I will never know but I'm still to meet someone who does. They sold shitloads however even here.

But 92-94 radio was actually pretty great here (for me anyway) in a way it hadnt been since I was about 11 or 12 or since. Actually hearing Them Bones by AIC on daytime Radio 1 was pretty amazing to my ears.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2358015/Avril-Lavigne-Chad-Kroeger-open-Goth-French-wedding.html

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/07/07/article-2358015-1AB38359000005DC-135_634x961.jpg

"How You Remind Me" is a good rock ballad.

I remember in early interviews a whole bunch of people from Kurt Cobain to Billy Corgan denying they were metal or into metal then later it turned out they were all massive metalheads. The 90s were a weird time with all these kids into metal yet denying it.

I'm not sure what you mean by metal here but afaik both of those guys were always really upfront about their love for Sabbath and Zeppelin. Maybe you're talking about heavier stuff though.

No, in Raw Magazine Corgan complained about being in metal mags. He wouldnt even talk to Kerrang (so they never really covered them outside of album/live reviews until mellon collie when he decided to talk about loving Judas Priest etc and since then he got mega coverage)

That was just a savvy move on his part. Talking about loving Judas Priest in 1993 would make you the squarest motherfucker in alt rock.

like I said

The 90s were a weird time with all these kids into metal yet denying it.

Did the UK have any worthwhile contribution to the whole Grunge era? There must be somebody right, but I'm racking my brains and coming up with nothing.

Fudge Tunnel were the UK answer to Nirvana remember!

Great band but were hardly going to get big.

Bush weren't worthwhile , and they sold fuck all in the UK, but I think it's fair to include them.

Although I understand why you want to just give them to America.

Bush was in that second wave of pretty grunge. Even Stone Temple Pilots pre-date them.

Interesting that Grunge was never really compartmentalised ime. Psych Grunge, Stoner Grunge, Pop Grunge, Singer-Songwriter Grunge

Also AG, did you know that the bass player from Hue & Cry ended up in Stiltskin? he was my old bass tutor, from Springburn.

Did the UK have any worthwhile contribution to the whole Grunge era?

Thee Hypnotics obviously, first UK band on Sub Pop right when they were at their grungey peak.

I didn't know that!
xp

Interesting that Grunge was never really compartmentalised ime.

― MaresNest, Monday, July 8, 2013 2:51 AM (1 hour ago)

i always compartmentalized it as grunge vs. "grunge". the former = first wave sub-pop stuff, melvins, u-men, contemporaneous outliers like halo of flies. fucked up heavy punk with on foot in 70s rawk. with, like, later black flag and the butthole surfers circa locust abo tech as proto-grunge.

"grunge" was pearl jam, mad season and aic, bullshit merchandising wearing similar clothes. (this was the "corporate rock still sucks" era, after all...)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/931209_10152268850937137_1885912479_n.jpg

Music on Vinyl records have been releasing a few classic grunge albums on 180g Vinyl this last month,

I picked up STPs purple, as I've been searching ebay for a decent copy for a while.

Made me wonder if this was selling nostalgia to the thirtysomethings? A mirror of the the sell vinyl to buy it on CD nostagia of the 80s.

Or is there a market for classic grunge releases amongst a newer generation, in the same way there was a market for the Doors when I was a teenager.

or both?

XP - I reckon so, some of my older friends young kids seem to be arriving at Pearl Jam & Nirvana as they might Pink Floyd, The Doors, Hendrix

It feels weird seeing kids wearing Nirvana shirts when they weren't even born when they were around. I guess we know how boomers felt in the 80s and 90s.

is there a market for classic grunge releases amongst a newer generation, in the same way there was a market for the Doors when I was a teenager.

This is my experience.

Doors Alice in Chains fans aren't made, they're born!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xillqqt0Y0

I kind of think it's more about parents not letting go of the music they liked 20 years ago these days, rather than kids discovering it off their own backs. My 18yo went to see Mudhoney the other month with her mother, but has no interest in anything I tell her about that I think she'd like.

So she wont be going to see terminal cheesecake with you then?

No, "that's just noise". I think she might go for a Silverfish reunion though.

Woah I thought you were joking but Terminal Cheesecake are playing some festival in August! Fingers crossed for Loop/Terminal Cheesecake gig in London next year then...

Did the UK have any worthwhile contribution to the whole Grunge era? There must be somebody right, but I'm racking my brains and coming up with nothing.

― MaresNest, Monday, July 8, 2013 2:34 AM (5 hours ago)

I saw Swervedriver open for Soundgarden in 1992.

Didn't Swervedriver have a kind of shoegazerist quality to them? The story was that shoegaze was killed off by grunge, but now that I'm thinking about it, there was probably a notable bit of traffic between these scenes.

If anyone bridged the divide between the two, it was Swervedriver.

or Eric's Trip

Shoegaze derailed by BritPop maybe more accurate?

Smashing Pumpkins (if you wanna count them as grunge) also took some cues from shoegaze on the other side.

Neil Halstead: “When Nirvana came along and grunge came over, it kind of kicked shoegaze out of the water. Oddly enough, a lot of the bands had similar roots to bands we were into.”

Smashing Pumpkins early on seemed to escape grunge labelling. They were "alternative," but not ever viewed as part of the grunge explosion.

catherine wheel's chrome might actually be my fave grunge album.

shoegaze and grunge were of the same ilk to me. They didn't sound too much the same, but both were good for being a 13-year-old practicing using a lighter all afternoon.

re: SP. Yeah, sure. They weren't from Seattle, I was quite strict about those kinds of things as a teenager ;)

chrome had the soft/loud thing. sounded cool. actually that spacemen 3 album with when tomorrow hits on it might be my fave grunge album. just for that song.

Only "grunge" I really had much interest in was Hammerbox, but Carrie's vox and the guitarist's effects (way more than just a Big Muff) made them only tangentially related anyway imo.

never could get into hammerbox. or much of anything on c/z, tbh.

I used to run a challops racket involving claiming the best grunge band was actually Stone Temple Pilots, but now I just admit that it's Soundgarden.

in seattle, punk-rooted dumbass grunge seemed to compete with a strain grown more obviously from metal, prog, funk and jazzy art rock (that intersection defining a HUGE amount of what was going on in town, musically). c/z skewed slightly toward the latter, and i camped with the former.

^^^ yeah, that'd be an interesting take sides: Sub Pop vc. C/Z. I'm not all that familiar with either catalog tbh.

"vs."

problem is that c/z never generated a breakout mainstream act, where sub pop fielded nirvana, mudhoney and soundgarden (the latter an outlier on the label's roster in that they refused to play dumb, flashed sick chops & drew on influences outside sludgy punk & hard rock).

i guess 7 year bitch were c/z's biggest band (in terms of visibility, if not sales). maybe that first built to spill album?

Skin Yard was the best band on C/Z, don't really like much else though.

Most underrated Sub Pop band of the era was Rein Sanction, who kind of sounded like a jazzier Dinosaur Jr with maybe a dash less Crazy Horse in their blood and a bit more of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Broc's Cabin still sounds incredible to me.

The Gits, you fools

Where is the love for Big Poo Generator?

are the grifters grunge?

i don't know if they always caught that label but they seem to represent the best aspects of grunge imo

I think my most-played C/Z LP was by Slack, Portland wacky funk that hasn't aged well. Tone Dogs were on C/Z too (love Amy Denio!) but we're far removed from grunge there...

C/Z's very first release (Deep Six LP from 1986) was more grunge than anything Sub Pop ever produced:

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Deep-Six/release/1812635

Green River – "10,000 Things" – 3:37
Melvins – "Scared" – 2:19
Melvins – "Blessing the Operation" – 0:44
Malfunkshun – "With Yo' Heart (Not Yo' Hands)" – 3:54
Skin Yard – "Throb" – 5:29
Soundgarden – "Heretic" – 3:22
Soundgarden – "Tears to Forget" – 2:06
Malfunkshun – "Stars-N-You" – 1:46
Melvins – "Grinding Process" – 2:09
Melvins – "She Waits" – 0:40
Skin Yard – "The Birds" - 3:56
Soundgarden – "All Your Lies" – 3:53
Green River – "Your Own Best Friend" – 6:21
The U-Men – "They" – 3:32

Sub Pop 200 tracklist is pretty grunge though:

"Sex God Missy" - Tad
"Is It Day I'm Seeing?" - The Fluid
"Spank Thru" - Nirvana
"Come Out Tonight" - Steven J. Bernstein
"The Rose" - Mudhoney
"Got No Chains" - The Walkabouts
"Dead Is Dead" - Terry Lee Hale
"Sub Pop Rock City" - Soundgarden
"Hangin' Tree" - Green River
"Swallow My Pride" - Fastbacks
"The Outback" - Blood Circus
"Zoo" - Swallow
"Underground" - Chemistry Set
"Gonna Find a Cave" - Girl Trouble
"Split" - The Nights And Days
"Big Cigar" - Cat Butt
"Pajama Party in a Haunted Hive" - Beat Happening
"Love or Confusion" - Screaming Trees (Jimi Hendrix cover)
"Untitled" - Steve Fisk
"You Lost It" - The Thrown Ups

I used to run a challops racket involving claiming the best grunge band was actually Stone Temple Pilots, but now I just admit that it's Soundgarden.

Nah.

Tad > Mudhoney pre-1990 > Soundgarden > Mudhoney post-1990 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Pearl Jam >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nirvana

yeah, deep six was awesome, love most of those songs. heavy as hell and probably the single best document of grunge ground zero. way more ferociously single-minded in its attack than either of the early sub-pop comps. if you culled a bunch of the best SP tracks from 87-90, you could beat it, but that's hardly fair.

my list would probably go (not worrying about what phase of who):

melvins > mudhoney > nirvana > tad > soundgarden > screaming trees > the fluid >>>>>> some other stuff

I have never thought of the Melvins as a grunge band. But I never liked them until they assimilated Big Business.

they're not grunge canon, but the label fits them better than most who carry it. huge inspiration to (and contemporary of) the bands for whom the term was coined.

it is hard for me to accept the existence of those who would deny lysol & bullhead

I do kinda like Lysol, actually, but mostly for the cover songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBW9tTpuXSA

i've tried with melvins i really have. well, in a youtube way anyway. i never hear anything i really like. they allude me. and they totally sound like grunge every time i hear them.

i think the only grungy thing i own is that Only Living Witness double CD that Decibel magazine made me buy cuz everyone at Decibel loves them. or Albert did anyway. pretty good. though they weren't technically grunge. too metallic. but they had kind of an alice in chains thing going on. i'd rather listen to Kyuss though. i really like Kyuss.

i mean this is totally grungy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mGI-_j_i6c

Melvins are pretty good live. If they're playing, say, a block from your house (or your store), and it's free, you should totally check them out.

Seems like there's a little bit of grunginess creeping up in the last few years of the garage rock scene. Kurt Vile seems kind of grunge-y to me. Or at least Mascis-y. And I saw that Jeff The Brotherhood band open for somebody last summer and it felt like a real grunge flashback... and some of that late-period Jay Reatard stuff reminded me a lot of early Nirvana's poppier stuff.

But I don't listen to any of this stuff or grunge much so I may be making this up as I go along.

"Kurt Vile seems kind of grunge-y to me. Or at least Mascis-y."

i think "sleepy" is the word...

ty segall is pretty grungey too

someone mention sic alps and then all the people that make me sleepy will be accounted for.

ha i think i might actually have meant ty seagall, i get him and kurt vile mixed up

just don't call my new fave band grungy

are FIDLAR the best new rock band?

Heh I saw Sic Alps last Thursday and the support band was way Dinosaur Jr sounding. Can't remember what they were called tho.

Also Purling Hiss.

also milk music

ty segall's songwriting has always struck me as p strongly influenced by nirvana (or if not influenced, esque). just the tunes, i mean, even without the fuzz & roar.

and yeah, i thought about jeff the brotherhood in relation to this thread yesterday. they bring up a lot of associations (stoner rock, weezer pop), but the grunge is definitely in there somewhere.

ok i was thinking about kurt vile as beeing mascisy/sleepy, but agree about ty seagall

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/01/12/577063077/the-grunge-gold-rush

poor jawbox <3

i'm sure some people are nostalgic for it, but virtually all of the notable "grunge" bands still sound pretty bad to me.

looking back, still the worst thing about it was the the perpetual flu season aesthetic of flannel shirts, overlong sleeves and lack of vitamin d. not a healthy scene.

"aesthetic of flannel shirts, overlong sleeves and lack of vitamin d"

Also known as Canada.

Great piece but (in reference to the opening anecdote) two sides to every story -- here's a blog entry from the drag queen mentioned but not identified in the shoot, which was a David LaChappelle one. And personally I'd love to have a photo shoot from him!

http://lindasimpson.org/2011/05/i-was-a-model-for-david-lachapelle-in-new-jersey/

it's a great look

listening to grunge today:

couple Gruntruck albums (solid!)

Skin Yard (there's a newer remix of Fistful of Chunks that sounds pretty fucking great, very underrated grunge album)

U-Men (2017 subpop comp) - I get why they were important to grunge but definitely feel of a different era (didn't know they formed in 1980)...i dig it, like Scratch Acid meets Wipers or something like that

Love Battery - Dayglo is good grunge